Marketers are often comfortable with audits of their paid media and justifiably so. Paid media often represents the largest marketing expenditure – if not the largest outright expenditure – for a company. This has created a regular behavior of paid media audits, but is that enough?

There appears to be a gap in the current auditing regimen. Paid and earned media audits are critical and we recommend they be held regularly, but what about the rest of the Paid, Owned, and Earned Media ecosystem? Not only are marketers buyers of media, they are also media owners, and that is often overlooked.

As accountability of spending is crucial now more than ever, it’s important for CMOs to understand and justify their marketing spend and this is why audits are key components of healthy marketing. In this report by R3 and the global authority on owned media, Sonder, insight is provided into the specialist nature of Paid, Earned, and Owned media audits and how marketers can weaponize their owned media assets to deliver commercial return to the business.

“The way in which owned media is audited and valued differs from paid and earned media. It requires a value-based methodology that captures all the relevant media, audiences, data and category diagnostics in a way that justifiably maximizes the value of the media. This is why media buying agencies aren’t equipped to value owned media – they exist primarily to reduce the value of media on their client’s behalf.”

Highlights in this R3 report:

  • Maximizing your marketing spend with paid and earned media
  • What to expect from a media benchmark plan
  • Evaluating the power of your owned properties
  • Auditing owned media