Paid Media Mix Audit: Flat Fee From $5,500
An outside review of your paid media across Google, Meta, LinkedIn and other platforms. Flat fee, starting at $5,500.
If you run ads on several platforms and every report says its channel is working, but the total doesn't add up, a paid media mix audit gives you a straight answer. It checks whether your budget is in the right channels, in the right amounts, for the right jobs, starting with the tracking that feeds every platform. I review Google Ads myself, my team runs the hands-on checks in Meta and the other platforms, and I review every finding. You get a recommended budget split with the reasoning behind it, plus a prioritized list of fixes.
A FEW OF OUR HAPPY CLIENTS
What I review
01 Tracking across platforms
Whether conversions are defined the same way in every platform, whether any fire twice, whether CRM or offline sales flow back to the platforms, and whether GA4 roughly matches your sales or order system. Bad data makes every other finding suspect, so this comes first.
02 Double counting
How many conversions the platforms claim compared with your actual orders or closed deals, and how much of your branded search and retargeting volume would have happened anyway.
03 Awareness spend
Whether YouTube, connected TV, podcasts and social prospecting are being undervalued because they rarely get the last click, and what happens to branded search and direct traffic when that spend changes.
04 Diminishing returns
How cost per acquisition has moved as spend changed in each channel, and where budget can move from a saturated channel to one that still has room, without spending more overall.
05 Channel roles and execution
Whether each channel has a clear job and is judged on the right metric, plus the targeting, bidding, creative and landing pages inside each one.
06 Fees and outside factors
How your agencies are paid and who actually works on the account, plus the seasonality, promotions, pricing changes and competitor moves that can explain results before anyone blames a channel.
What you get
A recommended budget split across your channels with the reasoning behind it, and a prioritized list of fixes ranked by impact.
It includes a tracking check across every platform, so you know which numbers to trust, and a comparison of what each platform claims with what your sales system actually recorded.
If you'd like, my team can carry out the fixes. Paid media management starts at $2,750 a month, a flat fee, never a percentage of ad spend. If you have enough history, a marketing mix model is the next step for measuring what awareness spend really contributes.
Who it's for
Companies with $5M to $500M in revenue running ads on two or more platforms, often with more than one agency. It fits best when every channel reports success but revenue doesn't match, or when you're setting next year's budget.
I'm Dr. Linda Orr, PhD. I built Upwork's first enterprise marketing mix model, covering an $88M media portfolio, and I run Google Ads accounts myself. My paid media work also includes an 80% lower cost per first-time call for a personal injury law firm in seven weeks.
Can't I Just Use AI to Audit My Media Mix?
Can I just use AI to audit my paid media mix? You can, if you want an answer. If you want the right answer, someone has to decide which numbers can be trusted, which channels are taking credit for the same customers, and what is about to change in your business. I use ChatGPT, Claude and Supermetrics to do the data work faster. Here is what the research says about where AI falls short.
An expensive channel isn't always a bad channel
AI flags the channel with the highest cost per acquisition. It doesn't know that channel brings in your biggest accounts, or the customers who come back.
The data: In a 2025 test of five AI tools on 45 PPC questions, about 1 answer in 5 was wrong. (WordStream, 2025)
This month isn't every month
Thirty days of data can be your slow season. Cutting a channel right before your peak can cost you the months that matter most.
The data: A NeurIPS 2024 study found language models added nothing to time-series forecasting accuracy. (Tan et al., NeurIPS 2024)
Competitors don't sit still
If a competitor is about to launch, cut prices or outspend you in a channel, the right move might be to hold your position, not trim it.
The data: On a strategy task outside AI's strengths, BCG consultants using GPT-4 were 19 percentage points less likely to get the right answer. (Harvard and BCG, 2023)
Every platform grades its own homework
Google, Meta and LinkedIn can each claim the same customer. AI adds their numbers together and calls it performance.
The data: Last-click attribution overstates the role of clickable channels by 2 to 10 times on average. (Analytic Partners, 2022)
AI trusts the tracking
AI takes each platform's conversion counts at face value. If tracking double counts, misses offline sales or counts junk leads, it shifts budget toward the wrong thing.
