The 30K-Foot Audit: Conducting an Internal Audit of Your Digital Marketing Strategy
By: Shmuel Herschberg, CMO, Built To Scale – Growth Agency
Its the season of audit.
History is full of leaders who took stock of what they were doing, identified weaknesses, and turned defeat into victory. Think of any hero you admire – every one of them had an “audit moment.”
Now that we’re aligned on the value of regular reflection – I recommend at least two audits a year –let’s dive into how to actually do one. “Audit” is a buzzword tossed around constantly, yet few explain how to execute it effectively.
I’m going to show you how to run a 30K-Foot Audit: how to see the forest and the trees. Whether you’re a CEO, managing a team, or running paid traffic, buckle up because this is the kind of power audit most marketers overlook and the kind of information your competition hopes you don’t know about.
Today’s offer owners in the affiliate world fight on multiple battlefields: ad accounts, affiliates, creatives, funnels, attribution models. In the rush to scale, perspective slips away. That’s where the 30K-Foot Audit comes in. It’s a structured internal + external review that helps you regain visibility across three dimensions: operations, platforms, and performance metrics.
Operations Audit: Who’s Really Flying the Plane?
Let’s start with the cockpit – your team.
When offers scale, chaos often creeps in not because people are bad at their jobs, but because roles blur. Who’s actually leading the strategy? Who’s executing on this? And who’s responsible for creative iteration and funnel optimization?
Every high-performing growth team needs four key roles:
- A strategist who sees the big picture, i.e., funnel alignment, messaging, attribution, etc.
- A media buyer who executes with precision.
- A creative team that supplies ad visuals, hooks, and landing page copy that drive conversions.
- A manager that ensures this A-team works in sync.
People can wear multiple hats, but each hat must have clear boundaries. A strategist doubling as a media buyer can work if the designer is highly autonomous – but if that designer needs direction, performance will suffer.
All too often, you’ll see teams with the first 3 roles filled, but no one is taking a manager role and making sure everything is in sync. This has to be addressed
An operations audit maps ownership, workflows, and accountability. It reveals where projects stall or overlap. That’s why many offer owners bring in external partners. This is not to replace the team, but to orchestrate it. Because without a conductor, even the best musicians produce noise, not harmony.
Platform Audit: Are We Playing the Same Game?
Once your team’s aligned, it’s time to ask: are we on the right field?
Most offer owners default to what’s familiar: Meta, Google, and some Amazon. And for good reason!
These are the iron horses and remain the top pillars of paid traffic. In fact, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta together are expected to capture 55.8% of all ad spend this year! But here’s the catch: familiarity breeds stagnation.
And in a trillion dollar market, even a sliver can translate into 6, 7, or even 8-figure profits for your business. As Pat Flynn said, “The riches are in the niches.” He meant products, but here I apply it to platforms. Because the biggest returns often come from channels you’re barely touching.
At Built To Scale, we’ve seen breakout results on TikTok and Snapchat for nutraceutical and e-commerce offers, and exceptional ROAS from native placements like Outbrain, NewsBreak, and AppLovin. These aren’t fringe experiments – they’re scalable ecosystems with engaged, niche audiences.
So take a moment and think about what the low hanging fruit here is. Are you in a space where your landing pages read like advertorials or would be a hit on QVC? If so, native might be calling your name. How about video content? Does your brand hit it out of the park on YouTube? If so, TikTok or Snap should be your next splash!
A platform audit evaluates whether you’re allocating your budget intelligently across channels. It asks:
- Are affiliates promoting angles that align with your paid ads?
- Is Meta driving search lift on Google?
- Are you retargeting effectively across channels?
- Are you leveraging programmatic native for reach and incremental sales?
And don’t forget email marketing, which is still the highest-ROI channel in digital. (According to Litmus, every $1 spent on email in 2025 returns about $36 in revenue.) A robust email strategy reactivates leads, boosts lifetime value (LTV), and gives you margin flexibility across paid media.
When your platforms work in tandem with affiliates/media buyers feeding top of the funnel, paid ads driving search intent, email maximizing post-purchase value, then scaling feels smooth. When they don’t, every dollar feels like it hits a turbulence bubble.
