Compare · vs in house
Marketing audit vs. an in house review
Your team can review the numbers themselves, for free. The question is whether they can see what an outsider sees. Here is how an independent audit compares with an in house review on objectivity, benchmarks, speed and cost.
- 74audits in the corpus
- $4.5M+identified, recurring annual margin
- $58kmedian finding a year
- 5 to 7working days to findings
Source: the MarginFix benchmark dataset, 74 published audits.
Side by side
Independent audit against in house review, row by row. The last row says what each option is built for.
| Criterion | Independent audit | In house review |
|---|---|---|
| Objectivity | Outside view, no internal politics | Knows the context, carries the bias |
| Benchmark | A 74 audit base to compare against ✓the dataset | Only your own history |
| Bandwidth | Dedicated and time boxed | Squeezed around the day job |
| Speed | 5 to 7 working days ✓74 cases | As long as it takes to find the time |
| Cost | Fixed fee, $1,450 to $5,950 | "Free", with a real opportunity cost |
| What it is built for | An objective, benchmarked diagnosis | Continuous monitoring you own |
The verdict
Candid about the alternative. Always the same first step.
Your team knows the context an outsider never will, which is exactly why an in house review is good at spotting known issues and bad at spotting the ones everyone has stopped seeing. An audit brings two things a team cannot easily manufacture for itself: objectivity and a benchmark. Keep the monitoring in house; use an audit when you need an outside, benchmarked read on where the margin is going.
What it is built forIndependent auditAn objective, benchmarked diagnosisIn house reviewContinuous monitoring you own
Median finding across 74 published audits: $58k a year. ✓The case: CAC looked fine ✓74 cases
A MarginFix marketing audit is fixed fee ($1,450 to $5,950) with findings in 5 to 7 working days; the median audit surfaces $58k of recoverable annual margin.MarginFix, marginfix.ai/compare/
In their words
What clients said after the readout. Every statement sits on a published case; open the case for the audited figure.
$134k a year found in 6 days
Contribution margin on the two top campaigns: −7% → +9%
“Revenue grew and cash didn't. Victoria rebuilt margin per order after shipping, returns and payment fees, and our two biggest prospecting campaigns were losing money on every sale. We stopped scaling them.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$118k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Rebates paid on volume never actually earned: 19% → 1%
“Rebate expense outran distributor volume and we could not see why. Cristian reconciled rebates paid against volume actually shipped and paid for, tier by tier: accruals had run off gross purchase orders. Quarterly true ups now catch it.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$96k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
App installs that funded a real account: 24% → 63%
“Installs looked great and funded accounts stagnated. David followed sign ups through to funding, and the bonus was buying registrations from people who claimed it and never transacted. Incentives now pay on activation, not the download.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$92k a year found in 7 days
Enterprise deal margin lost to quarter end: 5 pts lost → 0 pts lost
“Bookings hit target while margin slipped. Cristian split our discounting by timing and rep: concessions spiked in the last days of every quarter because buyers had learned to wait. Approval thresholds fixed it without losing deals.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$88k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Paid social proven to lift store visits: ~1 in 3 → 9 in 10
“Our CFO doubted that online ads drove store visits. David's matched market geo lift test proved the doubt right: footfall barely changed where the ads were off. The budget moved to markets and channels that passed the test.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off−27% risk adjusted CAC in 7 days
Risk adjusted acquisition cost per loan: $540 → $400
“Our cheapest channel was our worst credit. David split default rates by acquisition source: the low CAC channels brought borrowers who defaulted materially more often. Budget now follows risk adjusted cost per loan, not just CAC.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$88k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Congress spend with a tracked return: 8% → 88%
“Six figures a year in congresses and KOL sponsorships, renewed on habit. Leslie tried to connect it to share of voice, engagement or prescribing and found no instrumentation at all. The unmeasurable part now funds engagement we can track.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$83k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Referral rewards on genuine, nongamed volume: 67% → 98%
“Referral payouts grew faster than real users. David examined the volume behind the rewards: self referrals through second accounts, circular trades, wash volume. Integrity checks now run before any payout; gamed rewards were clawed back.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$83k a year found in 7 days
Interchange margin on the worst channel: +0.4% → +2.4%
“Every channel cost the same per merchant, so we treated them as interchangeable. David split profitability down to the interchange line: some channels brought merchants who earned us a fraction. Budget now follows margin, not just CAC.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$79k a year found in 7 days
Contract margin vs live input costs: 9% → 16%
