Marketing Audit Service FAQs

A marketing audit is a comprehensive, strategic analysis of all aspects of a company's current marketing activities. It’s an essential tool for any business that wants to take a holistic view of its marketing efforts and identify opportunities and potential areas for improvement.  

At Kika, we provide an unbiased overview of what's working and what isn’t, as well as recommendations for how to improve your marketing efforts going forward. This includes all channels that are currently leveraged to generate new customers and the effectiveness of current marketing efforts on these channels. A marketing audit will also look at new channels that may be more cost-effective than current channels, which may further optimize marketing spend.

Depending on the size and scope of the project, a marketing audit can take as little as one week or as long as several months. For a small business with a limited marketing budget, a one-week audit may be sufficient. However, for a larger business with a more complex marketing operation, a longer audit may be necessary. The length of time required for a marketing audit also depends on the level of detail that is required. A basic marketing audit will assess your current marketing activities and make recommendations for improvements. A more comprehensive audit will not only assess your current activities, but will also include market research, an analysis of your competitors, and customer interviews. 

A comprehensive marketing audit will take into account all aspects of your company’s marketing activities, including your advertising, public relations, digital marketing, and more. The report will also include findings and recommendations for how to improve your marketing strategy going forward.

Just as financial audits are performed to ensure the accuracy of a company's financial statements, marketing audits should be conducted on a regular basis to assess the effectiveness of a company's marketing strategy. A marketing audit should be performed at least once a year, and more frequently if there have been significant changes in the marketplace or within the company (such as a change in leadership).

Here are some scenarios and trigger points that will tell you the time is right to perform a marketing audit:

• You have zero, limited, conflicting or even suspect information about a business issue that needs to be addressed now.
• You know or sense that all is not right with your customers, distributors, suppliers, partners and/or investors.
• You are losing ground to competitors, but are not sure why.
• You need to perform due diligence for M&A or divestiture planning.
• Groups or individuals within your company do not recognize the existence of a problem or its magnitude, and you need independent validation.

Below we explain the steps involved in conducting a marketing audit.

1. We inform all your marketing decisions with in-depth research.

Our marketing audits begin with the collection of an impressive amount of relevant and accurate information from reputable publications, the Internet, paid database services and other published sources. We then move towards conducting field research and in-depth interviews with key customers and industry experts to get the real insights behind all the published facts.

Kika’s approach to research is simple but effective, guaranteeing that you get the information necessary to take the right path to success. It includes using proven research techniques to collect both qualitative and quantitative data, while always ensuring that the data being collected comes from relevant and reliable sources. 

2. We assess your situation with our rigorous and comprehensive methodology.

During our marketing audits, all aspects of your marketing strategy will be reviewed and evaluated. This includes everything from your overall brand identity and positioning, to your website design and content, to your social media presence, to your paid advertising campaigns.

We sift through and organize the collected data to analyze it in-depth and reveal its deepest insights. This includes analyzing your competitive landscape, consumer preferences and buying trends, and current marketing strategies. The goal here is to identify opportunities and problems that you need to know about so we can arrive at better-informed conclusions.

3. We take control of your company’s future with a solid plan of action.

Once the audit is complete, our marketing analysts will distill their findings into a professional report outlining areas for improvement and recommendations for how to optimize your marketing strategy going forward. Since all of our conclusions are based on expert knowledge and hard facts.

When it comes to determining how much you should spend on a marketing audit, there is no one-size-fits-all answer. The cost will vary depending on factors such as the size and scope of the project, the level of expertise required, and the amount of time needed to complete the audit. 

Many consultants in Vancouver will charge by the hour, with rates ranging from $100 to $300 per hour. Some consultants will charge a flat fee for an entire project, which can be anywhere from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars depending on the size and scope of the audit. 

For comprehensive audits with an extended scope of work, consultants will usually charge a monthly retainer fee, which can range from $500 to $5,000 per month. In some cases, a consultant may agree to charge a percentage of your total marketing budget, typically 5-10%. 

A digital marketing audit is an in-depth analysis of your online performance. It provides you with an objective, third-party assessment of your digital marketing efforts and how well they align with your business goals. They are an excellent way to improve your online performance because they identify areas of weakness and recommend specific actions you can take to improve your results. 

