---
name: content-marketing-audit
description: "Audit a content and PR programme end to end: goals and audiences, a full inventory, performance beyond traffic including leads, pipeline, sales use, links and coverage, a quality and voice rubric that flags generic or AI-sounding pieces, distribution, earned media, operations and keep, update, combine, repurpose or retire decisions. Use whenever someone asks for a content audit, content marketing review, whether content is working, what to stop publishing, PR effectiveness or where to start as a new content lead."
license: CC-BY-4.0
metadata:
  author: Afeez Adebayo
  author_url: https://afeezadebayo.com
  author_linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afeez-adebayo/
  author_x: https://x.com/za_icon
  source: https://afeezadebayo.com/skills-md/marketing/content-copy-pr/content-marketing-audit/
  category: marketing
  subcategory: content-copy-pr
  version: "1.0.0"
  created: "2026-10-10"
  updated: "2026-10-10"
---

# Content Marketing Audit

Most companies publish more than they can explain. Blog posts, guides, newsletters, case studies, press releases, social posts and reports pile up across teams, each made for a reason nobody remembers. Some pieces drive leads every week; many get read by almost no one; some contradict each other or the current product. Without an audit, teams keep producing more of whatever they produced last year, and budgets follow habit rather than results.

This skill audits a content and PR programme as a whole: goals, audiences, inventory, performance, quality, voice, distribution, PR coverage, operations and measurement. It finds what to keep, fix, combine, repurpose or stop, and hands each finding to a specialist skill. It is the entry point for the Content, Copy and PR set. Search-specific content audits sit in the Content SEO skills.

## Operating principles
1. **Start from business goals.** Content exists to build awareness, demand, trust, sales or retention; judge it against those.
2. **Audience before output.** Who is each piece for, and what does it help them do?
3. **Performance includes more than traffic.** Leads, pipeline influence, sales use, links, mentions and retention all count.
4. **Quality and voice matter.** Accurate, useful, distinctive content earns attention; generic content does not.
5. **Fewer, better.** Cutting and combining is often worth more than publishing more.

## Audit areas
| Area | What to check | Typical finding |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Goals and audiences | Documented goals, audience definitions, funnel coverage | Content written for no clear reader |
| 2. Inventory | All assets by type, topic, owner, date | Thousands of posts, no owner list |
| 3. Performance | Traffic, engagement, conversions, assisted pipeline, links, mentions | 10% of pieces drive most results |
| 4. Quality | Accuracy, depth, originality, evidence, readability | Generic posts with no first-hand insight |
| 5. Voice and brand | Consistency with brand voice, AI-sounding phrasing | Every author sounds different; some read as machine-written |
| 6. Distribution | Channels used per piece, newsletter, social, partners, sales | Content published and never promoted |
| 7. PR and earned media | Coverage, quality of outlets, share of voice, links | Press releases with no pickup |
| 8. Operations | Workflow, briefs, review, calendar, tools | No editorial calendar; slow approvals |
| 9. Repurposing | Reuse of long pieces across formats | Research reports used once |
| 10. Measurement | Metrics, attribution, reporting cadence | Only pageviews reported |

## When to use, and when not to
Use it when content output is high but results are unclear, when a new content or communications lead joins, before annual planning, after rebrands and when budgets are under review.

Don't use it for search-specific audits (the Content SEO `content-seo-audit` skill) or for social channel audits (the Social Media skills).

## Inputs to ask for, in one message
1. Business goals and target audiences.
2. Content inventory or sitemap, plus newsletter, case study and PR archives.
3. Analytics: traffic, engagement and conversions by piece; CRM data on content-assisted deals if available.
4. Coverage and mentions data (media monitoring, backlinks).
5. Brand voice or style guide.
6. Team, workflow and tools used.

## Workflow

### Step 1. Confirm goals and audiences
Write them down if they aren't; map each audience to the stages they move through.

### Step 2. Build the inventory
URL or file, type, topic, audience, stage, owner, published and updated dates.

### Step 3. Add performance
Traffic and engagement, conversions and assisted conversions, sales usage, links and mentions, newsletter clicks.

### Step 4. Sample quality and voice
Review a representative sample against a quality rubric and the voice guide; flag AI-sounding or generic pieces.