“Volume was stable and contract margin kept eroding. Cristian compared resin, board and energy cost movements against the surcharges we actually passed through, and the lag was costing us every month. An indexed pass through fixed it.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$78k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
High intent visitors paid for twice: ~1 in 3 → ~1 in 30
“Two teams, two search programs, one visitor bought twice. Leslie looked at branded and disease awareness search together for the first time: about one high intent visitor in three was paid for twice. Shared negatives and one plan ended it.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$74k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Share of all impressions hitting no convert inventory: 40% → 6%
“Forty percent of our impressions landed where buyers never convert. Cristian's delivery teardown found placement, dayparting and geo settings untouched since launch on a seven figure budget. We rebuilt them.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$74k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Courier bonuses paid into already full zones: 22% → 3%
“Incentive spend rose while service levels stayed flat. Alex matched bonus payouts against real time courier availability by zone: in dense areas we paid couriers who would have worked anyway. Bonuses now fire only where coverage is short.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$72k a year found in 7 days
Portfolio margin across the product mix: 11% → 17%
“One flat commission across very different products steered brokers to the wrong mix. David set commission against each product's margin and loss ratio; thin lines were being sold near unprofitable. Commission now follows the margin band.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$72k a year found in 7 days
Landed margin on the flat pack lines: −1% → +6%
“We held prices for two years and freight did not. Cristian rebuilt landed cost from current carrier invoices: oversized carton surcharges had erased the margin on every flat pack line. We repriced and redesigned the worst packaging.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$71k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Loyalty program margin vs its liability: −8% → +6%
“Loyalty was untouchable, so nobody had priced it. David set our accrued point liability against the incremental margin the program drove, and it was underwater. We restructured earn and burn without gutting the rewards members value.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$71k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Acquisition cost vs reimbursement per test: 122% → 78%
“Acquisition and reimbursement sat with different teams, so nobody compared them. Cristian reconciled cost per patient against reimbursement per test: several high volume tests lost money on every patient we marketed in. We capped those.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$70k a year found in 6 days
Billable usage actually invoiced: 92% → 99%
“I expected a slide deck. Alex reconciled metered usage against invoices and found a whole category of overages recorded for analytics but never billed. A config fix, no price change, and customers expected to pay for it anyway.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$69k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Online margin once its returns are charged in: 2% → 9%
“Online looked as profitable as our stores, which felt wrong. David charged returns processing to the channel that generated each return, and online's margin fell from flattering to honest. We stopped scaling the wrong channel.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$69k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Co-op budget spent promoting rival brands: 28% → 3%
“Our co-op money was promoting our competitors. Cristian reviewed what distributors actually spent it on: campaigns featured rival brands next to ours, sometimes more prominently. Reimbursement now needs proof of brand presence.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$68k a year found in 6 days
Full price sell through: 61% → 78%
“Our best customers had learned to wait for a code. Victoria showed that a large share of discounted orders would have happened at full price anyway. We moved to a tiered structure for new customers and bigger baskets, and volume held.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$66k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Paid clicks the site already won organically: ~1 in 3 → ~1 in 30
“We were bidding on terms we already ranked for. Alex paused paid search on those terms in a test and bookings barely moved. Roughly one paid click in three we would have won for free. That spend now goes where paid actually adds demand.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$64k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Detailing spend that moved no prescribing: 28% → 4%
“Reach and call counts looked healthy. Leslie matched detailing and samples to prescribing change per HCP, and 28% of the effort landed on physicians it never moved. Field time now follows responsiveness, not coverage targets.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$64k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Budget lost to the two teams overbidding: 22% → 3%
“Our HCP and patient agencies were bidding against each other for the same impressions. Cristian examined both programs together for the first time and merged audience planning. Reach held, and the internal premium was gone.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$64k a year found in 6 days
