What to Expect from a Marketing Due Diligence Project
If you’re investing in or acquiring a company, understanding the strength of its marketing operation is just as important as reviewing its financials or tech stack. Marketing drives revenue. It influences sales velocity, pipeline quality, brand equity and cost of acquisition. And yet, it’s often overlooked or too lightly assessed during due diligence.
At Remora, we believe marketing due diligence should give you a clear picture of what you’re buying, or what hell you may be walking into. It should help you spot risks, pressure test growth assumptions, and expose hidden problems that might affect valuation or future performance.
So, what does a marketing due diligence project actually involve?
-
Review of the Marketing Strategy
We start by reviewing the target company’s current marketing strategy. Does it exist? Is it coherent? Does it align with the company’s stated goals and growth plans?
We look for things like:
- Clear ICP (ideal customer profile) definitions
- Documented positioning and messaging frameworks
- Go-to-market strategy and segmentation
- Channel prioritisation and budget allocation
If a company says they’re growing through inbound, but all spend is on trade shows and telesales, that’s a red flag. If the ICP is vague or covers too many verticals, expect inefficient spend and low conversion rates.
-
Website and Funnel Diagnostics
Your first encounter with the business is usually through their website. If it’s unclear, hard to navigate or poorly built, that says a lot. We analyse:
- Website architecture and load speed
- Clarity of messaging and value proposition
- Conversion paths and form friction
- Funnel setup in tools like HubSpot or GA4
- Lead sources, attribution, and journey tracking
We often find poor tagging, no funnel visibility, and unclear reporting. These are fixable, but they indicate a lack of marketing ops maturity. They can also be used to question claims about lead volume or pipeline quality.
-
Channel and Campaign Effectiveness
We dig into what’s actually working. Paid search? Content? Events? Email nurture? We look at:
- Channel performance and cost per MQL
- Sales conversion rates by channel
- Historical campaign performance and ROI
- Organic traffic trends and keyword targeting
A company we audited not that long ago had impressive lead numbers, but nearly all came from branded search and referrals. That’s not a repeatable growth engine. Another had burned 80% of its paid media budget on getting lots of impressions but they were all in territories that the company didn’t even operate in!
You need to know what spend is truly scalable, and what’s smoke and mirrors.
-
Team and Agency Setup
We interview the internal marketing team (if there is one and often it’s the sales director!), review job roles, and evaluate agency dependencies. We’ll ask them/her/him:
- Who owns performance?
- Are roles clearly defined?
- Is there a culture of testing and iteration?
- Are agencies delivering real value?
It’s common to find one overwhelmed marketer running everything, or a bloated retainer producing weak output. If the team lacks strategic depth or operational rigour, expect problems scaling.
-
MarTech and Data Infrastructure
Tech stack bloat and poor integration are common pain points. We assess:
- The CRM and marketing automation setup
- Data flows between systems (e.g. CRM ↔ website)
- Reporting dashboards and attribution quality
- Use of AI or automation in lead management
If your data’s a mess then forecasting becomes guesswork. If marketing and sales aren’t integrated, pipeline gets stuck. And if reporting is Excel-based, you’ll be flying blind.
-
Brand and Competitive Positioning
We run a surface-level audit of the brand: tone, visual consistency, and how it lands in-market. Then we look at the company’s positioning against key competitors.
Does it stand out? Or blend in like a MeToo company?
A lack of brand differentiation won’t show up on a balance sheet, but it kills pricing power and slows down pipeline. If the company is claiming strong brand equity, we’ll want to see evidence not just take their word for it.
-
Risk and Negotiation Insights
Finally, we identify specific issues that could justify renegotiation. Examples include:
- Overreliance on one marketing channel
- High CAC with flatlining conversion
- Weak marketing team with key-person risk
- No clear plan to scale demand generation
These findings are useful leverage in deal discussions. We’ve helped buyers shave hundreds of thousands off asking prices by highlighting inconsistencies between claimed marketing performance and actual data.
What You’ll Get
Our marketing due diligence reports are structured, evidence-based and written in plain English. You’ll get:
- A detailed breakdown of strengths and weaknesses
- A traffic-light risk matrix across key marketing dimensions
- Questions to raise with the seller’s leadership team
- A set of practical recommendations, prioritised by impact
Whether you’re PE-backed, making a bolt-on acquisition, or exploring a majority stake, this level of marketing clarity helps you make smarter decisions.
Remora has delivered these projects for buyers across multiple sectors – from fintech and software to energy and professional services. If you’re evaluating a potential deal and want to pressure test the marketing claims, we’re ready to help.
Are you confident you’re seeing the full picture? Let talk today. Click here
