What to prepare for your marketing audit

Which pages and reports help?

Choose the main service or product pages and the route to enquire or buy. Bring available search, campaign or analytics summaries with date ranges. Include the conversion definition and any recent site or campaign changes; a screenshot without its period cannot support a fair comparison.

What should you leave out?

Do not put passwords, private customer records or confidential account data into the enquiry form. If implementation needs account access, invite an authorised role after discussing the scope. Summaries can usually describe the issue before raw records are needed.

What happens during the review?

The audit connects discovery, message, destination and the customer action. It distinguishes a technical failure from an offer or follow-up problem. The outcome should identify priorities and dependencies, rather than recommending all channels at once.

When will you receive the next step?

Digital Hope Media returns the initial audit within two working days. Any paid proposal follows a discussion of tasks and costs. Use the enquiry form or booking calendar to share your starting point.

Start with the decision you want the audit to support

A useful marketing audit should help you decide what to improve next. Before gathering accounts and reports, describe the problem in business terms. You may want more suitable enquiries, better product discovery, a clearer website or more consistent marketing. Those goals lead to different questions and should not be reduced automatically to more traffic.

Write a short explanation of the offer you most want to grow, the customers it serves and the markets you can support. Include what happens after a person contacts or purchases from the business. The auditor needs that context to distinguish a relevant opportunity from a popular keyword or channel that does not fit.

You do not need a polished presentation. A clear website address and a few honest notes are enough to begin the conversation. The objective is to make the review grounded in the business, not to spend more time preparing an audit pack than you would spend acting on its findings.

List the offers and pages that matter most

Identify the products or services that are commercially important. Explain any limits: stock, delivery areas, appointment capacity, seasonality or qualifications needed from a customer. Marketing recommendations become more useful when they reflect what the business can actually fulfil.

Then identify the pages customers should use to understand those offers. These might be service pages, collections, products or a booking destination. If you are unsure which page supports an offer, that is useful information in itself. It may reveal a structural problem in the site rather than a lack of advertising.

Prioritising a few pages does not mean the rest of the website is ignored. It gives the review a sensible starting point. An auditor can look for patterns across the wider site after examining the journeys most closely connected to your goal, instead of producing a long list of minor issues with no business order.

Explain what a suitable enquiry looks like

For a lead-based business, define the difference between an enquiry and a qualified opportunity. A contact might be outside the service area, requesting an unavailable service or researching without any intention to proceed. These distinctions affect how campaigns and forms should be assessed.

If possible, provide an anonymised summary of common enquiries rather than a list of people's personal details. Describe the questions customers ask and the reasons a contact may be unsuitable. This gives the reviewer practical context without exposing names, email addresses or private conversations.

For ecommerce, explain the transaction and customer patterns relevant to the review. New customers, repeat orders, returns and unavailable items may need different interpretation. A dashboard's purchase total can be useful, but the store's operational context is what makes it meaningful for the next marketing decision.

Gather account history without sharing passwords

Make a list of the platforms you use: analytics, Search Console, advertising accounts, social profiles, email tools and the website platform. Note which ones contain useful history and whether the setup has changed. You can share reports or grant suitable access when the scope requires it; passwords are not necessary for a useful first discussion.

Where account access is needed, use the platform's normal permissions and keep ownership with the business. Start with the level appropriate to the review. Access for an audit is not the same as authority to change campaigns, budgets or operational settings.

Screenshots can provide context if they show the property, metric, dates and filters. Cropping away those details can make a large number impossible to interpret. A report with clear coverage is more useful than the most impressive-looking result with no indication of where it came from.

Include tracking changes and unusual events

Tell the reviewer if analytics or conversion tracking was installed, repaired or changed during the period. A rise in recorded purchases may reflect a better measurement setup rather than a real rise in sales. That does not make the work unimportant, but it changes the conclusion the data can support.

Also note events that affected the business. A launch, stock shortage, website outage, promotion or change in delivery can influence marketing outcomes. The auditor should not have to infer these from a graph. A few dates and a short explanation can prevent an unsuitable before-and-after comparison.

If the history is incomplete, say so. Missing data is a limitation, not a reason to invent a baseline. The audit can still identify current technical or content issues and recommend a measurement plan. It should separate what is directly observed from what needs further investigation.

Share the creative and content you can actually use

Collect current logos, brand guidelines, approved photographs, product facts and existing videos. Explain which materials are available for public use and which are confidential. A client report, internal presentation or private photograph should not become a website asset simply because it was shared with the reviewer.

If content approval is required, identify who can confirm facts and review drafts. This is especially important for specialist services, product claims and customer stories. An audit that recommends a large content programme needs to understand whether the business can supply and approve the necessary information.

Your previous work also matters. Share the kinds of posts, ads, emails or pages you have already tested, alongside what your team learned. Even an unsuccessful idea can help the reviewer avoid repeating the same approach without a new reason or a better destination.

Define practical constraints and responsibilities

A useful recommendation needs an implementation path. Tell the reviewer who manages the website, who approves advertising spend and who handles enquiries. If development resources are limited, the audit should prioritise changes that can be delivered or clearly identify where additional support is needed.

Time and production capacity matter as well. A plan requiring daily video production may be unsuitable if the business cannot provide footage or approvals. A complex rebuild may not fit an immediate campaign need. Discuss these constraints early so the review can distinguish urgent repairs from longer-term opportunities.

Budget discussions should connect to scope, not a demand for a guaranteed return. Management work, advertising spend, software and development can involve different costs. The audit should identify those categories and the decisions required, even when final pricing is discussed separately on a call.

What to expect after submitting your request

Digital Hope Media's initial audit turnaround is two working days. The review begins with the information available and should explain its scope. A public website review and a detailed account investigation are different activities; any access-dependent work needs to be identified clearly.

A useful audit presents a few prioritised findings, why they matter and the next action. It should distinguish a verified issue from a hypothesis and name the owner of implementation. A list of warnings without context is difficult to use, even when it is technically accurate.

Keep the follow-up conversation focused on decisions. Ask what should happen first, what inputs are missing and how the change will be checked. If ongoing support is appropriate, discuss a long-term relationship with clear reporting and responsibilities. The audit is the beginning of a working plan, not a promise of immediate rankings, customers or sales.

A short brief you can send without a presentation

A useful brief can fit into a few paragraphs. Describe the business, the offer you want to prioritise and the main problem you want the audit to investigate. Add the website and the markets you can serve. Tell us what a good enquiry or customer looks like so the review has a commercial reference point.

Include important context. Mention a recent redesign, campaign launch, tracking change or product availability issue if it could affect interpretation. You do not need to make the existing results look impressive. Accurate context helps the reviewer distinguish a measurement problem from a customer-journey or campaign problem.

Identify the person who can confirm facts and approve work. If your team has a developer, editor or sales contact, explain their responsibilities. This helps recommendations become practical tasks rather than a list that nobody can implement. Share only the access and information needed for the agreed review, using appropriate account roles.

Finish with the decision you want to make after the audit. You might want to know what to repair first, whether advertising is ready to expand or which pages deserve more attention. A clear question gives the review direction and makes the follow-up conversation easier, even when the business does not yet have complete reporting.

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