Having a digital presence is a major growth driver for businesses. It is therefore essential to perform a digital marketing audit to identify areas for strategic improvement. A digital audit relies on several key pillars:
- Organic channel audit (SEO, social media)
- Advertising campaign audit (Google Ads, paid social)
- Website audit
- Analysis of other touchpoints (outreach, video content, visual identity)
If businesses want to perform well, they need a well-oiled digital strategy. Let's see how it's done.
1) Why conduct a digital marketing audit?
Carrying out a digital audit is a first step in developing an online strategy. Indeed, it allows you to achieve several things:
- Understand your company’s online “health”
- Analyze key performance metrics
- Identify areas for improvement
- Highlight your company's strengths
- And above all… Design a coherent action plan!
In short, a digital marketing audit is a step that offers multiple benefits for any business. It is the very first step before implementing clear, and above all, effective optimizations.
You wouldn't climb Mount Everest without doing your research beforehand, would you? Well, it's the exact same thing for your digital strategy.
2) How do you set up a digital marketing audit?
Conducting this type of audit requires precise technical skills. Indeed, a digital audit demands mastery of a wide variety of tools. Moreover, this type of project requires an overall understanding of data and metrics.
You must know how to handle digital tools AND draw accurate conclusions from the extracted data. For a digital novice, conducting an audit can quickly become complicated, or even counterproductive.
Imagine landing in the middle of a dense jungle of KPIs (CTR, CPC, CPM, CPA, CPL, etc.). It’s a precise, complex language that makes no sense unless it's your line of work. If you misinterpret data, your digital strategy will be useless.
So as a beginner, how should you go about it? 🤔
First solution: you have an in-house team member skilled in this area. This person will know how to roll out a strategy based on the audit’s findings. Your business will then move in the right direction using internal resources. However, if you are an SME or a small business, you don’t always have a digital expert on your team. Besides, recruiting can be expensive and time-consuming.
Second solution: partner with an expert web agency. The advantage of a digital marketing agency is that it consists of a team of specialists. Your business will be supported by professionals who have mastered digital tools.
At Digital 64, we perform digital audits for businesses. Then, we design and manage their strategy from A to Z. Nothing is left to chance. What's more, you save valuable time by avoiding a lengthy recruitment process.
3) Key elements and tools to analyze during a digital audit
As mentioned earlier, digital tools are complex and plentiful. Running a digital audit requires analyzing different facets of your online presence.
A - Organic channel analysis
First of all, you need to focus on organic reach. By "organic", we mean everything that brings in traffic naturally, without ad spend.
Organic sources can include SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or your social media channels.
To analyze this, several software tools are required (tailored to your specific needs):
- Google Analytics
- Matomo (a privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics)
- An SEO tool (SE Ranking or Semrush)
- Google Search Console
- A post scheduling tool (such as Buffer or Hootsuite)
B - Paid advertising channel analysis
Secondly, you need to focus on your paid ads. There are two main branches of online advertising:
- SEA (Search Engine Advertising): Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, etc., on search engines
- Paid social: Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram), LinkedIn Ads, TikTok Ads, etc., on social networks
To analyze your ads, an in-depth understanding of these platforms is essential. Whether it's Google Ads, Meta Ads, or others, these are comprehensive and feature-rich platforms. You must know these powerful tools inside out and understand how KPIs work. You also need to avoid critical mistakes (such as improperly tweaking a budget or relaunching a paused campaign).
C - Website analysis
Another point that is CRITICAL: auditing your website. Indeed, we've seen that analyzing your traffic is vital. However, driving traffic that doesn't convert is like going fishing without bait.
And if your traffic isn't converting, your website is likely the issue. A website must meet modern standards today. An aging website won't stand a chance against modern competitors. User experience is essential to standing out.
Our design team takes care of giving a second life to outdated websites. 🖌️
"Good design's not about what medium you're working in. It's about thinking hard about what you want to do and what you have to work with before you start."
D - Analysis of other areas
Beyond these 3 digital pillars, there are other key areas to analyze:
- Your digital outbound campaigns (via email or LinkedIn)
- Your video content
- Your visual identity (logo, brand guidelines, etc.)
In summary, you now understand that a digital audit relies on a wide range of criteria. Conducting an audit on your own can be very challenging, especially if you are just starting out.
4) Need help conducting your digital marketing audit?
Since 2021, Digital 64 has provided consulting and support for VSBs/SMEs and SaaS businesses to drive their growth. Whether you are an early-stage startup, a craftsman, or an established business in the Basque Country, running an audit is always a smart move.
Our team of experts is ready to provide the consulting and support you need.
We look forward to meeting you soon at our offices!