Dealer margin on the engineered range: 14% → 20%
“One dealer discount across the whole catalog felt simple. Cristian set it against margin at product level: commodity fittings got a generous cut while our engineered range subsidized them. Discount tiers by margin band fixed it.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$63k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Supply incentives hitting a real shortage: 35% → 94%
“Our onboarding bonus solved a shortage we no longer had. Alex checked every incentive against current supply by category, and we were still paying to recruit providers in saturated ones. We kept bonuses only where supply is genuinely short.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$63k a year found in 6 days
Active users actually being billed: 93% → 99%
“Expansion lagged what we saw inside accounts. Victoria reconciled active users against billed seats: many customers used more seats than they paid for. Automated true ups now capture it, and nobody pushed back.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$62k a year found in 6 days
Qualified inbound calls that became bookings: 2 in 3 → 9 in 10
“Marketing hit every target and revenue stalled. Leslie followed our qualified calls into intake and about a third were dropped at busy times or never followed up. Fixing staffing and call handling converted demand we had already paid for.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$61k a year found in 6 days
Net margin on hero ASINs, fees & returns in: −2% → +6%
“ACoS looked efficient while our hero ASINs lost money. Victoria rebuilt contribution per ASIN with FBA fees, storage, referral fees and returns loaded in. We repriced and repacked the affected lines.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$61k a year found in 6 days
Support cost vs fee on small accounts: 140% → 85%
“Small accounts used as much planner time as large ones for a fraction of the fee. David modeled cost to serve by tier: below a certain balance the support ran at a loss. Human planning now sits with the tiers whose fee covers it.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off+26% media efficiency in 7 days
Media weight landing in real demand windows: 45% → 88%
“Our flighting calendar was older than our customers' habits. Cristian compared spend timing against when the category actually converts: our heaviest weight landed in weak windows. Same budget, real demand windows, efficiency up 26%.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$59k a year found in 6 days
Contribution margin on the three bestsellers: −2% → +7%
“The more our bestsellers sold, the flatter profit looked. Victoria rebuilt landed cost from the supplier invoice up, and our three top SKUs were priced below cost after freight and packaging. We repriced in stages and volume held.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$58k a year found in 6 days
Effective take rate after the old waivers: 9.5% → 12.5%
“Our effective take rate sat below our stated one for years. Alex traced it cohort by cohort to launch era fee waivers that had never been switched off. We retired them on matured cohorts and kept relief only for new participants.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$58k a year found in 6 days
Margin on big ticket orders, delivery in: −1% → +6%
“Free delivery and assembly were eating our biggest orders. David rebuilt the true cost with two person crews, vehicle time and failed deliveries, and some lines were near break even. Tiered service pricing on the largest items fixed it.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$58k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Media spend outside eligible patient windows: 24% → 2%
“Reach looked healthy, but a quarter of our media reached people who could not act on it. Leslie compared delivery against the eligible population and its windows: 24% of spend fell outside them. Flighting now follows eligibility.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$57k a year found in 6 days
Annual discount vs the churn it prevents: 1.8× over → right sized
“We were discounting loyalty we already had. Victoria compared the annual discount against the churn it actually prevented: a large share of members taking it would have stayed anyway. We right sized it and kept the deep offer for real churn risk.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$57k a year found in 6 days
Margin on the smallest orders: −3% → +6%
“Our smallest orders cost more to pick, pack and ship than they earned. Cristian rebuilt handling cost per order and set a minimum that covers it. A small order charge and consolidation incentives did the rest.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$57k a year found in 6 days
Margin on configured upsell orders: −3% → +8%
“Configured orders always carried thinner margins than manual quotes. Cristian priced real configurations down to installed cost: default discounts were selling premium finishes at a loss on every order. A margin floor in the tool ended it.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$54k a year found in 6 days
Fulfillment margin on click and collect orders: −2% → +5%
“Click and collect was never free. David rebuilt the cost of a collection order, the picking, staging and handover labor hiding in store payroll, and on many order types it matched the delivery it replaced. We repriced those.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$54k a year found in 7 days
Retainers priced below their delivery cost: 6 of 34 → 0 of 34
