Conducting a
Digital Media Audit

A digital media audit is an assessment of how well you are deploying digital strategies and tactics to maximize efficiency and effectiveness. 

It can include an assessment of how well your digital media platforms (such as demand-side-platforms, Facebook Ads or Google Ads) are set up, what audiences and inventory you're buying, how buys are performing, how well you’re mitigating risks – especially brand safety and ad fraud – optimization tactics and much more. 

This valuable information will help you understand how your digital set-up and approach is contributing towards your marketing goals and how you can improve efficiency and effectiveness. 

It will provide you with:

• An inventory of your digital campaigns and how they contribute to your goals;

• Strengths and weaknesses of your current set up and approach;

• Risk exposure and investment waste in your current tactics;

• A strategy for how to optimize and get more value from your digital channels;

• Benchmarks for future reporting; and

• Key priorities to know where to focus your attention now and in the future.

Conducting a digital audit is the first step in any progressive digital strategy. You’ll know what’s working and what’s not. It is a must for media directors and procurement.

Media auditing has been a standard media management practice for many years. Historically, it has been used by procurement teams to assess agency capabilities based on their buying power and ability to secure the best possible price for traditional mass media buying. 

There has been little change to auditing practices over the last 40 years, despite significant evolutions in consumer behavior and media consumption. Traditional methodologies such as like-for-like media price comparison year-over-year or versus industry benchmarks continue to be used. These techniques worked well when investment was predominantly in linear TV, with limited buying choices and agencies competing head-to-head for inventory. 

However, they do not work for modern, fragmented and, typically auction-based, digital media buys.

 

Digital has changed the dynamics of media buying in three ways: 

 

Numerous choices

Unlike traditional TV, digital media planning choices are infinite. There are numerous different formats, environments and audiences and there are multiple ways to buy the same media (e.g. in programmatic the same placement can be bought direct, via open marketplace, programmatic guaranteed, private or curated marketplaces). 

 

Price is driven by data and context, not buying power

In digital media buying, price is not set up front, but during the auction for each impression. Efficiency is optimized by analyzing data and context, not negotiating on price. Both traders and algorithms leverage technology to buy media in an automated way based on data signals for each individual impression.

Countless variables influence impression price (audience, geo, device, format, browser, location, KPI etc.) The same inventory will be bought at a different price minute by minute. Comparison year-on-year is meaningless. 

Instead, the vast data available provides an opportunity for advertisers to evaluate whether agencies are effectively using data in their buying and optimization choices to eliminate waste and maximize value.

 

Digital evolves at pace

Digital media delivery rarely stays the same. New channels, platforms and features emerge daily, with the major platforms, such as Google Display and Video 360, The Trade Desk, Google Ads, or Facebook Ads, releasing thousands of product updates every year. Opportunities are timely and need to be actioned quickly to maximize impact. Annual media audits are no longer fit for purpose.

Advertisers that have continued with the traditional methods of media auditing have seen their percentage of media held accountable diminish, as more and more investment has shifted to digital. Savvy advertisers have instead recognized that the modern digital media audit needs to focus on what impacts price in an auction; analysis of data, platform set-up and agency optimization productivity. 

 

Digital media auditing needs to go beyond retrospective analysis and be more proactive. It should mitigate risks and errors today and inform digital strategy for tomorrow, with ongoing insights to capitalize on tactical and optimization opportunities that deliver against your marketing goals.

 

Wherever you are on your journey with digital auditing, advertisers need to govern digital investment for quality control, tactical evolution and optimization. 

It can be hard to know where to start, right? Digital auctions are complex beasts but getting an audit that speaks your language and delivers quick wins is more straightforward than you think.

 

Here are six simple tips to get you started: 

 

Be clear on your objectives – You need a north star to keep you focused. What are you trying to achieve? Is it greater agency accountability? Better fee transparency? A better understanding of risk exposure? Whatever your goal, be clear about it to ensure a tailor-made audit that delivers.

 

Align stakeholders, especially media and procurement – A digital media audit can be an effective tool to align procurement and media on media priorities. It delivers better accountability, greater value and improved partnerships. But ahead of an audit, it is important to ensure buy in from all stakeholders. 

 

Identify channel and platform priorities – A digital media audit is conducted on a channel specific basis to identify the nuances and best practices of what delivers results for each channel, platform and algorithm. Identify where you spend the most, or the channel or platform that drives the lion's share of your business outcomes.

 

Enlist support of an independent consultant / auditor – An audit should be independent of the team managing your media, whether that be an in-house or outsourced team. While agency-owned digital audits can be useful, these often prioritize protecting the agency over transparency. Enlisting support from an independent digital media auditing consultancy such as ID Comms can provide the expertize needed to reduce complexity and ensure a seamless process.

