Commercial role
What must this channel change, for whom, at what marginal cost, and over what decision window?
ChecklistWhat should be repaired before scaling spend?
Paid Media Audit Checklist
Audit the commercial purpose, account structure, creative system, conversion path, and measurement behind paid media.
What should be repaired before scaling spend?
- Use it to decide
- What should be repaired before scaling spend?
- Working time
- 25-minute audit
- Leave with
- A prioritized media repair plan
- Framework depth
- 5 lenses · 4 actions
Why It Matters
Use the framework to change the decision.
Use this when
Performance has plateaued and platform settings are getting all the attention.
The most expensive media problems often sit outside bid settings. A responsible audit starts with the business outcome, then follows the signal through campaign structure, creative, destination, routing, and revenue feedback.
Run this with the people who own the inputs and the next decision. The framework is most useful when disagreement is visible—not edited out before the session.
Move from evidence to the next accountable decision.
01
Context
Define the commercial motion and the decision.
02
Evidence
Collect the signals that can support or reject the hypothesis.
03
Constraint
Name the handoff or stage governing performance.
04
Action
Assign the smallest useful next move and its owner.
Use the Resource
Put the framework to work now.
Use the printable version during your working session. Add evidence and an owner beside every decision; unresolved disagreement belongs in the output, not outside the room.
Read the System
The lenses that make the framework useful.
Do not score these in isolation. Look for the handoff, dependency, or missing evidence connecting one lens to the next.
Signal design
Are campaigns optimizing toward a meaningful action with enough quality and volume?
Creative learning
Does each test isolate a question, and are patterns carried into the next cycle?
Conversion path
Does the destination preserve message, intent, speed, credibility, and tracking?
Revenue feedback
Can customer, lead, pipeline, or booked-job quality return to media decisions?
Run the Working Session
Turn the framework into an owned next move.
Complete the steps in order. Capture disagreement, assign one owner, and put the next review date beside the decision.
- 01
Separate platform-reported performance from business truth.
- 02
Document waste that can be stopped immediately.
- 03
List evidence gaps that prevent a confident decision.
- 04
Prioritize changes by impact and learning value.
Working outputA prioritized media repair plan
From a noisy request to an owned decision.
A team enters the session with channel performance, conversion data, and customer context. They score the available evidence, isolate the weakest handoff, and leave with one accountable owner, a measurable next action, and a review date.
Use it across the commercial system.
Apply the framework to B2B pipeline, ecommerce retention, local-market lead generation, marketplace demand, or any operating model where the next investment depends on several connected systems.