Before you commit to a retainer, find out what you actually need.
A fixed-scope social media and digital marketing audit for architecture, interior design, product and art brands. Two weeks, a written document, an honest read on where your visibility actually stands, and a plan for the next ninety days.
A digital marketing audit tends to find the same starting point for most studios. The work is good, the projects are getting better, and the digital presence has been built in fragments: a feed kept going by whoever had time, a website that was right three years ago, and a nagging sense that the practice is less visible than it deserves to be. What is rarely clear is which part is actually costing you enquiries.
That is what the audit is for. It is a fixed piece of work with a fixed fee, not a pitch dressed up as a report, and it ends with a document you can act on whether or not you go any further with me.
What a Digital Marketing Audit Should Actually Cover
Plenty of agencies will hand over a free audit. It is usually a scan run through a tool, a list of colour-coded problems, and a closing slide explaining that the fix is a twelve-month retainer. There is no diagnosis in it, because diagnosis takes time and nobody invests time in something they are giving away.
A real digital marketing audit answers a harder question: of everything that could be improved, what would actually change the number of right-fit enquiries you receive, and in what order. That means looking at the channels, the search presence and the AI answers together, because a prospective client researching your practice moves between all three without noticing.
What’s Included
- Channel review: cadence, content mix and what is genuinely landing
- Search visibility: what you rank for now, and the terms your clients actually use
- AI visibility: how ChatGPT, Perplexity and AI Overviews currently describe your practice
- A named comparison against three competitors in your field
- A prioritised ninety-day plan, in order, with the reasoning for the order
- An hour on a call to walk through it and argue with it
Best Suited For
- Practices who suspect they are underperforming online but cannot say where
- Studios about to commission a new site, and wanting to brief it properly
- Brands weighing up whether a retainer is worth it, and on what evidence
- Anyone who has been handed a free audit and recognised it as a sales document
Why It Is Paid, and Why It Is Credited Back
The fee is what buys you an honest answer. An audit given away has to end in a recommendation to buy something, or it has cost the agency a week for nothing. A paid one can end wherever the evidence ends, including with the conclusion that your existing arrangement is working and the money is better spent elsewhere.
It is credited in full against your first month because if the audit does lead to a partnership, you should not pay twice for the same thinking. The document is yours either way.
Two weeks, four stages, one document.
Brief
A short call to understand the practice, the work and what a good enquiry looks like to you.
Examine
Channels, search presence and AI answers, reviewed against three named competitors in your field.
Document
A written audit in plain language: what is working, what is not, and what it is costing you.
Walk Through
An hour together on the findings and the ninety-day plan, with time to push back on both.
One fee, fixed before we start.
The audit is a defined piece of work, not a trial month and not a retainer. The scope is agreed before anything begins, so the fee does not move.
£1,200
+VAT · one-off
Two weeks from brief to walk-through, covering channels, search and AI visibility, benchmarked against three named competitors and closing with a prioritised ninety-day plan. Gulf clients are quoted the equivalent in dirhams.
Credited in full
against your first month
Retainers start at £1,800+VAT a month in the UK, so the audit comes off that first invoice in its entirety. There is no obligation either way, and the document is yours to use whatever you decide.
The audit stands on its own. If the honest conclusion is that you do not need a retainer, that is what the document will say.
Not just a marketer: an editor, too.
Every brief is shaped by first-hand access to the design world. I also edit martynwhite.co, an independent journal of architecture, interiors, art and collectible design, and cover Dubai Design Week, Downtown Design and Milan Design Week in person. Coverage there is never part of a commercial arrangement.
Audit FAQ
What do I actually receive?
A written document, not a slide deck, covering your channels, your search presence and how AI platforms describe you, with a named comparison against three competitors and a ninety-day plan in priority order. Then an hour on a call to go through it. The document is yours to keep, share internally or hand to another agency.
How long does it take?
Two weeks from the brief call to the walk-through. I take on one audit at a time, so occasionally the start date is a week or two out. You will be told before you commit, not after.
Do I have to take a retainer afterwards?
No. The audit is priced as a complete piece of work for exactly that reason. If you go on to a retainer the fee is credited in full against your first month, and if you do not, nothing is owed and nothing changes.
What if the audit says I don’t need you?
Then it will say so. Sometimes the honest finding is that the existing setup is sound and the money is better spent on photography, or a new site, or nothing at all for six months. An audit that can only ever conclude “hire me” is not worth paying for, and it is not worth writing either.
We already work with an agency. Is this still useful?
Often more so. A second read on what is being done in your name, measured against what your competitors are doing, is a reasonable thing to want before you renew. I will not use it as an opportunity to run down whoever currently holds the account.
Why should I pay when others audit for free?
Because a free audit has to sell something to justify itself. The fee is what allows the findings to go wherever the evidence goes, and it is credited back if we work together, so proceeding costs you nothing extra.