Digital Marketing Audit means that every one of your digital capabilities and the extent of digital presence will be assessed, identified and analyzed. It ensures that from the very beginning, your organization makes thorough decisions on how to plan and execute a successful digital strategy.

A digital marketing audit is simply a thorough investigation of all your digital marketing efforts. The performance of all your practices, strategies, ads, and posts is evaluated–giving you an understanding of where your digital gaps and loopholes exist.

A marketing audit is a process that examines your complete promotional environment, from your direct mail newsletters to your social media campaigns. The purpose of a marketing audit is to sort through your resources and figure out which of your strategies are working, and which are just wasting your budget.

Your digital marketing audit will help you identify what those interests are in a way that buyer persona research alone may not have been able to do if you conducted it at the beginning of your marketing efforts. That is not to say that buyer personas are not still valuable, but they may change.

The most important part of a marketing audit will be the measuring of the right metrics. Regular audits will always give a more in-depth understanding of what is proving effective, but that means knowing the best metrics to measure.

Following are the major features of the marketing audit:

• Periodic.
• Comprehensive.
• Systematic.
• Independent.
• Review of Marketing Environment.
• Review of Marketing System.
• Extensive Examination of Marketing Processes.

Now let’s briefly discuss or explain each characteristic of marketing audit.

• Comprehensive study.
• Systematic process.
• Periodic activity.
• Independently conducted.
• Critical review of marketing activities.
• Evaluates marketing activities.
• Finds out opportunities and weaknesses.
• Preventative and curative marketing medicine.

The marketing audit is having four major characteristics: It should be comprehensive and broad in focus covering the entire marketing environment of the company. It should be an objective exercise and independent of the managers directly involved in making the marketing decisions.

Aspects covered in a marketing audit include:

• A SWOT analysis.
• Customer and prospect research.
• Competitor analysis.
• Market overview – external factors covering a PESTLE analysis.
• Marketing overview of your Internal factors assessing levels of internal communication.

A marketing audit is a full exploration and analysis of the entire marketing environment of a business, assessing everything from strategies and targets to specific marketing activities.

A marketing audit generally involves reviewing all existing business documents for clarity on goals and plans, compiling a list of strategies currently being executed, gathering input from key personnel in the business, and conducting research into external factors (competition, market, economy, industry, etc.).

There are four types of marketing control: the annual plan control, profitability control, efficiency control and strategic control. Table 3.1 shows the level of management which has responsibility for each of the types of control.

Marketing controls are of four types – strategic control, annual plan control, profitability control, and efficiency and effectiveness controls.

The 10 deadly sins of marketing

Marketing control is a crucial part of the marketing job. It is the role for ensuring that the marketing programmes and activities of the firm are always directed toward its marketing objectives. Marketing control provides the means of testing whether the desired goals and results are being achieved or not.

Definition: Marketing control refers to the measurement of the company’s marketing performance in terms of the sales revenue generated, market share captured, and profit earned. Here, the actual result is compared with the standard set, to find out the deviation and make rectifications accordingly.

The marketing process consists of four elements: strategic marketing analysis, marketing-mix planning, marketing implementation, and marketing control.