Carrying out an audit for paid social is such an integral part of being able to improve your current performance & strategy.

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You need to know where you are on a map, before you can navigate anywhere else.

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We’re going to run through all the things that make a successful audit for paid social, so you can find yourself on that map.

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1. What is an audit for paid social? 

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Well, simply put - it’s the process of going through your current and past paid activity to understand if your efforts are working or, your efforts need to be changed.

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Once you have completed an audit for paid social, you should be able to pinpoint areas that are working and areas that need improvement. 
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It’s important to note, try to take things one at a time, rather than changing everything at once. This will allow for granularity and isolation of issues that could be affecting your performance and progress.

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2. Goals & KPIs

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Ask yourself why you are using paid social, what is the main goal you want to achieve? 

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Is it more downloads for your mobile app? More customers to your online store? Increasing the LTV (Lifetime Value) of each customer perhaps?

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Once you have these reasons written down, you need to start figuring out what are the main KPIs that will allow you to achieve these goals.

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For example, if you are looking for more downloads of your mobile app your primary KPI might be CPI (Cost per install). 

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You can then supplement this main KPI with a few others, in this case they might be Impressions, Engagements, Engagement > Install Conversion Rate.

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Ultimately you are focused on one final result, however the secondary KPIs will give you a good understanding of how users are interacting with your paid social activity and provide direction for improvement. 

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3. Expectations

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This part is very important, but sometimes you won’t have access to all of the information you need. 

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The more you understand your industry benchmarks, the more realistic you can be with your expectations.

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For example, if you are spending 10 times more than your industry average on acquiring a customer or install, then there might be something wrong.

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Alternatively, if you are expecting to pay 10 times less in your forecasts, this can throw a spanner in the works when it comes to budgets and actual spend.

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I emphasise the word can, good marketing can allow you to pay 100’s if not 1000’s of times lower than industry averages if you get a good campaign or idea going (ask any seasoned growth hacker and they’ll be able to tell you about companies like Dropbox & Airbnb).