“Our blended margin said every account was fine. Leslie broke it apart account by account: six of thirty four retainers were priced below delivery cost, funded by the profitable ones. We repriced or exited them, our own advice.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$53k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Incremental ROAS: original campaign vs replacement channels: 0.2× → 2.1×
“Our agency's hero campaign was the biggest loser. Victoria ran a geo holdout and sales barely moved when it was off. Two years of attributed revenue, almost none of it caused by the ad. The budget now goes to channels that pass that test.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$52k a year found in 6 days
Free account cost vs the plan revenue it earns: 130% → 78%
“Free felt cheap until Alex modeled cost to serve. Support tickets, infrastructure and engineering time made a free account cost more than our entry plan earned. We reset free tier limits and repriced the entry plan.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$52k a year found in 5 days
Involuntary churn from failed payments: 4.1% → 1.6%
“A slice of our churn was never churn. Victoria split voluntary from involuntary and found expired cards getting one token retry before we wrote the subscriber off. Smarter retries and a card updater cut involuntary churn from 4.1% to 1.6%.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$52k a year found in 6 days
Margin on the fixed fee engagements: 9% → 17%
“Busy, revenue holding, and profit per partner hour falling. Leslie reconciled logged hours against every fixed fee package: complexity had pushed many below cost. We repriced and rescoped them, with a scope trigger so it stays fixed.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$49k a year found in 6 days
Stock marked down before demand softened: ~40% → ~8%
“Our markdown calendar was cutting prices on lines still selling at full price. David compared markdown timing against each SKU's real demand curve. Discounts now trigger on live sell through instead of a date, and clearance still clears.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$49k a year found in 6 days
Margin on the thin vet channel lines: −2% → +5%
“One discount for the whole range looked competitive. Leslie checked it against margin by product line, and on our thinner lines it pushed them below cost. Discount tiers now follow margin band, and the channel kept its competitive pricing.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$48k a year found in 5 days
Catalog margin after the dead SKU tail: 11% → 16%
“A broad catalog felt like an asset. Cristian ranked every SKU by velocity against the cost it carried, and a long tail of dead products was dragging the whole range's margin. We retired them and set a velocity threshold to stay listed.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$47k a year found in 5 days
Orders shipped free below break even: 1 in 3 → ~1 in 20
“One order in three shipped free at a loss. Our threshold was set years ago and never revisited, and the cost sat in logistics where nobody looked. Victoria reset it, and average order value went up, not down.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$47k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Referral fees paid on self sourced deals: ~24% → ~2%
“Partner fees grew faster than partner pipeline. Alex reconciled partner attributed deals against their true origin: many were sourced by our own team with a partner tagged late. Fees now require documented sourcing.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$47k a year found in 6 days
Would be pauses lost to a full cancel: ~4 in 10 → ~1 in 10
“Pause was buried and cancel was one tap away. Victoria mapped the pause, skip and cancel journeys and about four in ten would be pauses ended as full cancellations. We rebuilt the flow and offer pause first inside the cancel journey now.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$47k a year found in 6 days
Delivery hours actually billed to clients: ~80% → 98%
“Every project ran thinner than its day rate. Leslie reconciled real effort against billing and found travel, kickoff and early onboarding absorbed as goodwill. Those hours are written into every scope now.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$44k a year of wasted spend cut in 5 days
Commissions paid on sales you already owned: ~29% → ~2%
“Affiliate revenue kept climbing and margin didn't. Victoria tested incrementality and coupon partners were collecting commission on customers who arrived through branded search and direct. We now pay for demand partners actually create.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$44k a year found in 7 days
Take rate actually kept vs the 15% contracted: 11.1% → 14.0%
“Finance couldn't explain why we kept less than our contracted take rate. Alex traced every dollar from gross booking to net revenue and found it in refunds nobody owned. Clear rules and one accountable owner closed the gap.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$44k a year found in 5 days
Job margin once callbacks are counted: −1% → +5%
“Jobs kept landing below what we quoted. Leslie loaded callbacks and warranty visits back onto the jobs that caused them, and the quoting model had never counted them. Quotes now price the whole job, not the first visit.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$41k annual budget redeployment identified in 5 days
Share of all paid spend that was incremental: 28% → 82%
“Our safest lines were the least incremental. Alex showed brand term search and retargeting were intercepting demand from sales calls and word of mouth, then invoicing for it. We cut both to a defensive minimum.”
