What is a digital audit?

Ideally, it is done at the beginning of a project to form a baseline of historical performance and to determine what channels can be used to ensure success. A digital audit can be viewed from different perspectives depending on the type of business, but the most common digital audits are conducted to help optimize digital assets for better ROI. Digital assets are assessed from three main perspectives:

• Technical: For optimization and improvement of assets where necessary
• Design: For quality assessment and to determine how better to present assets
• Communication: To fine tune messaging and determine if assets are communicating the right message to the intended audience

Why is a digital audit important?

A digital audit helps consolidate digital assets and provides a deeper understanding of how they work toward achieving your business goals. It also defines how they help bring about business transformation and determines what may need to be repurposed or discarded. Regular digital audits help identify weak or problematic areas of your business and amplify the effects of successful initiatives. Below are some of the benefits of a digital audit:

• It helps keep track of current projects and initiatives.
• It helps identify strengths and weaknesses so they can be properly addressed.
• It helps evaluate performance of competitors so you can set a benchmark for your own organization’s performance.
• It helps highlight the gaps in your current initiatives.
• It provides insight into what you need for future projects.

How to do a digital audit

A digital audit doesn’t focus on on one specific area but covers all aspects, including your website, content, SEO, social media, and more. With a multitude of aspects to assess, it’s vital that you have a set process. Below are the steps to performing an effective digital audit.

1. Align digital workflows with your business goals.
All digital efforts should align with your long-term business goals. Remember what you wanted to achieve when you set up the business and take a look at how close you are to achieving that goal. Once goals and expectations are clear, choose a specific metric that represents the current status of the business and how it performs. 

2. Gather and analyze performance data.
Because these are digital assets, collecting data is vital to measure performance. Collect performance data from your website, social media channels, and email marketing efforts so you can view the data side by side with your set goals. Doing this will show you why you haven’t yet reached your goals and what you have to do to get closer to them.

3. Revisit your digital marketing efforts and overall strategy.
Revisit your strategy and rethink your approach depending on what’s changed internally and externally. Redesign your strategy appropriately to meet changes within your business and external factors that affect the industry and market as a whole. Ensure that your strategy is designed for the long term and indicate specific steps that will take you closer to achieving your business goals.

4. Take a look at your competitors’ performance.
After modifying your strategy as needed, you should see how it stacks up against the competition. Understand how your competition measures performance and think of how you can do it better. Looking at your competitors’ efforts will help you see if you remain true to your goals and if your efforts are taking tou closer to achieving them. 

5. Take an in-depth look at your brand messaging and position.
As a final step, you should also examine how you present your brand through your website, social media networks, and other marketing channels. It’s also an opportunity to check if your brand messaging is consistent and aligned with business goals and customer sentiment. This will, in turn, show you how you position your brand and if you provide a clear value to your customers. Take note of your unique selling point and try to discover what makes you different—or better—from the competition.

Digital audit checklist

A digital audit covers a number of aspects of the business and, as such, careful planning and an organized approach is required for it to be effective. A digital audit checklist ensures that no steps are missed during an audit of your digital assets. Below is a list of the things to consider during an audit. 

Website

• Is it easy to use?
• Is it fast?
• Is it mobile-friendly?
• Is it visually cohesive and appealing?
• Are user navigation paths intuitive and logical?

Social media

• What is your voice and visual identity?
• Who is your target audience?
• How are your engagement metrics?
• Are your social media ads performing as expected?
• How many followers does your brand have?

Email campaigns

• What’s your email open rate?
• How many subscribers does your brand have?
• What type of content is performing the best?

SEO

• What’s your current position on the search engine results pages (SERP)?
• What keywords are you and your competitors using?
• How’s your backlink strategy performing?

Digital audit examples

Today’s digital-first, always-connected business landscape has highlighted the value of effective digital audits. Taking care of your digital assets yourself is recommended so you know what’s needed and what needs to be discarded, but there are digital audit companies that provide the service for you. These companies are built to help other companies standardize their processes and organize their digital assets. 

Digital audit by PwC

PwC has been upskilling its employees because it believes that combining financial know-how with tech savvy would positively affect its business. They have invested millions in streamlining and improving their audit process to the benefit of both auditors and clients.

A digital audit helped the organization equip its employees with the necessary tools that helped them improve the effectiveness of their financial audits, providing increased client satisfaction. These new digital tools have made audits quicker and helped save a significant amount of time, which also helped minimize the cost of financial audits. In PwC’s line of business, the quicker they go through the process with their clients, the more money they both save.

Digital audit by Deloitte

Deloitte has kept a step forward in the financial auditing industry by keeping a firm grasp on its digital initiatives. It has advanced its auditing capabilities through embracing technology and how it can help make the audit process quicker and more efficient. Deloitte’s main asset is the way it combines the expertise of its employees with the valuable input from data scientists and subject matter experts.

The organization leverages on data insights to identify business strengths and weaknesses so they can be addressed promptly. All these work together to lessen the load on employees supporting the administrative needs of an audit so they can focus on enhancing audit quality and provide greater value to clients.