Name: Wots the Big Idea
Price range: $$

In the world of digital marketing, there’s always room for improvement. As digital channels evolve at a rapid pace, marketers must continually adapt to stay ahead of the competition and drive growth. This becomes even more crucial with the rise of AI tools designed to streamline and optimise marketing efforts.

One of the most effective ways to assess and improve your strategy is through a digital marketing audit. An audit allows marketers to evaluate a company’s digital presence, offering a clear view of how the business interacts with customers and providing valuable insights based on data.

In this post, we’ll dive into:

What a digital audit is
The benefits of conducting a digital audit
What a digital audit examines
Key elements of a digital audit
A step-by-step guide on how to perform a digital audit

Let’s get started!

What is a Digital Marketing Audit?

A digital marketing audit is a thorough evaluation of your digital channels. It involves documenting and assessing the effectiveness of your current digital marketing activities—whether they’re part of a campaign or ongoing efforts.

Auditing your digital marketing before diving into the planning phase of your next strategy helps you build on past performance and make informed decisions about which channels to focus on moving forward.

Why is a Digital Audit Important?

As a marketer, understanding the performance of your digital channels is essential. A digital audit helps you determine what’s working well and what needs improvement, enabling you to focus your efforts on areas that yield the best results. Some key benefits of conducting an audit include:

Identifying strengths and weaknesses: A SWOT analysis can help uncover areas that need attention.
Optimising marketing budgets and improving ROI: Focus resources on the activities that generate the most impact.
Aligning with business objectives: Ensure your digital marketing activities are in line with your company’s goals and KPIs.
Enhancing customer engagement and conversion rates: Identify opportunities to increase customer interaction and turn prospects into customers.

What Does a Digital Audit Evaluate?

A digital audit assesses the various digital assets and channels your business uses, such as websites, social media accounts, and other digital platforms.

By reviewing all these elements, you get a comprehensive view of how your digital presence is performing.

Here’s what a digital audit typically examines:

Website audit: Evaluate the current performance of your website using analytics.
Social media and channel audit: Review social media platforms and other channels for effectiveness and reach.
Access and login audit: Ensure you have proper access to usernames, passwords, and analytics accounts.
Administrator audit: Check who has administrative control over each digital channel.
Resource audit: Assess how much time and effort your team dedicates to digital marketing activities.
History audit: Examine past campaigns and activities for insights into what has or hasn’t worked.
Chain of command audit: Clarify roles and responsibilities within your digital marketing team.

What’s Included in a Digital Marketing Audit?

A complete audit covers several important areas, from your website’s performance to your social media strategy and beyond. By examining these areas, you can identify gaps and opportunities for improvement. A digital audit typically includes the following:

Quantitative review: Assess measurable results like website traffic, CRM reports, or e-commerce data to understand what’s working.
Qualitative review: Analyse non-numerical aspects such as website design, user experience (UX), content quality, and messaging.
Competitor analysis: Compare your digital assets against those of your competitors to understand your market position.
Channel review: Evaluate how each individual channel is performing and how well they integrate with each other.
Accessibility check: Ensure your digital assets are accessible to a wide range of users, including those with disabilities.
Governance review: Confirm that your team has the right skills, processes, and tools in place to execute your strategy effectively.
Recommendations: Provide next steps, including budget allocation, responsibilities, and timelines.
KPIs: Use KPIs to assess the success of your audit and track ongoing performance.

How to Conduct a Digital Marketing Audit

Now that you know the key components of a digital audit, let’s look at how to carry one out effectively.

We’ll focus on several core areas that are typically included in an audit.

Website & Technical Audit

Your website is the cornerstone of your digital marketing efforts. It’s where customers go to learn more about your brand, products, and services, so it must be optimised for both performance and user experience.

When conducting a website audit, consider the following:

Performance and speed: Test page load times, mobile-friendliness, and overall site speed.
SEO optimisation: Check on-page SEO (meta tags, keywords) and technical SEO (site indexability, crawl errors).
UX and accessibility: Assess navigation, readability, and compliance with accessibility guidelines.
Design: Ensure your website design is user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing, and aligned with your brand.
Security and compliance: Verify SSL certification, GDPR compliance, and data protection measures.

Content Audit

Content is key to engaging your audience. Whether through blogs, social media posts, or videos, your content should be relevant, engaging, and tailored to your target audience.

For a successful content audit, look at:

Quality and relevance: Ensure content aligns with your audience’s needs and business goals.
Engagement and readability: Analyse grammar, formatting, and overall readability.
Performance: Track content engagement, bounce rates, and conversions.
Identify gaps: Use tools like Google Trends to spot missing topics or updates needed for old content.

SEO Audit

SEO is crucial for driving traffic to your site. A solid SEO strategy ensures that users can find your site through search engines, social platforms, and AI search tools.

To audit your SEO, follow these steps:

Keyword strategy: Research target keywords and assess search intent and competitiveness.
On-page & off-page SEO: Review internal linking, meta descriptions, backlinks, and domain authority.
Local SEO: Evaluate local searches, reviews, and Google My Business optimisation.

Social Media Audit

Social media is an essential channel for reaching your target audience. With so many platforms available, it’s important to assess the performance of each one.

Here’s how to audit your social media:

Platform performance: Review engagement rates, follower growth, and content reach.
Consistency: Ensure that your brand messaging and visual style are consistent across platforms.
Ad performance: Evaluate social media ad campaigns and ROI.
Competitor benchmarking: Compare your social media performance against key competitors.

Digital Advertising Audit

Digital advertising offers great targeting potential, but it’s important to assess whether your ad spend is paying off.

To audit your digital ads:

Evaluate PPC and display ads: Review your ad spend, conversions, and cost-per-click.
Email marketing: Analyse open rates, click-through rates (CTR), and overall engagement.
Affiliate and influencer marketing: Assess the effectiveness of past partnerships and campaigns.

Analytics & Performance Audit

Finally, make sure you’re tracking the right metrics. Use platforms like Google Analytics or custom analytics tools to gain insights into your overall marketing performance.

Key areas to focus on:

Traffic analysis: Track organic, paid, referral, and social traffic.
User behaviour: Look at time on page, click-through rates, and conversion funnels.
Goal tracking: Ensure KPIs align with your business objectives.

Conclusion

Once your digital marketing audit is complete, you’ll have a better understanding of which channels are delivering results and which need adjustments. This information will allow you to refine your strategy, create more impactful content, and improve customer engagement.

A thorough digital audit ensures you’re investing in the right areas and optimising your marketing efforts for maximum impact. Good luck with your audit, and here’s to more effective digital marketing!

How To Perform An Effective Digital Marketing Audit