Most small businesses waste money on marketing that doesn't work — not because they're bad at marketing, but because they've never stopped to measure what's actually performing.
Here's a 30-minute framework I use to audit marketing for Australian SMBs. You can do this with a spreadsheet and your existing analytics.
Step 1: List Your Active Channels (5 min)
Write down every channel you're actively using:
- Social media (which platforms?)
- Email newsletter
- Google Ads / Meta Ads
- SEO / blog content
- Referrals / word of mouth
- Directory listings
- Local events / sponsorships
The question: Are you on channels because they work, or because someone told you to be there?
Most businesses are on 5+ channels but only 1-2 are actually driving leads.
Step 2: Track the Money (10 min)
For each channel, fill in three numbers:
| Channel | Monthly Spend | Leads/Month | Cost per Lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Facebook Ads | $500 | 10 | $50 |
| Google Ads | $300 | 15 | $20 |
| SEO/Blog | $0 | 5 | $0 |
| Referrals | $0 | 8 | $0 |
Include time cost. If you spend 10 hours/month on Instagram and your time is worth $50/hr, that's $500/month even if you're not running ads.
Use a ROI calculator to quantify the actual return.
Step 3: The 80/20 Cut (5 min)
Look at your table. Almost certainly:
- 1-2 channels produce 80% of your leads
- 2-3 channels produce almost nothing
- The expensive channels aren't always the best ones
Action: Circle the top 2 performing channels. Everything else gets a "keep, reduce, or kill" tag.
Step 4: Check Your Funnel for Leaks (5 min)
For your top 2 channels, trace the customer journey:
- Awareness: Do people find you? (Check traffic/impressions)
- Interest: Do they engage? (Check click-through rates)
- Consideration: Do they take action? (Check form fills, calls, emails)
- Purchase: Do they buy? (Check conversion rate)
The step with the biggest drop-off is your leak. Fix that one thing before anything else.
If you're getting traffic but no enquiries, your landing page is the problem — not your ads.
If you're getting enquiries but no sales, your follow-up process is the problem — not your marketing.
Step 5: Set One Metric to Watch (5 min)
Don't track everything. Pick ONE number that tells you if marketing is working this month:
- Service businesses: Number of qualified enquiries
- E-commerce: Revenue per visitor
- SaaS: Trial-to-paid conversion rate
- Local businesses: Phone calls from Google Business Profile
Check this number weekly. If it's going up, keep going. If it's flat, something needs to change.
What most businesses discover
After running this audit, the typical small business finds:
- They're spending time on channels that produce nothing
- Their best channel is underfunded or under-optimised
- There's one obvious funnel leak they've been ignoring
- They don't have a clear metric, so they can't tell if marketing is "working"
Fixing these four things usually produces more results than any new campaign.
Want a deeper audit?
I built a Marketing Audit tool that runs through a comprehensive 15-point analysis of your marketing — AI-powered, specific to your business type, with actionable recommendations.
$49 AUD — Get your personalised marketing audit
Or start with the free tools at CalcFuel — ROI calculators, break-even analysis, markup calculators, and more.
Building in public with MarketingAI — AI-powered marketing for Australian small businesses.
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