4 Steps to Perform a Digital Marketing Audit

We all know this for a fact – An online presence holds critical importance for the longevity and health of a business. But today, merely having an online presence isn’t enough if it doesn’t appeal to both the search algorithms and your target audience.

This gives rise to a vital question.

How do you know if your online marketing efforts are working? You can’t simply guess to get an accurate overview of the vitality of your marketing campaign. What to do then? In such a case, you should conduct a digital marketing audit.

What Exactly Is a Digital Marketing Audit?

When you conduct a digital marketing audit, you thoroughly inspect the outcomes and practices of the digital marketing efforts of your business. The performance of all your strategies, ads, posts, and practices is evaluated. This helps you understand where your digital loopholes and gaps exist.

Why Conduct the Audit?

Now you may think, why do you need to audit your business if you know what your digital marketing strategy looks like. The thing is, there is a high chance you may not be fully aware of what you are or aren’t getting in return.

When you evaluate each element of your digital marketing efforts, you get to know the weaknesses and even the strengths of your campaign. This information helps streamline your processes and increase conversions.

If you are an agency, you can consider choosing a digital marketing audit tool available out there. Select a reliable tool that will help you create in-depth performance reports to close deals faster. Take DashClicks’ InstaReports for instance. You can use this tool to create comprehensive and thorough performance reports in a matter of seconds.

4 Steps to Conduct the Audit

All said and done, it’s now time to know the steps involved in carrying out the audit. Let’s begin!

Step 1 - Determine Your Goals and Important Metrics

First and foremost, you need to determine the metrics you need to concentrate on. It’s vital to determine what you want to measure.

Remember, you can feel overwhelmed if you try to measure everything at once. Narrow down the number of metrics to a handful of important ones to help you get a better picture.

During this time, you can ask yourself these questions:

• Which metric should you pick to know the pulse of your business?
• Which metric can tell you about the health of your business?
• What are your goals (per year, per channel, and per quarter)?

After you determine your metrics and goals, you can head to the next step.

Step 2 - Collect Data From All Your Channels

In the second step, you need to gather performance data. Here’s what you need to do:

1. Website performance:

Write down the dwell time, bounce rates, opt-in rates, click-through rates, and page load times. Check how many leads turned into paying customers. Also, rate the user experience of your site.

2. Social media performance:

When you talk of social media, record the shares, click-through rates, and likes. Check whether you have a local or global presence on social media. Also, look into whether or not you are leveraging paid social ads and impressions.

3. Email performance:

When it comes to emails, jot down the unsubscribe rates, click-through rates, and open rates. Check if you are using a one-size-fits-all strategy while sending out emails or if the emails are targeted at different segments of your list.

Once you get all the major numbers, measure the results against your key metrics and goals to see how you are doing. Also, check how you fare compared to industry standards.

Now, ask yourself this question: Are you satisfied with the progress, or can do better?

Step 3 - Grade Your Content Marketing Approach

As a next step, you need to revisit your content marketing strategy and check:

1. If you are targeting the correct keywords.
2. If you write content for different stages of the customer journey.
3. Whether your content distribution channels are effective.
4. Where are you getting value from – free or paid mediums.
5. How to optimize your funnel such that customers purchase more and stick around for a longer time with your business.
6. Which types of content work best for link building, lead generation, and brand awareness.
7. Are your on-page SEO, technical SEO, and off-page SEO on point.
8. How to minimize drop off when a prospect turns into a lead and when a lead turns into a customer.
9. Are there any broken and spammy links.

It’s also important to grade your content marketing approach.

Tip: When it comes to your content, you need to check if it's aligned with your goals.

Step 4 - Assess the Competitive Landscape

Check the following to evaluate your competition:

• See what’s working for your competitors.
• See if there are some gaps that you can fill.
• Check your competitors’ tools.
• Know if there is any change in the laws or algorithms that could be hampering your business.

Conclusion

If you don’t conduct a digital marketing audit, you will almost never ask yourself questions that are important to refine your strategy and ensure your money and efforts are getting invested in the correct direction.

Hence, it’s important to conduct an audit and you can always follow these steps to know if your online marketing efforts are working or floundering.