The 3-Week Digital Audit: What a GYR Scorecard Actually Looks Like
Green-Yellow-Red scoring across media, MarTech, analytics and content. The exact framework we use on every audit.
Most agency audits are 80-page PDFs that get read once and filed. A useful audit is a scorecard the CMO can hold up in a board meeting - and a 90-day backlog the team can start on Monday. Here is how we structure it.
Four domains, one hundred checks
- Media - channel mix, creative testing, attribution, incrementality, CAC by cohort.
- MarTech - CDP, CRM, marketing automation, tagging, consent, integrations, data flow.
- Analytics - GA4 configuration, server-side tagging, conversion accuracy, dashboards, ownership.
- Content - SEO/AEO/GEO readiness, information architecture, conversion copy, schema markup.
The GYR scoring rule
Every check gets one of three colours: Green (working, keep), Yellow (works but leaking value), Red (broken or missing, fix now). No numeric scores, no five-point scales. The three-colour rule forces a call and makes the report readable in five minutes.
Week-by-week
- Week 1 - Discovery and access. Every tool, every dashboard, every workflow inventoried. Interviews with marketing, sales, ops and finance.
- Week 2 - Deep analysis. Data quality checks, attribution rebuilds, tag audits, content and schema audits.
- Week 3 - Synthesis. GYR scorecard, root-cause narrative, 90-day backlog, and a one-page exec summary.
The 90-day backlog
Every Red gets a backlog ticket with an owner, an effort estimate, and an expected impact. Every Yellow gets a decision - fix, tolerate, or retire the tool. Every Green gets documented so the client knows what not to break. The backlog is the actual deliverable; the scorecard is the summary.
Why three weeks, not two months
Longer audits go stale. The stack changes, the team changes, the priorities change. Three weeks is long enough to be thorough and short enough that the recommendations are still true when they land.