### Step 5. Review distribution and PR
Which channels each piece reached; coverage earned and its quality.

### Step 6. Review operations
How ideas become published pieces; bottlenecks and gaps.

### Step 7. Decide per piece
Keep, update, combine, repurpose or retire.

### Step 8. Plan
Priorities for strategy, operations, quality and measurement, with owners.

## Quality rubric
| Criterion | 0 | 1 | 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clear audience and purpose | None | Implied | Explicit |
| Original insight or evidence | None | Some | Strong (data, experience, examples) |
| Accuracy and freshness | Outdated or wrong | Mostly current | Current and sourced |
| Readability | Hard to follow | Acceptable | Clear and scannable |
| Voice | Generic or machine-sounding | Mixed | Distinctive and on brand |
| Next step | None | Vague | Clear and relevant |

## Decision matrix
| Performance | Quality | Action |
|---|---|---|
| High | High | Keep, promote, repurpose |
| High | Low | Update and improve |
| Low | High | Redistribute, repurpose or reposition |
| Low | Low | Combine or retire |

## Inventory columns
| Column | Example |
|---|---|
| URL or file | /blog/month-end-checklist |
| Type | Guide |
| Topic and audience | Month-end close; finance managers |
| Funnel stage | Consideration |
| Owner | Content lead |
| Published and updated | 2024-03, 2025-11 |
| Sessions (12 months) | 18,400 |
| Conversions and assisted deals | 120 trials; 9 deals |
| Links and mentions | 34 referring domains |
| Quality score (0-12) | 10 |
| Decision | Keep and repurpose |

## Distribution check
For a sample of recent pieces, record which channels carried them: newsletter, social, sales enablement, partners, paid promotion, communities, PR. Pieces that reached only the blog rarely perform, however good they are.

## Edge cases and judgement calls
| Situation | What to do |
|---|---|
| Huge archive | Audit by sample and by templates; focus on top and bottom performers |
| B2B with long cycles | Weight sales usage and assisted pipeline, not just traffic |
| Regulated industries | Add compliance review status to the inventory |
| Several brands or products | Audit each with shared criteria |
| PR-heavy programmes | Weight coverage quality and message pull-through |

## Handoffs to specialist skills
- Strategy: `content-strategy`
- Workflow and calendar: `editorial-operations`
- Voice: `brand-voice-guide`
- Copy: `marketing-copywriting`
- Editing: `editing-proofreading`
- AI-sounding text: `ai-writing-cleanup`
- Newsletters: `newsletter-strategy`
- Thought leadership: `thought-leadership`
- Research reports: `original-research-reports`
- Digital PR: `digital-pr`
- Repurposing: `content-repurposing`
- Measurement: `content-pr-measurement`
- Search content: the Content SEO skills

## Worked example
A B2B software company published four blog posts a week, a monthly newsletter and frequent press releases, but leadership couldn't see results. The audit found 8% of posts drove most sign-ups and sales-assisted deals, while half had almost no readers; posts written by agencies scored lowest on originality and often sounded machine-written; press releases about minor updates earned no coverage, while one customer data story earned dozens of links. The plan cut output to one strong piece a week, rebuilt the voice guide, combined thin posts into guides, repurposed the data story into a recurring annual report and shifted PR towards data and customer stories.

## Output format
```
# Content and PR audit: <company>, <date>
## Summary (biggest gap, biggest opportunity, first moves)
## Goals and audiences
## Inventory and performance overview
## Quality and voice findings
## Distribution and PR findings
## Operations findings
## Decisions by piece or group
## 90-day plan with owners
```

## Common mistakes
- Judging content only by traffic.
- Auditing without written goals and audiences.
- Publishing more instead of fixing what exists.
- Ignoring distribution.
- Counting press releases instead of coverage quality.

## Questions to ask before you recommend changes
- What is content supposed to achieve for the business?
- Which pieces do customers and sales actually use?
- What earned coverage or links, and why?

## Self-check before you answer
- Are findings tied to goals and audiences?
- Is performance broader than pageviews?
- Are quality and voice reviewed with a rubric?
- Does every piece or group get a clear decision?

## Further reading
- Content Marketing Institute research: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/research/
- Ann Handley, Everybody Writes (2nd edition, 2022)

---
Created by Afeez Adebayo, Marketing, SEO & Growth Expert
Website: https://afeezadebayo.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afeez-adebayo/
X: https://x.com/za_icon
Source: https://afeezadebayo.com/skills-md/marketing/content-copy-pr/content-marketing-audit/

Licence: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You may copy, share and adapt this skill, including for commercial use, as long as you credit Afeez Adebayo and link to the source URL above. Keep this notice in any copy or adapted version.