How to Audit Your Digital Marketing Before Hiring an Agency
Six checks you can run in an afternoon with free tools, so you hire against a baseline instead of a sales pitch. Includes the numbers to bring to the meeting.
A six-step self-audit to run before you brief an agency, so you know what is actually broken and can measure what changes.
TL;DR: Quick Answer
Six checks you can run in an afternoon with free tools, so you hire against a baseline instead of a sales pitch. Includes the numbers to bring to the meeting.
Key takeaways
- Very cheap quotes (under R5,000) almost always exclude copywriting, SEO, custom design and post-launch support
- Professional copywriting can represent 20-35% of a total website project cost, and is worth it for search visibility
- On-page SEO built into the website at launch costs a fraction of what it costs to retrofit after the site is live
- Hosting, SSL, domain and maintenance add R3,000-R10,000 per year on top of build cost
- E-commerce adds significant cost due to payment gateway integrations, product data, security requirements and checkout UX
- Timeline and client responsiveness directly affect cost: slow feedback rounds extend agency hours
Do this before you take a single agency meeting. It takes an afternoon, uses free tools, and it gives you two things you cannot get afterwards: a baseline to measure any agency against, and enough knowledge to tell a real diagnosis from a sales pitch.
1. Check that conversion tracking works
Fill in your own enquiry form. Then open Google Analytics and confirm the submission registered as a key event within about 30 minutes.
If nothing appears, stop here. Every report you have been reading is measuring traffic, not results, and this is the most common finding of the whole exercise. Do the same for clicks on your phone number and WhatsApp link.
2. Work out your conversion rate
Enquiries divided by sessions over the last 90 days. Two per cent to 5% is normal for a South African service business. Below 1% means the website is the problem and no agency can fix it with traffic.
Write the number down. It is the single most useful figure you will bring to any agency conversation.
3. Audit your Google Business Profile
Free, high-impact and routinely neglected. Check that the category is right and specific, that hours are current, that there are at least ten recent photographs, that services are listed with descriptions, and that reviews are being answered.
The dashboard shows how many people found you through search versus maps, and how many called or asked for directions. For a local business those numbers often reveal more than the website analytics do.
4. See what you actually rank for
Open Google Search Console, go to Performance and sort by impressions over the last three months. This shows the queries Google already associates with you.
Look for terms with many impressions and few clicks, which usually means you appear on page two and are close, and for terms with clicks but no enquiries, which points back at the landing page.
Then search your main service plus your city in an incognito window and note where you actually appear, including the map pack.
5. Find out where leads say they come from
If your form does not ask, add the question today: "How did you hear about us?" Meanwhile, ask your last twenty customers. The answers frequently contradict analytics, because signage, referrals and word of mouth never appear in a digital report.
6. Add up what you spend and what you get
| Record this | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Monthly spend per channel | Shows where money is actually going |
| Enquiries per month | The baseline any agency must beat |
| Cost per lead | Spend divided by enquiries |
| Close rate | Enquiries that become customers |
| Average customer value | Tells you what a lead is worth paying for |
Cost per lead against average customer value is the number that decides whether more marketing is worth buying at all.
Also check these while you are in there
Site speed on PageSpeed Insights, on mobile, where anything over five seconds is costing you enquiries. Whether the site is genuinely usable on a phone. Whether you hold the logins to your own website, domain, analytics, ad accounts and Business Profile, because agencies that own your accounts are hard to leave.
What to hand the agency
Conversion rate, monthly enquiries, spend per channel, cost per lead, top ranking terms, self-reported lead sources and the problems you already found. An agency given real numbers writes a proposal about your business. One given nothing writes a template.
It also changes the conversation. When someone claims your SEO is broken, you can ask which of your ranking terms they mean.
Juicy Designs runs this audit free before any engagement, no obligation. See what we do or get in touch. Related: hiring an agency for the first time and how to choose one.
Frequently asked questions
How do I audit my marketing before hiring an agency?
Check six things: whether conversions are actually being tracked, what your website converts at, whether your Google Business Profile is complete, what you currently rank for, where your leads say they come from, and what you are spending per lead. Most of it takes an afternoon and no paid tools.
Why audit before hiring rather than let the agency do it?
Because you need a baseline that predates the agency. Without it you cannot tell six months later whether things improved, and you cannot judge a proposal that claims problems you have no way to verify.
What is the first thing to check?
Whether conversion tracking works. Submit a test enquiry on your own site and confirm it registers in analytics. A surprising number of businesses discover their tracking has been broken for months, which invalidates every report they have been reading.
Do I need paid tools?
No. Google Analytics, Google Search Console, your Google Business Profile dashboard and PageSpeed Insights are free and cover most of it. Paid tools add competitor data, which is useful but not essential for a baseline.
What should I hand an agency at the first meeting?
Your conversion rate, monthly enquiry count, current spend per channel, cost per lead, top ranking terms and known problems. An agency given real numbers writes a proposal about your business rather than a template.