What an audit actually checks
Not whether your marketing is working. Whether you can tell.
- Do conversions fire when they should, and only then
- Are calls attributed to their source, or lumped as direct
- Is analytics installed once, cleanly, with internal traffic excluded
- Do ad platform conversions match what the site records
- Is there any record connecting enquiries to jobs won
- Are the reports you receive derived from that data or assembled separately
Why it is usually worth it
Most businesses considering an audit are about to make a spending decision — cut a channel, raise a budget, change agency.
If the data is wrong, that decision is a coin toss with a confident-sounding rationale. The classic version: cutting the channel that looked worst, when it was actually the channel whose conversions were not being recorded.
The discrepancies that show up most
Ad platform conversions exceed site conversions. Usually a difference in attribution windows or view-through counting, not fraud — but it explains why platform numbers always look better.
A large share of traffic marked "direct". Frequently mis-tagged links or missing campaign parameters rather than people typing your domain from memory.
Calls missing entirely. For service businesses this is the biggest one, and it makes every channel that produces calls look weak.
Conversions with no matching enquiry. Tracking firing on the wrong event.
What you get out of it
A list of what is broken, in order of how badly it distorts decisions, and what each fix involves. Not a score.
The useful output is usually short. Two or three problems account for most of the distortion in a typical small business setup.
Doing part of it yourself
Free and genuinely informative:
- Submit a real enquiry and check it appears as a conversion
- Call your own number from a mobile and see whether the call is attributed
- Compare last month's platform conversion count against enquiries you actually received
If the third number is badly out, you have found something worth investigating properly.
Where it sits at BayouEdge
A conversion audit is available as a one-time add-on, and the deeper reporting structure work sits in the Authority Builder package — $12,500 setup, $3,500 a month. Which is appropriate depends on how many systems are involved, and that is a short conversation.
Before you cut a channel
Check the data first. It is the cheapest step in the process and it is the one most often skipped.
Frequently asked questions
What does an attribution audit check?
Whether conversions fire correctly, whether calls are attributed, whether analytics is installed cleanly, whether platform numbers match site numbers, and whether anything connects enquiries to jobs won.
Why do ad platforms report more conversions than my site?
Usually different attribution windows or view-through counting rather than anything dishonest. It is worth understanding, because it explains why platform numbers consistently look better.
What can I check myself for free?
Submit a real enquiry and confirm it records as a conversion, call your own number from a mobile and see if it is attributed, and compare last month's reported conversions against enquiries you actually received.
When is an audit most worth doing?
Right before a spending decision. Cutting a channel on bad data is how businesses kill the thing that was working but was not being recorded.