How Paid Media Is Judged as a Business System
Most audits evaluate platform configuration. This evaluates whether advertising produces defensible business outcomes.
Platforms are inspected only insofar as they affect revenue reality. I don't look at advertising to make it prettier. I look at it to determine whether it produced business results.
Dashboards lie. Consequences don't.
What Gets Evaluated
I evaluate paid media as a business system with downstream consequences. I don't stop at the metrics you're watching. I look at what happened after the money cleared. Five areas:
1. Structural Integrity Review
Determines whether account architecture amplifies waste or enforces discipline at scale. I examine how accounts are structured, segmented, and governed. Not whether they follow "best practices." Whether they support control, signal clarity, and efficient learning. Poor structure doesn't just hide waste. It manufactures it. Clean structure exposes problems before they compound.
2. Incentive Alignment
Platforms, agencies, and businesses do not share the same incentives. This fact creates predictable distortions. I evaluate where platform optimization conflicts with your actual business goals, where agency incentives corrupt decision-making, and where spend volume gets rewarded more than outcomes.
Most waste lives here quietly.
3. Offer & Funnel Integrity
Clicks are cheap. Alignment isn't. Three questions: Does the offer match the traffic being acquired? Does the funnel reflect how your customers actually buy? Is lead volume masking lead quality collapse?
If there's friction anywhere in sales, paid media amplifies it.
4. Outcome Verification
Confirms whether reported conversions represent real economic events. I don't stop at CPL. I look at what sales actually received, what converted, what stalled, what died quietly in the pipeline, and whether the advertising improved or degraded sales efficiency.
If leads look good but sales struggles, the system is broken.
5. Capital Allocation Decisions
Advertising is a capital allocation problem wearing a marketing costume. I track where money is being spent out of habit, where spend persists despite weak or nonexistent evidence, and where reallocation would produce materially better outcomes.
Call it what it is: judgment.
What Decisions Are Typically Made After a Diagnosis?
- • Terminate or retain an agency
- • Reallocate budget across channels
- • Pause spend pending funnel repair
- • Bring media in-house
- • Accept that spend is working and move on confidently
The goal is defensible answers to business questions. Did lead quality improve sales productivity? Did attribution reflect real revenue? Did marketing increase margin or simply activity? Did spend reduce or increase operational risk?
What You Receive
Did the advertising produce real business results, or not?
Findings that matter operationally. Clear explanations grounded in consequences. Specific areas of waste or misalignment. Directionally correct recommendations.
No presentation theater. Defensible conclusions.
What Happens Next
Some clients stop after the diagnosis. Others ask for help correcting what was exposed. That only happens if the problems are fixable, incentives remain aligned, and the work can be done without compromise.
The diagnosis stands on its own. No retainer pitch. No agency conversion.