The data: In a review of 2,167 Google Ads accounts, 42% had no conversion tracking at all. (Disruptive Advertising)
Forty issues, three that matter
AI can list every setting that looks off. Knowing which three changes will move your cost per customer, given your margins and goals, is the job.
The data: In a 2026 test on real business spreadsheets, the best AI model found and fixed hidden errors only 12% of the time. (SpreadsheetBench 2, 2026)
Twelve conversions isn't a trend
AI will crown a winning channel off a handful of conversions. With numbers that small, much of what looks like a pattern is noise, and acting on it moves budget toward luck.
The data: Asked the same question five times with settings locked, AI models varied by up to 10% in accuracy. (Atil et al., 2024)
Some sales were coming anyway
Branded search and retargeting look efficient because they reach people who were already going to buy. AI reads that as the best channel you have.
The data: When eBay turned off its brand search ads, it kept 99.5% of that click traffic through free listings. (Blake, Nosko and Tadelis, 2015)
Attribution isn't incrementality
Platform reports show who clicked before buying, not who bought because of the ad. AI can't tell the difference without a test.
The data: In 15 large Facebook ad experiments, standard measurement was often far off, and in about half the purchase lift was off by a factor of three. (Gordon et al., Marketing Science 2019)
Cutting awareness looks free at first
Pause YouTube or social prospecting and nothing drops this month, so AI calls it a win. Branded search and direct traffic slide a few months later.
The data: A brand loses about 2% of future revenue for each quarter it stops advertising, and recovery can take three to five years. (Nielsen, 2023)
AI doesn't know what's coming
A rebrand, a new product, a big promotion or a new market next quarter changes what each channel should do now. None of that is in the accounts.
The data: GPT-4 got roughly 4 in 10 formal cause-and-effect questions wrong, the kind of reasoning a launch forecast needs. (CLadder, NeurIPS 2023)
Some spend is building a brand
Spending on a less efficient channel can be right when you're growing a new brand. AI overweights conversions and ignores awareness.
The data: Across nearly 1,000 campaigns, the best results came from spending about 60% on brand building and 40% on activation. (Binet and Field, IPA)
AI makes a very good reference if you know the right questions to ask. Knowing which questions matter for your business comes from experience. I use AI to work faster, and the calls about what to change, what to leave alone and what to watch next are still mine.
What it costs
A multi-channel paid media audit starts at $5,500, scaled by the number of channels, campaigns and how far back we look. Single-channel Google Ads and Meta ads audits start at $3,500. Every audit is a flat fee, quoted after a free 30-minute call, and the fee doesn't depend on how much you spend on ads. Use the estimator below to see what moves the price.
Not sure you need an audit yet? Check your tracking and reporting first with the free Marketing Measurement Scorecard.
Related reading: what a consultant checks in a paid media mix audit, marketing mix modeling vs. attribution, how to scale paid media without blowing up your CAC, and whether your agency is wasting your ad budget. For a broader review, see all marketing audits.
How much would a paid media mix audit cost for you?
Choose how many platforms you run, how big the accounts are, how far back we should look and what needs a closer look to get a rough estimate. On a call, I look at how the accounts are built, how clean the tracking is and how much history matters for your business, and then quote a flat fee.
Can't I Just Hire Someone Cheaper?
You can, and if you're just starting out with no real budget behind your marketing yet, you probably should. You have to start somewhere.
But most of my clients come to me after trying the cheaper route first. Nearly every smaller company I work with has been there, and so have large ones. A large personal injury law firm came to me after going through agency after agency that put a junior person on the account. McKesson had worked with a major New York agency that didn't listen to what the business needed, and brought me in to fix it. I've also been let go and hired back by the same client more than once, because each time they switched to a lower-cost freelancer to save money, followers and sales dropped.
That's the real cost of cheaper. You pay for the first project, then you pay for the fix, and in between you make months of budget decisions on numbers you can't trust. So the choice comes down to this: hire me to come back and fix it later, or hire me to do it right the first time.
