Why perform a digital audit? Understanding its importance

Pourquoi un audit digital est important?

A digital marketing audit helps identify areas that need improvement and also uncovers new opportunities for growth.

It also offers the ability to understand the strategies of your main competitors. This allows you to evaluate their positioning across the different channels they use.

This is to give you elements that will allow you to adapt your online strategy in order to stand out.

Finally, a digital marketing analysis helps you to have a global vision of your online strategy. The performance of each channel (social networks, SEO, search engines, online advertising) can be analysed in detail;

This allows you to optimize your budget and maximize the return on investment (ROI) of your various marketing efforts.

Find in this article the main reasons why you should perform a digital audit!

Understanding the digital marketing audit

Digital marketing is evolving very quickly. Whether it is in terms of acquisition channels, advertising formats, but also in terms of consumption habits.

We can very often see an “erosion” of the performance of a digital strategy, if no optimizations are applied regularly.

We also talk about “advertising fatigue” if the formats used do not change frequently.

1. Identify declines in performance

That’s why it’s a very good way to identify the reasons for a drop in performance. Whether it is a website, a communication channel, a campaign, or a particular advertising format.

Performance curve for online activities

2. Monitor the competition 

The implementation of an audit allows identifying and evaluate the strategic actions of the main competitors;

Even if your established strategy is effective, a competitor may very well invest in advertising campaigns and target the same keywords you are targeting.

Therefore, without any changes, the performance of your advertising campaigns can very quickly be negatively impacted.

In the same way, a detailed analysis of a competitor’s strategy can help you discover the communication channels they use the most and thus stand out more easily.

3. Detect and implement opportunities

Finally, the analysis also highlights opportunities for growth;

Most companies focus almost exclusively on performance optimization and profitability.

After a few months, benchmark averages are established and performance measurements are based on the company’s own metrics.

The main risk is to standardize internal metrics;

My personal experience for a company

On one project, while analysing a client’s website traffic, I was able to discover an anomaly that very quickly became an opportunity.

At first glance, the site traffic had been stable for several months, however, when analysing the breakdown at the different device types, I was able to see that 92% of the traffic was coming from computers.

For some sites, the share of traffic coming from computers can sometimes be higher.
Nevertheless, 55% of the global traffic is now mobile. So I analysed the site.

Results: I discovered that it was not mobile-friendly.

Once I modified the website design, the mobile traffic share increased very quickly and the client’s site performed better.

This “anomaly” might very well have gone undetected if the client had not done a Digital Audit.
Julien Vidal

A digital audit is a very good way to have a regular global view of all activities and internal (website), external (visibility on social networks and search engines) and competitive (strategic intelligence) performances.

Who performs the digital marketing audit?

The audit is generally carried out by an entity external to the company;

A specialized digital agency offers this service as standard. Usually, when you start a new cooperation with a “serious” agency, it offers a digital audit of your various online activities. 

The advantage is to start the collaboration on a sound basis and avoid many surprises once the strategy that the agency has defined is in place.

Nevertheless, an audit carried out by an agency can very quickly become an important investment;

Some consultants (I am one of them) have specialized in digital auditing. Having lower overhead costs due to my business model, I can perform audits at lower rates. 

Depending on the size and type of site, the channels and levers to be analyzed and the level of detail, the duration of the digital audit performed by one person can sometimes take longer.

From my point of view and with the different tools now available, it is also possible to set up online marketing audits with internal teams.

I even offer to train company teams to follow a specific plan and steps to perform regular digital marketing audits.

Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

To summarize

With a digital marketing audit, you can identify challenges and opportunities and react quickly. Once you have evaluated the performance of each digital activity, you can effectively adapt your strategy.

Finally, the audit allows you to have a clear vision and thus help you in the decision-making process concerning your strategy and your online presence.

If you would like to set up an online marketing audit, please feel free to contact us, I would be happy to plan with you the project that best fits your business.

Finally, feel free to subscribe me to our newsletter if you want to stay informed about the latest news around digital marketing in Switzerland.

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