 

Involve the agency – A digital media audit should not be about policing, but helping the agency to deliver better digital media value for your business. Ensure a collaborative approach that gets agency input and aligns with them on a clear action plan.

 

Don’t be a perfectionist – An audit is about learning what you can do better. There are many challenges in digital media buying, some of which require industry-wide change to resolve. But if you make digital auditing an iterative process, you can drive ongoing continuous improvement, better your position, reduce your risk and maximize growth for your business.

A digital audit should include a robust and comprehensive data analysis of your digital marketing platforms.

There are key areas that a digital marketing audit should evaluate:

• Spend and performance

• Audience and buys

• Optimization and productivity

 

 

Spend and performance

A digital audit should review all of your digital media spend within a channel to gain full transparency of costs and fees and better understand performance.

Investment and Fees – Who did you pay for what?

It is important that advertisers verify what was bought and how spend was distributed at a granular level. 

KPIs – How did it perform?

Digital media requires a constant review of what worked and what didn’t. A digital audit should review digital media performance by evaluating KPIs over time and identifying trends. 

Billing & Reporting – Are accounts consistent?

An audit should include a comparison of spend and delivery counts in advertiser reports, platform interfaces, ad server reports, reconciliation reports, media owner and agency invoices and ensure invoices are based on the correct costs or counts. 

Access and Ownership – Do you have visibility?

Your digital platforms hold sensitive information about your business. It’s important that you can access all that data and that you have legal ownership of your brand’s accounts and pages. 

 

 

Audiences and buys

A granular analysis of your audiences and what you are buying enables you to identify what within your strategy is working and what is not and identify any risks. 

Objectives – Are platform strategies aligned to your goals?

Digital buying algorithms rely on data and guidance from media buyers. An audit should assess whether in-platform strategies, objectives and KPIs align to your goals and the right inputs are given to algorithms.

Audiences, Data and Targeting – Is your targeting relevant?

Digital audiences do not always translate directly to planned audiences, so assessing their relevance is crucial. An audit should include a breakdown of the audiences you are buying, the data source, and an assessment of the return on any data costs. 

Formats, Inventory & Supply – What placements did you buy and how?

Understand what ad formats are being bought, where ads are showing up and whether the route to placement is as efficient and optimized as possible (e.g. optimizing supply paths in programmatic media or keyword matching in search). 

Quality & Standards – Are quality and risk actively managed?

A digital audit should assess whether you are investing with known safe partners and levels of ad fraud exposure. It should determine viewability and whether ads are likely to have been seen and noticed.

 

 

Optimization and productivity

An evaluation of the quality of optimization and the productivity of your digital media managers will identify further opportunities to drive efficiencies and improve media effectiveness. 

Budgets, Bidding & Algorithms – Are budgets and bid strategies effective?

Algorithms need direction, and bids need to be optimized manually as well to ensure you remain competitive. Optimization productivity and budget prioritization for your best performing products, campaigns or placements should be reviewed.

Campaign structure – Do platform campaign structures maximize insight?

Assess campaign structure and naming conventions for improvement opportunities to generate incremental insight, drive efficiencies in operations, enable more informed optimizations, and improve the accuracy of reporting and measurement. 

Creative Optimization – Is continuous creative testing deployed?

Creative and landing page testing is crucial to ensure relevance to the consumer. A digital audit should review your test and learn approach and productivity and identify poor performing elements that should be removed or refined.

Measurement & Tracking – Is everything tracked and measured holistically?

Mistakes in tracking implementation can be costly, and impact decision making. An audit should ensure everything is correctly tracked and media value is being measured by a single source of truth across channels.

 

 

This may sound like a lot, but that’s because there is so much data available through digital platforms that there’s much that can be done to improve media value. 

It doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You don’t have to audit everything all at once. Every advertiser has different digital media capabilities and is at a different stage of development. The beauty of digital media is that there is always incremental value to be found.

Wherever you are on your journey, you just have to commit to start. ID Comms can help you identify the right starting point for your business. 

A digital media audit is a critical component of a media director and procurement team’s arsenal. It helps advertisers to gain better transparency and control over digital investments, generate greater value and reduce waste. Moreover, it can be a tool to foster better partnerships and inform longer term strategic media priorities.

Today’s digital media audit must focus on what impacts price in an auction; analysis of data, platform set-up and agency productivity.

Enlisting support from an independent auditor can add significant value, reducing complexity and ensuring a smooth process. Look for partners that are collaborative with your agency and demonstrate benefit beyond the initial audit, identifying the ‘so what?’ to deliver actionable and long-term benefits.

We believe that advertisers need to untangle complexities and build their knowledge of auction-based buying to regain control over buying decisions, revamp contracts to de-risk investment, and implement operational standards to drive improved efficiency and effectiveness. Those that do will gain a competitive advantage.