Paid Media Audit and Strategy

marketFX digital helps brands identify wasted media spend, tracking issues, budget misallocation, audience overlap, creative fatigue, and campaign structure problems — across Google, Meta, TikTok, YouTube, programmatic, and CTV.

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Platforms reviewed

Every platform that touches your media plan

One audit, one team, one prioritized read across paid search, paid social, video, programmatic, and CTV.

Google Ads

Performance Max

Meta Ads

TikTok Ads

YouTube

Demand Gen

Programmatic

Connected TV

Retargeting

Paid social

Paid search

What we analyze

The full performance marketing stack

From account architecture to incrementality — the signals that decide whether spend compounds or quietly leaks.

Campaign structure

Account architecture, naming conventions, and the campaign/ad group splits that decide whether bidding signals stay clean.

Budget allocation

Spend distribution across channels, campaigns, geographies, and funnel stages — measured against contribution, not last click.

Conversion tracking

Pixel and server-side event coverage, deduplication, conversion definitions, and parity between platforms and the CRM.

Audience segmentation

First-party lists, lookalikes, exclusions, and overlap analysis — making sure acquisition is not paying for retention.

Frequency

Per-user impression and view frequency by audience and creative, including the diminishing-returns curve.

Creative rotation

Creative volume, fatigue cycles, winners and losers, and how new concepts are introduced into testing.

Keyword quality

Match types, intent alignment, negative keyword hygiene, and the share of spend going to commercial vs informational queries.

Search terms

Actual queries triggering ads — surfacing junk, brand cannibalization, and missed long-tail opportunity.

Landing page alignment

Message match, page speed, friction points, and the gap between ad promise and post-click experience.

Attribution

Model selection, lookback windows, view-through treatment, and the integrity of the numbers driving budget decisions.

Incrementality

Geo holdouts, ghost ads, conversion lift, and a defensible read on what spend is actually causing — not just correlated with — revenue.

Funnel coverage

Awareness, consideration, conversion, and retention — mapped against current spend and the gaps where pipeline leaks.

Pair this with marketing analytics and reporting to fix the measurement layer feeding every platform — or take the wider lens with full-funnel marketing audit services.

Problems we often find

The patterns that quietly cap performance

Almost every paid media audit surfaces a version of these. The cost is rarely one big leak — it is several small ones compounding across the account.

High frequency

The same audience served the same creative dozens of times — driving up cost-per-action and brand fatigue with no incremental lift.

Overbroad targeting

Performance Max and broad-match campaigns running unchecked, swallowing budget into low-intent placements that never convert.

Duplicate conversions

The same action counted across multiple platforms, inflating reported ROAS and corrupting the bidding signals every algorithm relies on.

Branded search cannibalization

Paying for branded clicks that would have come through organic — inflating performance metrics while reducing true incremental revenue.

Poor acquisition vs retention separation

Retargeting and prospecting fighting for the same impressions, with no clean read on what each is actually delivering.

Low-quality search terms

Aggressive auto-expansion sending budget to irrelevant queries — the audit usually surfaces 20–40% of spend going to terms that should be negatived.

Creative not matched to funnel stage

Conversion-focused creative shown to cold audiences, brand creative shown to in-market buyers — and no system for matching message to intent.

No clear testing plan

Tests with no hypothesis, no minimum sample size, and no decision criteria — so nothing learned compounds and the same questions get re-asked.

Deliverables

What you receive

A complete, written engagement deliverable — not a screenshot tour. Every recommendation is prioritized, owned, and tied to a 90-day execution plan.

Paid media findings deck

An executive narrative of what we found, what it costs you, and what to do about it — built for the leadership table, not the trade desk.

Waste analysis

A line-by-line read on where current spend is going, what is incremental, and the dollar value of the waste sitting in plain sight.

Budget reallocation plan

A specific re-allocation across channels, campaigns, and funnel stages — with expected impact on CAC, ROAS, and pipeline contribution.

Channel role clarity

A clear job-to-be-done for every channel — what it is for, what it is not for, and how it interacts with the rest of the mix.

