How Do You Audit Your Paid Media Spend? (Archive, 2020)

Recorded in 2020 during Simon's s.media agency era and published as part of a dated historical record. It reflects the market then, not current advice — and it's the origin of the "question the spend" principle.

Why audit your paid media?

It's Simon from s.media, and thanks for taking the time to come through to the site. I've got 20 years of PPC experience, and I'd like to say I think I'm one of the best in the industry. There are a lot of good people out there — and there are also a lot of people running PPC campaigns that aren't doing your business any good.

I've come across many, many PPC accounts where we've audited the account and found that the agency is literally doing 15 minutes to half an hour's work a month and charging hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds. What a lot of them do is set up a lot of automations, go onto the account once or twice a month, and have an automatic report that goes out at the end of the month. If you're paying for that, it's not really great value.

What should you be getting for the fee?

What you should be getting is strategy, insight, suggestions — different ads each month, month in, month out, and different types of ads. We work across video, display, shopping and search; there are lots and lots of things you can do as a business within paid ads. And this isn't just Google — it can be Facebook as well, because we audit those accounts too.

We have our own system called IDA, which stands for intelligence-driven ad results — our trademark system — and traditionally it has saved anyone who's used it at least 20 per cent of their ad spend, month in, month out.

What happens on the call?

If you book a call with me, the worst that comes out of it is you get 30 to 45 minutes talking through how your agency is running your ads account, and loads of suggestions — for free. Yes, the hidden agenda is I'd like you to buy one of our paid media audits and eventually become a client if that's a possibility. But by all means take the suggestions back to your current agency or internal team and show them how you can improve. What have you got to lose? If you save 20 per cent of your ad spend going forward, I think it'll have been worth it.