What a proper marketing audit actually looks like — and why most 'audits' are just activity reports with better fonts.
Before I step into a new business as a fractional CMO, I don’t start with tactics. I don’t begin with “Let’s run LinkedIn ads,” or “Let’s rebuild the website,” or “Let’s launch a webinar series.”
I start with a discovery.
It’s a structured audit: about 50 questions that give me a clear picture of marketing maturity across the business — not just what you’re doing, but why you’re doing it, how it connects to revenue, and where it’s breaking.
I want to understand where marketing actually sits in the org. Is it a strategic function reporting into the CEO or CRO, or a service desk buried under sales or product? Who owns the number? Who owns the narrative? If marketing has no real seat at the table, that tells me a lot before we touch a single campaign.
I dig into your ICP: who you say you’re targeting versus who is actually buying. How is the pipeline meant to work in theory, and how does it really work in practice? Where do opportunities originate? Where do they stall? How do leads move from marketing to sales, and what happens to them afterwards?
Then there’s the relationship with sales. Are you aligned on definitions, messaging, and qualification, or arguing over what counts as a lead? Do you share a view of the market, or are you running parallel narratives? The quality of that relationship is often a more accurate predictor of revenue impact than any individual channel.
Around that, I’ll ask about:
- Positioning: What do you stand for in your category? How are you different from the ten other tabs your buyer has open?
- Targeting: Which segments are you actually prioritizing, and why? Is your focus based on data, or on whoever shouts loudest internally?
- Messaging: What are you saying, and does it reflect the real problems your best customers care about?
- Metrics: What do you measure, and what do you ignore? Are you optimising for pipeline and revenue, or for vanity metrics?
- Motion: Is your GTM predominantly inbound, outbound, partner-led, PLG? Is your marketing motion aligned with how your buyers prefer to buy?
Most companies tell me their problem is leads. “We just need more at the top of the funnel.” But once you run a proper discovery, you see a different picture. Often the real issue is positioning: the market doesn’t understand why you matter. Or targeting: you’re talking to the wrong accounts, or the wrong people inside the right accounts. Or alignment: marketing and sales are pulling in slightly different directions, which quietly destroys conversion.
If you jump straight to tactics, you end up optimising noise. You might make the wrong story more visible, the wrong audience more aware, or the wrong motion more efficient. Activity goes up. Results don’t.
You can’t prescribe a solution until you’ve diagnosed the problem.
A real Marketing leader doesn’t start with channels, tools, or content calendars. It starts with a clear, honest understanding of where you are, what’s working, what isn’t, and why. Strategy starts with understanding.
Before I engage a new client, I ask 50 questions.
If you made it this far, we probably share a bias: that marketing is a craft with numbers attached, not a brand project with money attached. If you want to pressure-test that bias against a real business — yours — I offer a free 30-minute consultation. No slides.
Pressure-test this on your business.
Free 30-min consultation. No slides.