Stats Audit: Flip the Funnel and Follow the Money
Now it’s time to get numerical.
Most marketers look at funnels from the top down: impressions → clicks → conversions → revenue. But that view hides the truth. The 30K-Foot Audit flips the funnel. Start from the bottom and trace backward like a navigator.
First, establish your profit anchors:
- ROI or ROAS per channel
- Cost per acquisition (CPA)
- Average order value (AOV)
- Refund and rebill rates
If your ROAS looks healthy but refund rates are climbing, that’s a leak. If affiliates send high-volume, low-quality traffic, that’s another leak. By anchoring on profit instead of vanity metrics, you see what’s actually working.
And when it comes to affiliate marketing, remember that he who holds the gold makes the golden rule – meaning, if your competitor shines up their product and makes it all attractive, you could find yourself in a vacuum with no affiliate revenue. To mitigate this, make sure you have the right acquisition marketing strategy that allows you to “compete” with your affiliates. Remember, there’s nothing like a little friendly competition.
Plus, when you’re in the cockpit, you’re in control and have full visibility to dig into the micro-metrics:
- Device performance – maybe iOS placements outperform Android by 20%.
- Placement waste – certain ad slots on native platforms may drain 10% of your spend.
- Creative-to-audience fit – CTR might be fine, but CVR is tanking because the angle doesn’t match buyer intent.
Remember, when pressed most marketers admit they still can’t tie ad spend directly to revenue. That’s why a Stats Audit matters. It restores clarity by connecting spend → conversion → value in one line of sight.
And here’s a ninja tip that the pros are gatekeeping from you: When you look at data, go for source data. Don’t just look at “manipulated” pivot tables; rather, start with the data and build out your reports – by hand, a BI tool, or with the help of AI. Just start from scratch and when you look at your data this way, you’re not chasing pre-conceived impressions – you’re chasing real efficiency.
Why You Need the Audit (and Why It’s Hard to Self-Audit)
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: offer owners are too close to the problem.
When you’re knee-deep in affiliates, creatives, and media spend, you can’t always spot misalignment. You’re operating in the weeds – optimizing, approving, adjusting. But growth requires altitude.
That’s where an external audit changes the game.
Most marketers, when campaigns plateau, tweak budgets or targeting. But that’s like trying to let auto-pilot land a plane (just ask any pilot and they’ll tell you it’s not a good idea!). The problem usually lies deeper – in creative fatigue, broken handoffs, or misaligned channel strategy. A good audit finds those cracks and patches them before you double spend.
The 30K-Foot Mindset
Running an audit isn’t just a tactical exercise – it’s a mindset. It forces you to slow down and evaluate your marketing ecosystem as a whole.
At 30,000 feet, you stop asking “What’s wrong with this ad?” and start asking “What’s wrong with our system?” This is a monumental change in how the question is framed. It’s almost like when you’re flying over a forest, you can see dead trees and spot problems – something you could never detect when surveying from the ground.
Here’s a quick framework to run your own audit starting tomorrow:
- Operations: List every role touching your funnel. Who owns the strategy? Who executes? Who reviews data?
- Platforms: Map your traffic sources. Where are you overspending? Where are you absent?
- Stats: Identify the three metrics that most directly predict profit – and measure everything else against them.
If any of those areas feel murky, you already know where to start.
The Call to Action: Stop Flying Blind
If you’re an offer owner relying on affiliates, creatives, and paid ads – it’s time to take your 30K-foot audit.
Audit your team. Audit your channels. Audit your numbers.
You don’t need more chaos. You need clarity. And clarity starts with an audit.
About the Author:
A sought-out keynote speaker and KOL, Shmuel Herschberg is a seasoned marketing executive, who lives and breathes digital marketing. He is the CMO of Built To Scale, a global agency that offers creative marketing, content strategy, and paid media services.
With over 20 years of experience, Shmuel possesses a unique blend of technological awareness coupled with strategic thinking and customer psychology. This enables him to translate customer needs into actionable, winning strategies. He also enjoys photography and mountain biking.
If you’d like to learn more about Shmuel – whether it’s to appear on your podcast, speak at your conference/mastermind, or conduct a digital marketing audit for your business , please let us know.