Marketing audit checklist
30 checks across the six areas where SMB marketing budgets leak — the same ground a full MarginFix audit covers. Work through them to find where your spend stops doing real work. No email required.
1. Paid media & incrementality
The most common leak we find — paying for conversions that would have happened anyway. It shows up in roughly two-thirds of the audits in our 74-audit base.
- For each paid channel, can you name the share of conversions that are incremental (caused by the ad) versus organic pull-through?
- Have you run at least one geo or audience holdout test in the last 12 months to measure true incremental lift?
- Is any channel scaling on last-click ROAS alone, with no incrementality check?
- Are brand-keyword and retargeting budgets tested against a holdout, or just assumed to work?
- Would the spend survive a two-week pause where you watch total revenue, not platform-reported revenue?
2. Attribution & measurement
When every platform claims the same sale, reported ROAS adds up to more revenue than you actually made. This is where reporting quietly stops telling the truth.
- Do your platform-reported conversions, summed across channels, exceed your actual order count? If so, you have attribution inflation.
- Is there a single source of truth — a blended MER or contribution view — that ties spend to real revenue?
- Do you judge channels against a business-level number (blended MER or CAC), not each platform's self-report?
- Do you know your blended CAC and CAC-payback period from actuals rather than a dashboard estimate?
- Is view-through conversion credit kept separate from click-based credit in your reporting?
3. Pricing, offers & discounts
Offers and discounts are where margin quietly leaves the building — often priced below the true landed cost, or never switched off.
- Is every core offer priced above its fully-loaded cost — COGS, fulfillment, payment fees and returns included?
- Do any standing discounts or promo codes never expire?
- Have you checked whether discounts are training your best customers to wait for the next sale?
- Are bundle and upsell prices set so they don't cannibalize full-price hero products?
- Do annual or subscription plans stay above their retention value after the discount is applied?
4. Retention & lifetime value
Acquisition gets the attention; the margin often leaks on the back end — renewals, churn and the cost to serve.
- Do you know contribution margin by cohort, not just blended across everyone?
- Is growth spend outrunning retention — are you refilling a leaky bucket?
- Are loyalty or referral rewards costing more than the repeat revenue they drive?
- Is free-tier or support cost measured against what each plan actually earns?
- Do you measure LTV on contribution margin, or on revenue (which overstates it)?
5. Channel & budget allocation
Budget set once and never revisited is budget spent on last year's returns.
- Is spend allocated to close rate and return by source, or spread evenly out of habit?
- Are two channels — or two locations — bidding against each other for the same demand?
- Is any channel being paid twice for the same customer (paid plus retargeting plus affiliate)?
- Are affiliate or partner commissions paid on sales the brand had already won?
- When did you last zero-base the media plan instead of rolling last quarter's forward?
6. Reporting & governance
You can't fix a leak you can't see. Most reporting shows revenue; margin is where the answer lives.
- Can you see marketing performance on contribution margin, not just revenue or ROAS?
- Is there one owner accountable for spend efficiency, or is it split across teams?
- Do you review spend against incrementality on a fixed cadence, or only when results dip?
- Could an outsider trace a reported result back to its source data in a day?
- Is anything in your reporting a platform grading its own homework?
Marketing audit checklist FAQ
Can I do a marketing audit myself?
Yes — this checklist is the DIY version of the five areas a full audit covers, and working through it will surface the obvious leaks. What an independent audit adds is objectivity (no stake in your channels), a benchmark to compare against, and the time to test the non-obvious leaks. Many teams self-assess first, then commission an audit for what they can't see.
How often should I audit my marketing?
A full review once or twice a year suits most SMBs, with a lighter quarterly check on the fastest-moving items — paid-media efficiency and any standing discounts. Audit sooner if spend has scaled sharply, you've changed agencies or platforms, or reported ROAS looks better than the bank balance.
How long does a marketing audit take?
A focused audit takes days, not months — a MarginFix audit delivers findings in 5–7 days. Working through this checklist yourself takes a few hours if your reporting is in order, and longer if you first have to assemble the numbers — which is itself a useful signal.