Alex PopSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$41k a year found in 6 days
Shipping margin on the monthly cohort: −4% → +8%
“A flat shipping tier felt fair. Victoria mapped shipping cost against cohort value and our most loyal subscribers were subsidizing the least loyal ones. Tiers now follow order frequency, so loyalty stops paying for churn.”
Victoria MillerSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$41k a year found in 5 days
Promo discount covered by vendor funding: 78% → 96%
“The vendor pays for it, we assumed. David reconciled every cofunded promotion against the support we actually received, and the discounts routinely ran deeper than the funding. Renegotiated terms and promo guardrails closed it.”
David JacksonSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$41k a year of wasted spend cut in 6 days
Trade show spend tied to a booked order: 6% → 90%
“Six figures a year on trade shows because we always had. Cristian traced the spend to booked orders and found no link at all; in our specifier led category the events reached the wrong buyers. The budget now follows traceable pipeline.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$39k a year of wasted spend cut in 5 days
Search cost per click across the clinics: $2.40 → $1.78
“Our cost per click climbed with no new competitor in sight. Leslie found the competitor was us: clinics bidding against each other on the same keywords in the same auctions. One geo partitioned account structure ended it.”
Leslie MartinSenior Auditor · signed this audit off$36k a year of wasted spend cut in 7 days
Content spend with a traceable path to revenue: 9% → 92%
“Eighteen months of content, not one sourced opportunity. Cristian traced the program forward through the funnel and could not connect it to pipeline. We kept the assets sales actually used and moved the rest of the budget to demand capture.”
Cristian BragauSenior Auditor · signed this audit offCommon questions
Why can't my team just do the audit?
They can review. But they carry the same assumptions that let the leak form, and they have no outside benchmark. An audit adds an objective view and a 74 audit comparison base, in a dedicated 5 to 7 working day window instead of squeezed around the day job.
What does an audit see that an in house review misses?
Mostly the invisible: paid spend that is not incremental, attribution inflation and mispriced offers that a healthy blended ROAS hides. These are hard to see from inside because the top line looks fine.
Is a one off audit enough, or do I need monitoring?
An audit is the diagnosis; monitoring is the maintenance. Most teams audit to find the leaks, fix them, keep an eye on the metrics in house, and audit again when spend or strategy shifts materially.
Add the outside view.
A 15 minute fit call, no pitch, one auditor. Bring what your team already found.
Fixed fee. No retainer. NDA first.
Go deeper
Keep comparing
- Marketing audit vs. hiring a consultantBoth promise to fix your marketing. Cost, speed, independence and what you actually walk away with.→
- Independent audit vs. your agency reviewing itselfAsking the agency to grade its own spend is asking it to do its own homework.→
- How it worksThe week, day by day: access, analysis, readout and the report.→
- PricingThree fixed fee tiers from $1,450, each with its own findings floor.→
- All 74 findingsRanked by annual value, $58k median, each one a real case.→
- FAQThe guarantee, data access, the timeline and what an audit does not cover.→