Built for Clarity
How to perform a Growth audit, step by step?
📆 June 20, 2025
A growth audit is not just a checklist. It is a structured process that brings clarity to what is really happening in your marketing. The goal is simple: understand what drives performance, identify where value is leaking, and build a roadmap that points resources toward what matters most.
Over the years, I have performed countless audits across different businesses and industries. Each case is different, but the framework is consistent. Here are the key steps I look at when running a growth audit.
Step 1
Bring the data together
Every audit starts with pulling the essentials into one place. Ad platforms, affiliate reports, CRM, retention flows, analytics dashboards. When these systems do not talk to each other, it becomes impossible to see the real story. The first task is making sure the data is consistent, reliable, and complete. Without that, everything else falls apart.
Step 2
Find the hidden waste
Most businesses are losing more than they realise. Discount codes that eat into margins, affiliates rewarded for work they did not do, budgets chasing low quality traffic. Cutting through these inefficiencies often produces quick wins. You cannot scale effectively until you stop the leaks.
Step 3
Focus on value, not just cost
Acquisition cost is important, but it only tells half the story. It is important to look at lifetime value by cohort, repeat purchase behaviour, and customer retention. The real growth comes from understanding which customers are worth acquiring and how to increase their contribution over time.
Step 4
Test for incrementality
One of the most overlooked parts of an audit is asking: is this campaign bringing in new customers, or is it just recycling the same ones? Incrementality testing separates true growth from inflated numbers. Knowing the difference changes everything about where and how you spend.
Step 5
Turn findings into a roadmap
An audit should never end as a static report. The real outcome is a prioritised plan: the quick fixes, the medium-term optimisations, and the long-term bets. That plan becomes the playbook for how you scale with clarity and control.
Closing thoughts
This is the framework I use, but each audit uncovers something unique. The details depend on your business, your data, and your goals. What I can say is this: a proper audit almost always reveals opportunities that are bigger than expected.
If you want to see what those opportunities look like for your business, the best way to start is simple: book a free 30-minute call with me.
