How To Do A Marketing Audit

This guide will give you the steps we take at Bearhat Marketing to complete a marketing audit for our clients. Using this guide, you’ll learn how to do a marketing audit for your business – completely free!

Let’s start off with…

What is a marketing audit?

A marketing audit is a full review of your current marketing efforts. It looks at what’s working, what’s wasting your time or budget, and what you’ve forgotten to fix because, well… you’ve been busy running a business.

Think of it like a car health check. Just like you have a regular check up on your car – the same should be done for your marketing.

Done properly, it shows you:

• Where your leads are coming from
• What’s costing money but not returning it
• Where your messaging is unclear or inconsistent
• And where you’ve got potential sitting there doing nothing

Audits can be simple – looking at a few key areas of your marketing to make sure they’re working – think social media platforms, email marketing or a simple website review. Or, they can be much deeper – strategic – looking at the entire marketing picture. This is where you’d look at competitors, go deeper into your website analytics and look at your full customer journey.

This guide covers the basic audit, designed to give you clarity quickly, using what you already have. For a deeper audit, take a look at the marketing audit service >>

We are also offering free marketing audits to some SMEs who we think we could help – apply here >>

What a Basic Marketing Audit Includes (This Guide)

This is your starting point. It focuses on the essentials:

• Your goals (do you even have any?)
• Your website messaging and usability
• Your social media consistency and alignment
• Your email marketing health
  
• Your paid advertising results (if any)
• Your brand positioning

 It’s practical and simple. And no, you don’t need to be a marketing expert to do one. You just need some time and a guide like this one.

If you’re tight on time, I offer marketing audits >

What a full marketing audit might include (when you’re ready to go deeper)

When clients come to Bearhat for a full audit, we dig further:

• Website deep-dive: SEO, UX, conversion flow, performance
• CRM & lead flow audit: data quality, segmentation, follow-up systems
• Competitor benchmarking
• Customer journey mapping: from first touch to repeat buyer
• Team & tools audit: workflows, comms gaps, tech efficiency
• Brand consistency

We won’t go into that today. But if the basic audit uncovers some red flags – you’ll know when it’s time to go deeper.

Okay, here we go…

How To Do A Marketing Audit

What you’ll need

• A recent Google Analytics or website stats report
• Your social channels
• Your email marketing platform (if using one)
• Any recent ads you’ve run (screenshots or reports)
• A cup of tea and about an hour

The key will reviewing all of the below is to look at the data. Data doesn’t lie – and looking into your analytics will give you a much clearer picture of what’s working, and what’s not. Please, please don’t rely on “what you think is working” without the data to back it up.

Top tip: When reviewing your channels, take notes of the analytics – you can then use this to benchmark against in the future.

Step 1: Start with your goals

If your marketing feels a little bit shaky, it can be because your goals and objectives are unclear. 

Ask yourself:

• What are we trying to achieve? (Sales, awareness, signups?)
• Are those goals still relevant?
• Is there one clear priority, or are you trying to do 7 things at once?

Write down your top 1–2 goals. Everything else in this audit will link back to them.

Step 2: Review your website

Your digital shopfront. Your lead converter. Your credibility check. If your website’s not doing its job, it can be costing you – a lot.

Check:

• Is it clear what you do in 5 seconds or less?
• Are your services/products easy to find?
• Is it obvious what someone should do next?
• Is it mobile-friendly and fast-loading?
• Are there any broken links, outdated info, or cringe copy?

Remember, your website is where the majority of your leads will come to before making a decision as to whether to get in touch with you. It needs to be clear, slick and easy to use.

Top tip: Use pagespeed.web.dev and view your site on your phone. Painful? Fix it.

Step 3: Review your social channels

You don’t need to be (and shouldn’t be) on every platform. But if you are on it – it should look alive.

For each channel:

• Is your bio/description clear and aligned with your website?
• Are you posting consistently?
• What type of content gets engagement?
• Are you attracting the right audience – or just anyone?
• Do your links work?

If it’s been 6 months since your last post, either revive it or ditch it.

Step 4: Check your email marketing

Even if you’re only sending the occasional newsletter, it’s definitely worth reviewing.

Look at:

• Open rate (above 30% is decent). If this is low, your subject line may not be compelling people to click open
• Click rate (2–3% is a good target). If this is low, either you’re not linking anything from your email (if you’re not, ask yourself what you want the contact to do when they see your email), or the content isn’t giving them a reason to click
• Are you sending relevant emails to relevant audiences, or are you sending everything to everyone?
• Are your emails bringing value to who receives them? If they’re not, stop.

Quick win: If you’ve not sent an email for a while, write a simple “Hey, we’re still here” email with one useful tip and a link to your website.

Step 5: Look at your paid ads (if you’re running any)

You don’t need to be a data analyst. You just need to ask:

Are we getting anything back from what we’re spending?

Check:

• What campaigns have you run recently?
• What were the results? (Not just reach or likes – did it lead to action?)
• Are your ads and landing pages aligned?
• Are you targeting the right people?

Step 6: Review Your Positioning & Messaging

This is how you’re seen and how you want your service/ product to come across. Ask yourself:

• Does your service/ product make sense to someone seeing it for the first time?
• Is your messaging still aligned with what you’re selling?
• Would your dream client “get it” from your homepage, social, or emails?

Things change. Offers evolve. Make sure your messaging is keeping up.

Step 7: Pull It All Together

Time to summarise.

Write down:

• 3 things that are working (remember – the data will tell you this)
• 3 things that aren’t (again – data!)
• 3 quick wins – what have you found that would be an easy fix? Think, standardising your social media profiles, or changes to your website that can be done within the CMS (Content Management System – WordPress, Squarespace, or wherever your website is built)
• 3 bigger fixes – things that may not be able to be done straight away but definitely need to be fixed in the short term.

Ask yourself:

• How can I do more of the stuff that is working?
• How can I do less of the stuff that isn’t working? For example, if you’re getting sub 1k views regularly on TikTok – is it worth the effort you put in? Maybe it’s time to focus your time and budget elsewhere.
• When can I do these 3 quick wins? Diarise them to make sure you get them done. This shouldn’t be hard – they are QUICK wins after all 🙂 Aim to get them done in the next week..
• How can I do the bigger fixes? Can I do them myself, or do I need help? Aim to get them done in the next four weeks.

You don’t need to overhaul everything. But now you’ve got a clear picture, and a proper plan.

Want a second set of eyes?

If this exercise made you realise some things are messier than you thought – we’ve got you.

At Bearhat Marketing, we run in-depth marketing audits that will give you all the answers. We’ll dig into your systems, CRM, site structure, team setup, and show you what’s holding you back. Take a look at our marketing audit service.

We also offer a 3 minute quiz that can help you understand how your marketing is performing.

It’s free. Find it here >