Marketing audit checklist: what to check before you spend more

A marketing audit is not a report full of screenshots. It is a short list of answers: what works, what loses money, and what to fix first. Here is the checklist we use, in the order we use it.

1. The numbers

Do you know your cost per customer (CAC), by channel?
Do you know the profit a customer brings over time, not just the first order?
Is marketing profitable after product costs, or only in the ad account?

If these answers are missing, everything else in the audit is guesswork. Start with unit economics.

2. Measurement

Does every sale or lead get recorded once, with the right value?
Do the numbers in the ad platforms roughly match the numbers in your shop or CRM?
Is the source of each order saved (which campaign, which channel)?
Are there “conversions” that are not really conversions: page views, clicks on a phone number, calls from existing customers?

A campaign optimised for the wrong conversion gets very good at finding the wrong people.

3. Ad accounts

How often did budgets and bid targets change in the last three months? Frequent changes keep automated bidding in a permanent learning phase.
Which platform recommendations were applied, and when? Some quietly widen targeting.
Are brand searches mixed with generic ones in one budget?
Which search terms actually triggered ads? Look for obvious waste.
Are there campaigns that have not paid back for months?

4. Website and funnel

Where do people drop off: product page, cart, checkout, form?
How does the site work on a mid-range phone on mobile data?
Is the offer clear in the first screen? Is there a reason to buy now?
Does the checkout work in every country and with every payment method you offer? Place a real test order.

5. Channels

Which channels bring customers at a price you can afford?
Which bring only cheap clicks?
Are you present where your customers search, not only where ads are easy to buy?

6. Remarketing and repeat purchases

Do you show ads to people who visited but did not buy? Do you exclude people who already bought?
Do customers come back? What share of orders comes from returning customers?
Is there email or another way to reach customers without paying for ads again?

7. The result: one prioritised list

An audit should end with a short list ordered by impact and effort: first the fixes that stop losses, then the ones that bring more customers, then the rest. Anything else is a presentation.

We run this as a fixed-scope growth audit. You can also use the checklist on your own.