Cheaper now
Pay for the first project
Pay again for the fix
Months of budget moved on bad numbers
A team that stops trusting the data
Right the first time
Pay once
Built on a hypothesis and checked against your business
Decisions you can defend to your board
A plan your team can act on
If you'd rather do it once, let's talk about what that looks like for your business.
Our Impact By The Numbers
$88M in marketing budget modeled for Upwork, 100+ clients from $5M to $500M in revenue, 25+ years leading growth, and 86% client retention.
$88M
Marketing budget covered by Upwork's first marketing mix model, built by Dr. Orr.
100+
Clients served, from $5M to $500M in revenue.
25+
Years leading growth across tech, healthcare, and consumer brands.
86%
Client retention. Most clients stay or come back.
What clients say about working with Dr. Orr
Most engagements are under NDA, but here's what clients say:
★★★★★
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“Dr. Linda Orr was as knowledgeable and helpful as her profile suggested. She surfaced growth options we hadn't considered, especially around brand recognition, sales strategy, and market penetration, and we plan to continue working together.”
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Confidential Client
Premium DTC (Fitness / Performance Apparel) · Growth Strategy
★★★★★
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“Highly recommend Linda for market research and industry insights. She delivered a clear, well-structured report packed with actionable recommendations, including 20+ stakeholder interviews translated into positioning and an executable market-entry strategy.”
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Franco Allena, My Yacht Marketer
Premium DTC Services · Market Research · Market Entry Strategy
★★★★★
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“She identified several options including enhanced brand recognition and increased sales and market penetration routes we had not considered.”
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Upwork Client
Premium DTC Apparel · Growth Strategy
★★★★★
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“Linda at Orr Consulting is absolutely brilliant. As a fractional CMO, she brings a level of strategic thinking and marketing expertise that goes far beyond the typical consultant, and she delivers real, measurable results.”
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M. Moffett
Google Review
★★★★★
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“Her fractional CMO work is backed by both data and market insights/trends... She knows how to balance big picture marketing strategy with the daily work it takes to turn that strategy into results.”
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Elevate Agency
Google Review
★★★★★
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“Linda is an absolute pro. She's incredibly responsive, solution-oriented, and really easy to work with... If you're looking for someone who makes marketing feel less overwhelming and gets results, Linda's the person for you.”
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Q. Mayberry
Google Review
Questions about the audit
How much does a paid media mix audit cost?
Starting at $5,500 for two platforms with up to 5 campaigns each and 12 months of history. More platforms, more campaigns, a review of every ad, a 24-month lookback and competitor benchmarking add to the price. Single-channel Google Ads and Meta ads audits start at $3,500. Every audit is quoted as a flat fee after a free 30-minute call.
Can you fix what you find?
Yes. My team can carry out the fixes, or you can take the list to your in-house team or current agencies.
How is this different from an agency's audit?
An agency audit usually covers the channels that agency runs and is built to sell its management services. This looks across every platform at once, checks how they overlap and double count, and you keep the budget recommendation and fix list whether or not you hire anyone.
Is this the same as a marketing mix model?
No. The audit uses the data you already have to find waste, double counting and budget shifts. A marketing mix model statistically estimates what each channel, including awareness, actually contributes to sales. If you have two or more years of weekly data, an audit plus a model starts at $20,000.
Updated November 9, 2026
Can't I just have ChatGPT or Claude audit my media mix?
AI is good at pulling reports and flagging obvious problems, and I use it to work faster. It can't tell that two platforms are claiming the same customer, that branded search sales would have happened anyway, or that cutting awareness spend will show up months later. Those judgment calls are what you pay an audit for.
How far back does the audit look?
Twelve months by default, which covers most seasonal swings. If your business is strongly seasonal or changed a lot this year, I look back 24 months so a slow month isn't mistaken for a weak channel.
Want a straight answer on what your paid media is really returning? Book a free 30-minute call and we'll talk through your channels.