90-day test roadmap

Prioritized tests with named hypotheses, sample-size targets, owners, and decision criteria — sequenced so learnings compound.

Measurement recommendations

Conversion definitions, server-side event spec, attribution model, and the dashboards needed to govern the program going forward.

Creative and audience recommendations

Concrete creative briefs, audience structures, and exclusion logic — so execution can start the week the audit lands.

Inside every audit

Account-by-account spend, ROAS, and CAC reconciliation
Conversion tracking and server-side event review
Audience overlap and frequency analysis
Search-term and placement waste report
Creative performance and fatigue read
Channel role and budget reallocation model
90-day prioritized test roadmap

FAQ

Paid media audits, answered

How long does a paid media audit take?

Most paid media audits run two to three weeks from kickoff to final deliverable. Quick-win findings — duplicate conversions, missing exclusions, obvious waste — are shared as soon as they surface so your team can act before the full report lands.

Which platforms do you audit?

Google Ads, Performance Max, Demand Gen, Microsoft Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads, YouTube, Reddit, programmatic display and video, Connected TV, retargeting platforms, and retail media networks. The audit covers whichever combination is in your current stack.

What spend level makes a paid media audit worth it?

The economics typically work above roughly $30,000 per month in paid media spend, where the dollar value of identified waste and reallocation comfortably exceeds the audit fee. Below that, a lighter consulting engagement usually delivers more value than a full audit.

How do you measure wasted spend?

Waste is measured against contribution, not last-click. We combine search-term reports, placement reports, audience overlap, frequency curves, branded vs non-branded splits, and — where data allows — geo holdout or conversion lift tests to isolate spend that is not driving incremental revenue.

Will the audit work if our tracking is broken?

Yes — and it usually is, at least partially. A full tracking review is part of the audit. We document what is broken, what the impact is on bidding and reporting, and the specific server-side events, deduplication rules, and conversion definitions needed to fix it before the next budget decision.

Do you work with our existing media agencies?

Yes. The audit is read-only and vendor-neutral. We assess outcomes, not relationships, and share findings transparently with you and your existing partners. The deliverable shows where current work is producing measurable value and where a different approach would unlock growth.

What reporting do you recommend after the audit?

A weekly operating dashboard tied to leading indicators (spend pacing, CPMs, CTR, CVR, CAC, frequency) and a monthly executive view tied to lagging outcomes (revenue, contribution margin, blended CAC, payback). Both reference the same conversion definitions to keep numbers consistent across the business.

When should we reallocate budget across channels?

After tracking is trusted, after the channel role for each platform is defined, and after enough data exists to read incrementality — not before. Reallocating on noisy last-click data tends to swing budget toward whichever platform takes the most credit, which is rarely the same as whichever platform drives the most incremental revenue.

Request a paid media audit

We will benchmark your current paid program — spend, tracking, structure, creative, and incrementality — and return a prioritized 90-day plan to recover waste and lift performance.

Book a consultation

Paid media audit and strategy services for enterprise, franchise, multi-location, and DTC brands. We surface wasted spend, tracking issues, budget misallocation, audience overlap, creative fatigue, and campaign structure problems — and return a prioritized 90-day test roadmap.

Full-Stack Omni-Channel Marketing · Scottsdale, AZ · Vancouver, B.C.

Performance Led

Brand Growth

A unified, full stack marketing team built for revenue accountability. Strategy, paid, SEO, content, social, and CRM operating as one integrated growth engine powered by AI and proactive consumer and platform shifts.

marketFX digital provides paid media audit and strategy services across Google Ads, Performance Max, Meta, TikTok, YouTube, Demand Gen, programmatic, Connected TV, retargeting, paid social, and paid search. We analyze campaign structure, budget allocation, conversion tracking, audience segmentation, frequency, creative rotation, keyword quality, search terms, landing page alignment, attribution, incrementality, and funnel coverage — and return a paid media findings deck, waste analysis, budget reallocation plan, channel role clarity, 90-day test roadmap, measurement recommendations, and creative and audience recommendations.