Here are three ways that our digital marketing audits can help improve your online performance. 

1. Increase Online Visibility

One of the main goals of a digital marketing audit is to increase your visibility online. We do this by taking a close look at your website and making sure that it is optimized for search engines. We also analyze your social media presence and make sure that you are active on the platforms where your target audience is most likely to be found. In addition, we evaluate the quality and quantity of your content to ensure that it is resonating with your audience. 

2. Improve Website Traffic

Increasing your visibility online will inevitably lead to an increase in website traffic. But there are other ways to improve website traffic as well. For example, we may recommend adding CTAs (calls-to-action) to your website or blog posts that encourage visitors to take action, such as subscribing to your email list or following you on social media. In addition, we may suggest ways to make it easier for people who land on your website from external sources (such as social media or search engines) to navigate to other pages on your site. 

3. Generate More Leads 

Once you have increased visibility and improved website traffic, it’s time to start generating leads. A digital marketing audit will identify opportunities for generating more leads through things like gated content offers and lead capture forms. In addition, we’ll take a close look at your conversion rate optimization (CRO) efforts to ensure that you are maximizing the number of leads that you convert into customers.

In order to measure the health of your social media marketing campaigns, we use various metrics to get a clear picture of how well your campaigns are performing and where there is room for improvement. 

1. Number of Followers

The number of followers is a good indicator of brand awareness and reach. If you have a large number of followers on one platform but a relatively small number on another, it could be indicative of a problem with your content strategy on the latter platform.

2. Number of Engagements

Engagements refer to any type of interaction that a user has with your content, such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks. A high number of engagements indicates that users are interested in your content and are interacting with it.

3. Click-Through Rate

The click-through rate (CTR) measures the percentage of people who see your post and click on the link in it. A high CTR indicates that your content is relevant and interesting to your target audience.

4. Cost per Lead

The cost per lead (CPL) measures how much it costs you to generate a lead through your social media marketing campaign. To calculate CPL, we divide the total cost of your campaign by the number of leads generated. A low CPL indicates that your campaign is generating leads at a low cost, which is obviously desirable. 

5. Customer Lifetime Value

The customer lifetime value (CLV) measures how much revenue a customer generates during their lifetime. A high CLV indicates that customers who interact with your brand tend to stick around and spend money over time, which obviously has positive implications for your bottom line.

Some of the most common issues that we find when auditing a client’s content marketing efforts include lack of focus, outdated information, irrelevant topics and poor writing quality—but these are certainly not the only ones. Not only do these issues make your business look bad, but they also jeopardize your credibility and deter people from reading your content. By keeping an eye out for these red flags, you can ensure that your content marketing efforts are more effective than ever before.

We look at several factors during an email marketing audit to help us identify ways to improve your email marketing strategy and increase its overall performance. 

1. Open and Click-Through Rates

One of the most important things to look at during an email marketing audit is your open and click-through rates. Your open rate indicates how many people actually opened the email, while your click-through rate tells you how many people clicked on at least one link within the email. If either of these numbers is low, it could be indicative of a problem with your email content or design. We’ll provide recommendations to make sure your subject lines are attention-grabbing and that your email design is easy to navigate.

2. Bounce Rate

Your bounce rate is the percentage of people who tried to open your email but were unsuccessful. There are two types of bounces: soft bounces and hard bounces. Soft bounces occur when an email is returned because the recipient's inbox is full or their server is down. Hard bounces happen when an address is invalid (e.g., typos, old domain names that have been changed, etc.). If you have a high bounce rate, we’ll recommend methods to clean up your mailing list so that you're only sending emails to active users.

3. Spam Score

Every email has a spam score, which is determined by a number of factors, including the number of links in the email, the use of keyword stuffing, and more. A high spam score can land your emails in recipients' spam folders, which obviously isn't ideal. During the audit, we’ll work to identify the elements that are marking your emails as spammy and provide recommendations to improve your score.  

4. List Growth Rate

Your list growth rate indicates how many new subscribers you're gaining. If this number isn't growing (or is even declining), it's a sign that you need to focus on acquiring new subscribers through various lead-generation initiatives. A healthy list growth rate will help ensure that your business continues to reach new people with each passing month.