What this question bank is for
A marketing audit question bank turns "how is marketing doing?" into a structured interview with your own team. Instead of debating opinions, you walk through specific, checkable questions — is tracking verified, is the plan written down, does budget move when data says it should — and score each answer. The scores tell you where marketing is solid and where it's quietly leaking money.
Score every question on a 1-5 scale: a 1 means the practice isn't in place at all, a 3 means it happens partially or is undocumented, and a 5 means it's strong, consistent, and written down. Be strict: if you can't point to evidence — a dashboard, a document, a report — cap the score at 3. Anything scored 1 or 2 is a priority fix and should go straight onto your action plan.
The 76 questions, chapter by chapter
Eight chapters mirror the eight areas of our audit framework. Each opens with what a strong score looks like, so you know the bar you're scoring against.
1. Strategy & Goals
A strong score here means the plan is written down, the team can recite the priorities, and every goal traces to a revenue number. Weakness in this chapter multiplies problems everywhere else.
- Is there a written marketing plan covering at least the next two quarters, with numeric targets attached?
- Could each person on the team independently list this quarter's top three marketing priorities?
- Do sales and marketing work from the same written ideal customer profile (ICP)?
- Does every marketing goal trace to a specific revenue, pipeline, or retention number?
- Is there a positioning statement that names your real competitors and states why a buyer should pick you instead?
- Have you documented which segments or verticals you deliberately do not pursue?
- When did leadership last review and update the marketing strategy — and is that review on a recurring calendar?
- Are win/loss reasons from recent deals fed back into messaging and targeting decisions?
- Is there a shared, written definition of a qualified lead that sales has signed off on?
- If your budget were cut 30% tomorrow, could you say from data — not instinct — what you would cut first?
2. Analytics & Measurement
Strong teams can answer performance questions in minutes because tracking is verified, conventions are enforced, and one dashboard is actually reviewed. If you can't measure it, the rest of the audit is guesswork.
- Has conversion tracking been tested end-to-end on every key action (forms, signups, purchases) in the last 90 days?
- Can you state cost-per-lead and cost-per-acquisition for each active channel without building a new report?
- Is there one dashboard the team reviews on a set cadence, with a named owner responsible for its accuracy?
- Could you name the source channel of your last ten customers?
- Are UTM naming conventions written down and enforced, so campaign data doesn't fragment?
- Do you distinguish first-touch from last-touch attribution — and know when each one misleads you?
- Is sales-assisted or offline revenue connected back to the campaigns that sourced it?
- Are key events and goals configured in your analytics tool, rather than relying on raw pageviews?
- When a metric moves sharply, is there a documented process for diagnosing why before reacting?
- Is tracking re-audited after every major website release or platform migration?
3. Website & Conversion
A strong website chapter means visitors instantly understand the offer, key pages have one job each, and conversion decisions come from experiments rather than opinions.
- Can a first-time visitor tell what you sell and who it's for within five seconds of landing on the homepage?
- Does each key page have exactly one primary call-to-action visible without scrolling?
- Do you know the visitor-to-lead conversion rate for your top five landing pages?
- Has at least one A/B test reached a conclusive result in the last quarter?
- Do core pages load in under three seconds on a mid-range mobile device?
- Is the social proof on your site current, specific, and verifiable — dated case studies, named customers, real numbers?
- Do forms ask only for fields you genuinely use, and do you know the drop-off each field causes?
- Is there a ranked backlog of conversion experiments with written hypotheses?
- Does someone review session recordings or heatmaps for friction at least monthly?
4. Content & SEO
A strong score means content is planned against documented keywords and customer questions, old pieces get refreshed, and you can point to content that influenced pipeline — not just traffic.
- Is every planned piece mapped to a target keyword or documented customer question before it's written?
- Do your priority pages earn impressions and clicks in Search Console — and does someone actually check?
- Is there a scheduled refresh pass for content older than twelve months?
- Do you have content for each funnel stage, from problem-aware posts to comparison and decision pages?
- Are you monitoring whether AI assistants and answer engines cite or summarize your content?
- Do internal links deliberately route authority toward your highest-value pages?
- Is there a repeatable content brief format, so quality doesn't depend on who writes the piece?
- Can you identify which content pieces influence pipeline and revenue, not just sessions?
- Are title tags and meta descriptions written intentionally on priority pages, not left to defaults?
- Have you pruned or consolidated pages that compete with each other for the same query?
5. Email & Automation
Strong teams treat automation as a revenue system: behavior-triggered sequences, clean two-way data sync, and flows whose revenue contribution is known — not a pile of one-off newsletters.
- Does every new lead enter an automated welcome or onboarding sequence within minutes, not days?
- Are leads scored or segmented so the best prospects get prioritized follow-up?
- Do your CRM and email platform sync both ways without manual exports?
- Is there a sunset policy that re-engages or removes subscribers who stop opening?
- Can you attribute revenue to individual automated flows, not just to email as a channel?
- Are emails triggered by user behavior — a pricing-page visit, a trial action — rather than only by time delays?
- Do you monitor deliverability signals (spam complaints, bounces, domain reputation) at least monthly?
- Is every automation documented clearly enough that a new hire could map the whole system in a day?
- Have subject lines, send times, or offers been tested in the last quarter with a recorded result?
