New year, new goals: Kickstart Q1 with a digital marketing audit 

As office celebrations kick off, Christmas campaigns flood our screens, and LinkedIn fills with festive puns, attention naturally shifts to Q1 planning. While the holiday season is a time for personal reflection, it’s also the perfect moment for business leaders to assess what worked, what didn’t, and set strategic goals for the year ahead—starting with a digital marketing audit.

Not sure where to begin? You’re in the right place. We’ll walk you through what a digital marketing audit is, why it’s essential, and share expert tips to get started. And if you’d rather leave it to the pros, Codi is here to help!

Ready to do more than just get by in 2025? Let’s make it your best year yet.

 

What is a digital marketing audit? 

A digital marketing audit is a deep dive into your current strategy, analysing everything from paid ad campaigns and email marketing to social media, SEO and website performance. It helps pinpoint which channels are delivering results, where your highest ROI comes from and where there’s room for improvement. By benchmarking against competitors, you gain a clear picture of your market positioning and discover opportunities to refine your approach.

Think of it like an MOT for your marketing engine, an essential check-up to diagnose issues, fine-tune performance and ensure everything is running at peak efficiency.

 

Does my business need one?

The short answer – Yes. 

The slightly longer answer – Yes. All businesses need one. If you’re a SaaS start-up founder, CEO or marketer wanting to drive revenue, grow exponentially and get the most out of your marketing efforts in 2025, then a digital marketing audit should be on your Q1 priority list.

Here are just some of the many reasons why:

• Identify core marketing channels: An audit helps pinpoint both high and low-performing marketing channels, which can be extremely helpful when allocating resources.
• Maximise ROI: When you review campaign and channel performance and track ROI accurately, you can allocate your budget more effectively to the channels and tactics that yield the best results.
• Stay competitive: Benchmarking your performance against industry standards or competitors helps you to identify gaps in your own strategy and take inspiration from what’s working elsewhere. Plus, your competitors are probably doing an audit too.
• Inform your marketing strategy: A digital marketing audit should be part of a wider go-to-market strategy. Without a clear review of your current marketing efforts, how can you strategise successfully and set your business up for long-term growth?

 

 

Mastering the Marketing Audit: A Guide to Optimising Your Strategy

A couple of caveats before we get going: 

1. We know that most early-stage start-up founders or CEOs don’t have the time to carry out such a lengthy investigation. This section talks about what it SHOULD look like. Need support conducting your digital marketing audit? Codi has the expertise: Get in touch today.
2. Before jumping into your marketing audit you should ensure your business and marketing goals are clearly defined. Only by doing this first can you determine the extent to which your current efforts are in helping to hit those goals.  

All clear? Ok – Here’s what good looks like.

 

Q1: What’s working?

The first question you need to answer is which marketing efforts are truly working? This insight will guide you in deciding where to double down and invest more resources, and where to pull back.

To determine this, marketers within your team (or outsourced experts) should review individual marketing channels to discover:

• Which channels are currently driving demos? 
• How many customers are generated by each channel? 
• What is the first and last channel they engaged with before purchase?
• Which channels are generating SQLs?
• What channels are driving pipeline or closed won deals?

An effective audit looks beyond surface-level metrics. Let’s say you’re targeting highly relevant BoF (bottom of funnel) keywords with PPC (pay-per-click), and the CPC (cost-per-click) is high and the volume of traffic is low. It might be easy to say ‘turn it off’. But if that campaign has driven pipeline deals surmounting to thousands of pounds – it’s a successful campaign and shouldn’t be turned off.

And the same works in reverse for so-called ‘vanity metrics’. To see what is truly driving revenue, marketers must see beyond the stats that may look good, but don’t add any meaningful business value. Brutal honesty is a must.

 

Q2: What are the problem areas? 

Next consider your more troublesome areas. Is your main issue getting new leads? Or do you have a ton of leads sitting in your CRM that aren’t progressing? Where are you investing your budget and seeing little to no return?

Let’s take a common problem area we regularly encounter when working with series A and B start-ups: Too little time spent on closing existing pipeline opportunities. 

All too often SaaS start-ups fall into the trap of focusing all their time and resources on pipeline generation. Some businesses are already having good conversations with potential clients, but are struggling to convert.

Obviously every business is different, but because most marketing teams are measured on lead generation rather than revenue or retention, they don’t bother focusing here. 

The answer? Instead of pumping money into driving new leads, switch your attention to winning open pipeline opportunities and retaining and upselling to their existing customer base. 

 

Q3: How are channels performing compared to industry benchmarks?

The third question to consider within your audit will help to discover top performing channels and decide if the channel is performing to its full potential. Not only does this comparison offer an honest assessment of your efforts, it can also inform goal setting, resource allocation and justify marketing spend. 

For an idea of what good looks like, here are some B2B marketing benchmarks to aim for based on a Series A B2B SaaS company in operation for a couple of years: 

 

Email marketing:

For one-off campaigns:

• Open rate: +25%
• CTR: 2-3%
• Unsubscribe rates: Less than 1%

For lead nurture flows: 

• Open rate: +35%
• CTR: 8%
• Unsubscribe rate: Less than 1%

SEO/ Website:

Domain Authority: 20+ 

Site Health Score: 80+

Organic Traffic (as a % of total traffic): 50%+

Conversion Rate (website): 5%

Conversion Rate (Landing page): Around 20%

Bounce rate: 25-55%

Session duration: Around 4:26 minutes

Average form conversion: 2-3%

LinkedIn (organic):

• Average engagement rate: Small accounts (< 5,000 followers) 6%
• Average engagement rate: Large accounts  (100,000 + followers) 3%
• Post impressions: 4000-12000 per month

LinkedIn (paid):

Note: These will vary by audience and the type of campaign you’re running.

• Cost per click: Aim to keep these less than $5, less than $2 is very good
• Click-through rate (CTR): 0.5%+

Google Ads:

• Cost per click: Under $5 = good, under $2 = very good
• Click-through rate (CTR): 5%+ = good, 7%+ = excellent

Q4: What are my competitors doing?

As we’ve covered, analysing your competitors is a crucial part of any digital marketing audit. By gathering intelligence on their strategies and performance, you can uncover valuable insights, spot potential gaps and refine your own approach for a competitive edge.

This applies to industry leaders as well, even those outside your direct competition. Study the strategies of the companies you admire, from how their CEO engages on LinkedIn to their use of webinars, user conferences or other thought leadership tactics. Their success can offer valuable insights to elevate your own approach.

 

Kick-off 2025 with a digital marketing audit

The value of a digital marketing audit is hard to ignore. Not only does it help to uncover critical business insights relating to the health of your existing marketing efforts and performance, but businesses can allocate resources more effectively and gather valuable direction in helping to build their go-to-market strategy. 

Whether you’re sold on the importance but lack the in-house resources to make it happen, or are keen to find out more about digital marketing audits in general, Codi’s SaaS marketing experts can help. 

Specialising in fuelling growth for Series A and B SaaS start-ups, our experts seamlessly integrate into your team to fill marketing gaps and deliver flexible, hands-on support. Every partnership begins with a deep-dive marketing audit, equipping you with clear insights and a strategic roadmap to accelerate growth and hit your 2025 revenue targets.

Ready to finally start seeing results from your marketing? Get New Year ready with Codi.