About our Approach to Diligence & Digital Marketing

Comprehensive, practical and designed to meet your aggressive investment timelines.

You’ve seen the numbers, but do you actually know how well-optimized your target’s marketing channels are?

 

Our approach differs greatly from that of traditional consultants and advisors. Rather than working through a predefined set of questions or focusing on financial models, our team seeks to truly understand whether a marketing channel has been fully optimized or whether risky tactics are in use.

This type of work can only be conducted by experienced digital marketers who have managed the channels themselves, using both manual review and a suite of tools. With so much reliance or opportunity from digital marketing and websites, it’s critical that investors understand whether there is upside or risk beyond just hearing what the team has to say, or taking a look at standard reports and tools such as Google Analytics or GA4.

Our team brings an average of 15 years of hands-on digital marketing experience running the marketing channels and digital marketing or eCommerce P&Ls at leading businesses. We bring an operational mindset and look for scalable, pragmatic solutions.

In addition, our leaders have worked at private equity-backed or publicly-traded companies, leading us to understand what private equity teams expect and value.

 Tailored Marketing Services for
Every Stage of the Investment Lifecycle

Speed to deliver

 

Comprehensiveness

  • Identify Risk & Upside with Pre-LOI Diligence

    Independent third-party reviews of marketing channels by our team of experienced marketers

    Focused on identifying risk and upside through third-party data and manual observation

  • Validate Assumptions & Models with Post-LOI Diligence

    Access to first-party data (e.g., Google Analytics, Ad Platforms, etc) allows us to dig deeper into your prospect’s business

    Focused on identifying risk and upside through first-party data

  • Optimize Revenue Opportunities with Digital Marketing Channel Audits

    Comprehensive audits with prioritized growth plans designed to identify gaps in performance or opportunity

    Designed to help set a strategy, with the goal of helping the company improve in the marketing channel(s)

    Focused on quick wins and strategic recommendations

  • Unlock Growth with Discovery & Value Creation

    Comprehensive digital marketing review and prioritized plan for growth including quick wins, major projects, fill-ins, and hard slogs across digital marketing channels (e.g., SEO, Paid Search, and Social Media), processes, people, and technology

    Focus on pragmatic, material, and actionable value creation through digital marketing

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Invest with Confidence

Our Digital Marketing Diligence work minimizes risks while uncovering valuable opportunities

We conduct thorough analyses of digital marketing channels, including paid search, SEO, paid social, website usability, and competitive data. Our findings are presented in a detailed report featuring an executive summary, identified opportunities, potential risks, a channel scorecard, and a comprehensive appendix.

Flexible Approach for Every Stage of the Investment Process:

  • We operate entirely “outside-in,” using third-party tools and manual analysis, requiring no input or data access from the investment candidate.

  • We (optionally) expand our scope to include interviews with key teams and analysis of first-party data (e.g., Google Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram). These projects are generally completed in one to six weeks and the priority is to identify opportunities for upside and potential risk to support the Firm’s investment decision.

    In addition, if your firm is confident that there will be a favorable outcome, we can begin to develop a value creation roadmap for optimization after the transaction has completed.

  • Discovery projects, channel audits, and roadmaps provide go-forward recommendations, as opposed to diligence which is primarily focused on observations and risk/upside.

Projects are typically completed in one to six weeks, prioritizing actionable insights that support informed investment decisions. Rush turnarounds are available as needed.

Comprehensive Assessments of Digital Marketing Channels:

Paid Search

  • Paid search competitors

  • Keyword analysis

  • Campaign structure

  • Top landing pages

  • Ad copy, use of sitelinks/extensions

    See the complete list

Organic Search

  • Traffic & value trends

  • Keyword ranking trends

  • Key competitors

  • Technical SEO

  • Growth in referring domains & quality

    See the complete list

Paid Social

  • Audience targeting

  • Campaign structure

  • Ad copy

  • Paid social competitors

  • Opportunities & platforms for expansion

    See the complete list

Optional Areas of Focus

  • Display ads

  • Website messaging

  • Web design, usability and platform

  • Marketing technology

  • Interviews with the prospect team

    See the complete list

FAQs

  • Depending on your needs, our process can take as little as one week and last up to 6-8 weeks. Most outside-in diligence projects take one week, and we request two weeks for diligence projects that are inside-out. Value creation roadmaps or in-depth audits can take 4-8 weeks.

  • We can generally work independently, especially for pre-LOI projects. We are happy to interview team members for additional context or to gauge their expertise, but understand that they are busy with other aspects of the diligence project so we have set our process up to be largely hands-off.

  • We can work with or without first-party data, but are able to provide a more in-depth analysis with access to Google Ads, analytics and other solutions. Most pre-LOI projects are done without access to first-party data and are focused on high-level upside and risk.