6. Paid Media
A strong paid chapter means every channel earns its budget on down-funnel outcomes, losers get cut fast, and there's a written testing roadmap instead of set-and-forget campaigns.
- Does each active paid channel show a positive or clearly improving return on ad spend?
- Have losing campaigns been paused, restructured, or rebudgeted within the last 90 days?
- Is ad creative refreshed on a set cadence, before fatigue erodes performance?
- Is there a written testing roadmap covering audiences, creative, and offers for the next quarter?
- Does the landing page for every ad repeat the ad's promise in its headline and offer?
- Are paid channels judged on qualified leads and revenue rather than clicks and impressions?
- Are negative keywords, exclusion audiences, and placement filters reviewed on a schedule?
- Do you know each channel's marginal return — what the next $1,000 of spend would likely produce?
- Is conversion data fed back to the ad platforms (offline or enhanced conversions) so bidding optimizes on real value?
- Is brand traffic separated from non-brand in reporting, so paid results aren't flattered?
7. Budget & ROI
Strong budget discipline looks like spend documented by channel, money moving toward what works every quarter, and full-loaded ROI math that includes tools, agencies, and people — not just ad spend.
- Is total marketing spend documented by channel and reconciled against actuals every month?
- Do you follow a deliberate split between proven channels and experiments (for example, 70-20-10)?
- Was budget actually moved between channels last quarter because of performance data?
- Do you know your blended CAC and how it has trended over the last four quarters?
- Is there a payback expectation per channel, and is someone accountable when a channel misses it?
- Are agency, tooling, and freelancer costs included in channel ROI math — not just media spend?
- Is budget reserved every quarter to test at least one new channel or motion?
- Could you produce a marketing ROI summary for leadership within a day, not a week?
- Are underused tools and subscriptions audited at least twice a year?
8. Brand & Reputation
A strong brand chapter means consistent presentation everywhere buyers look, verified differentiation in customers' own words, and a working machine for collecting and publishing proof.
- Are logo, voice, and messaging consistent across your website, social profiles, ads, and sales materials?
- Is someone monitoring reviews and brand mentions at least weekly, with a response protocol?
- Have you verified — through interviews or surveys — that customers can articulate what makes you different?
- Is there a standing process for capturing and publishing customer proof: case studies, testimonials, quotes?
- Does referral or word-of-mouth traffic show up measurably in your acquisition data?
- Do you track branded search volume as a signal of brand strength over time?
- Is there a lightweight brand guideline that contractors and new hires actually receive?
- When negative feedback appears publicly, is there an agreed playbook for who responds and how?
- Are employees equipped and encouraged to share company content in a credible, non-scripted way?
How to run the audit
- Block focused time. An audit squeezed between meetings produces guesses. Put real sessions on the calendar and treat them like customer meetings.
- Take one chapter per sitting. Ten questions answered carefully beat eighty answered on autopilot. A chapter a day finishes the audit inside two weeks.
- Collect evidence, not opinions. For every score of 4 or 5, link the dashboard, document, or report that proves it. If the proof doesn't exist, neither does the 5.
- Turn 1s and 2s into a 30/60/90 plan. First 30 days: fix what's broken. Days 31-60: double down on what's working. Days 61-90: test something new with the budget you freed up.
Take these questions further
Download the scored spreadsheet version: the audit questions with scoring columns, evidence notes, and a 30/60/90-day action plan tab. Free, ungated.
The fast diagnostic layer: score your marketing across 20+ dimensions in 10-15 minutes and get a prioritized fix list before going deep on any chapter.
Frequently asked questions
How many questions does a marketing audit need?
Enough to cover every core function — strategy, measurement, website, content, email, paid, budget, and brand — without turning into a checkbox marathon. In practice that's 40 questions for a fast audit and 75-80 for a thorough one. Depth matters more than count: ten well-evidenced answers beat fifty guesses.
Who should answer marketing audit questions?
The people closest to each area: whoever runs paid media answers the paid chapter, whoever owns the website answers conversion, and leadership answers strategy. For small teams, one person can complete it all — but have a founder or second marketer score independently too, because the gaps between answers reveal blind spots.
How long does it take to work through all 76 questions?
Plan for 3-4 hours of focused work spread over a week if you collect real evidence for each answer, or about an hour if you score from memory first and verify only the low scores. Our interactive assessment compresses the same coverage into 10-15 minutes by scoring your answers automatically.
How do I score the answers?
Use a 1-5 scale: 1 means the practice doesn't exist, 3 means it happens partially or lives in someone's head, 5 means it's strong and documented. Require evidence — a report, a dashboard, a written doc — for anything scored 4 or above. Every 1 or 2 goes on the priority fix list.
How often should we run through the question bank?
Do a full pass once or twice a year — ideally before annual planning — and re-score only your weakest two or three chapters each quarter. Scores drift as people, tools, and channels change, so an audit older than a year is describing a different company.
Do I need an agency to run a marketing audit?
No. These questions are designed for self-service: they ask about observable facts, not judgment calls that require an outside expert. An agency or consultant adds value when you can't be objective about your own work or need benchmarks from other companies — but run the self-audit first so you know where to point them.
Skip the spreadsheet — get scored instantly
Answer these questions interactively and get your marketing score, per-chapter breakdown, and prioritized recommendations in 10-15 minutes. Free, no signup.