Representative audit
A sample marketing audit, made concrete.
An accessible fictional report showing the format and analysis style we use to turn marketing-system uncertainty into an ordered correction plan.
Fictional example only. This page describes a fictional EU B2B software company and is not client work, a testimonial, or a result claim.
Company context
Northstar Ledger is a fictional EU B2B software company selling compliance workflow software to finance teams across Europe.
Audit scope
Campaign taxonomy, consent-aware measurement, CRM lifecycle data, attribution rules, and reporting governance.
Executive summary
The fictional system has useful channel activity but weak shared definitions. The fastest path to dependable decisions is to standardize campaign inputs, preserve source data through the CRM lifecycle, and give every report a named owner and freshness rule.
Sample findings
01 // Campaign taxonomy and UTMs are inconsistent
Priority: High- Example evidence
- The same acquisition campaign uses different source, medium, and naming patterns across paid search, paid social, and partner links.
- Business risk
- Channel comparisons and campaign-level decisions become unreliable because records cannot be grouped consistently.
- Recommended correction
- Publish a naming convention with required UTM fields, examples, and an owner for exceptions.
- Verification criterion
- A sampled campaign set passes the naming rule and every destination preserves the required UTM fields.
02 // Consent state is not consistently propagated
Priority: High- Example evidence
- Measurement destinations receive different consent signals depending on whether a visitor arrives from the product site, a campaign landing page, or an embedded form.
- Business risk
- The organization cannot explain which measurements were allowed or reproduce a defensible data-flow record.
- Recommended correction
- Map consent states to every measurement destination and test the allowed/blocked behavior for each state.
- Verification criterion
- Automated checks show the same consent decision is honored across the documented destination matrix.
03 // CRM lead-source data is overwritten
Priority: High- Example evidence
- Lifecycle updates replace the original source value with the latest campaign or owner entry instead of preserving first-touch and latest-touch fields separately.
- Business risk
- Marketing and revenue teams lose the history needed to interpret pipeline movement and source quality.
- Recommended correction
- Make original source immutable, add explicit latest-source fields, and document the update rules.
- Verification criterion
- A test lead retains original source after qualification, reassignment, and opportunity-stage updates.
04 // Marketing and finance have no shared attribution rules
Priority: Medium- Example evidence
- Marketing reports optimize to platform-reported conversions while finance reviews booked revenue using a different grouping and time basis.
- Business risk
- Budget conversations become debates about definitions instead of decisions about demand and economics.
- Recommended correction
- Agree on a small attribution glossary, reporting grain, time window, and reconciliation owner.
- Verification criterion
- A monthly reconciliation produces the same agreed dimensions in both the marketing and finance views.
05 // Reports lack definitions, freshness, and accountable owners
Priority: Medium- Example evidence
- Dashboards show labels without metric definitions, last-refresh timestamps, or a named person responsible for resolving data gaps.
- Business risk
- Readers cannot tell whether a number is current, comparable, or safe to use for a decision.
- Recommended correction
- Add a data dictionary, freshness indicator, source note, and owner to every decision-critical report.
- Verification criterion
- A reviewer can trace each priority metric to its definition, source, last refresh, and accountable owner.
90-day remediation roadmap
0-30 days
Make definitions explicit
- Approve campaign and UTM taxonomy.
- Map consent states and measurement destinations.
- Name owners for source data and reporting.
31-60 days
Protect the data flow
- Implement immutable original-source fields.
- Add consent-path tests.
- Publish the shared attribution glossary and reconciliation view.
61-90 days
Operate the system
- Add freshness and ownership metadata to reports.
- Run the first recurring marketing-finance reconciliation.
- Review exceptions and update the operating documentation.
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