Audit Inherited Marketing Accounts: A Structured First Month

The best way to audit inherited marketing accounts is to change nothing for the first week. You are new, something looks wrong, and the instinct is to fix it immediately. So resist that, because the map matters more than the first repair. This is a four-week structure for a stack you did not build, written for the person who arrives and finds that nobody can say who has access to what.

Audit Inherited Marketing Accounts, In Short

Week One: Audit Inherited Marketing Accounts By Building The Inventory

Start with a list and nothing else. Every platform, every account, every vendor and every recurring charge. So the deliverable for week one is a document, not a decision.

Tell your manager what you are doing before you start. A four-week audit sounds slow if nobody expects it and sounds thorough if they do. That framing is worth one short conversation in your first few days.

Then follow two trails to find what nobody mentioned. The first is money: pull the recurring charges on the company card and match each one to a platform. The second is tags: view the source of your own website and note every third-party script sitting on it. In fact, those two trails together surface most of the tools nobody remembered to tell you about.

Also, write down what you cannot verify rather than leaving it blank. A row marked unknown is useful. A missing row is invisible, and invisible things stay broken.

Give the document a shape you can hand over. One row per asset, with columns for the platform, the account name, the holder, the monthly cost and whether you can log in today. Five columns is enough. Anything more and people stop filling it in, which defeats the purpose entirely.

Week Two: Map Who Has Access To Each Asset

Now open each platform and read the user list. Not the account, the user list. So you are collecting names rather than checking settings, and the two are genuinely different tasks.

Then sort every name into four groups: current staff, current vendors, former staff and unknown. The fourth group is usually the largest and the most interesting. Of course, an unfamiliar name is not automatically a problem, and plenty turn out to be a contractor everyone forgot. Also, note the permission level beside each name, since an old contractor with view access is a very different finding from one holding admin. The measurement side of this sits in from data to decisions.

Take a screenshot of every user list as you go. Lists change, memories do not hold twenty names, and a dated image settles any later question about what the situation was when you arrived. It also gives you a before picture for the summary you will write in week four.

Week Three: Trace The Money And The Leads

Two flows run through any marketing stack, and both deserve a walk-through. Money goes out and leads come in. So follow each one end to end rather than trusting the reporting.

For the money, match every recurring charge to a platform, an owner and a purpose. Then flag anything you cannot explain in one sentence. For the leads, submit your own form with a name you will recognise and watch where it lands and how long it takes. In fact, that single test tends to produce the most surprising finding of the whole month, because reporting rarely describes routing accurately. The wider measurement discipline is covered in using analytics to measure growth.

Check the billing owner on each platform while you are in there. A card belonging to someone who left the company is a genuine risk, because the first sign of trouble is usually a campaign stopping rather than a warning email. Note which card funds which platform and whether anyone still monitors it.

Week Four: Close The Gaps And Document The Result

Only now do you change anything. Remove former staff, downgrade over-granted permissions, and reroute anything landing in the wrong inbox. So the changes are small, specific and defensible, because the map already exists.

Then write the summary. One page: what exists, who holds it, what you changed, and what still needs a decision from somebody above you. Also, keep the tone neutral throughout. A clear inventory with gaps marked is a contribution, whereas a list of what your predecessor got wrong is a different document with a different effect on the room.

Give each change a one-line reason in the document. Removed, because the person left in March. Downgraded, because view access covers the task. Six months from now nobody will remember why, including you, and a reason column turns your audit into something the next person can trust.

The People To Ask, And The Order To Ask Them

Ask in the right order and you get better answers with less friction. So start inside the company and move outward. Book short conversations rather than sending questions by email. Ten minutes with the right person usually beats a thread, and people tell you more in a conversation than they will write down.

Former Staff And Vendors Nobody Remembers Signing

Two findings appear in almost every first audit. The first is a former employee still holding access, usually with more permission than they ever needed. So remove it, log what you removed and when, and treat it as oversight rather than as a story.

The second is a vendor nobody remembers engaging. A tool charging monthly, a script on the site, an agency with partner access from a project that ended two years ago. Then the question is simply whether it still serves a purpose. Granted, some of these turn out to be load-bearing, which is exactly why the inventory comes before the removals. The site side of that sits with El Paso web design and development.

Search the site source for scripts as well as reading the vendor list. A tag firing on every page is a live integration whether or not anyone is paying for it, and some of them send data somewhere. Match each script to a purpose and an owner before you decide anything about it.

What To Escalate And What To Simply Fix

Most of what you find, you fix quietly. Some of it needs a decision above your level. So sort by two questions: does this cost money, and does this need a conversation with a vendor?

• Fix quietly. So removing former staff, tightening permissions and correcting a notification address all belong here.
• Flag and fix. Then anything that changes how leads route deserves a heads-up to sales before you touch it.
• Escalate. Also, an asset held in a vendor's name is a commercial question rather than a technical one.
• Document only. Finally, note anything you cannot resolve yet, so it stays visible instead of quietly disappearing.

That split keeps you moving without stepping on anybody. Time the escalations rather than sending them as you find them. One summary at the end of the month lands better than five separate messages across four weeks, and it reads as an audit rather than as a stream of problems. Keep a running list and send it once. Indeed, the escalations land better when they arrive alongside a list of things you already handled. General footing on vendor arrangements sits in the SBA small business guidance, and Google documents the account permission levels you will be reading in Google's account access documentation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Audit Inherited Marketing Accounts Once, Then Keep The Document

If you audit inherited marketing accounts properly once, the document you produce outlives the exercise. So keep it current, review it quarterly, and hand it to whoever comes next. Then nobody arrives in your chair a few years from now facing exactly the same blank page you did.