Key facts
- An audit is diagnosis, not repair. Write that boundary into the RFP directly, because some vendors quietly blur an audit into a sales pitch for a retainer instead of delivering a standalone finding.
- A useful audit checks the Google Tag Manager container itself for duplicate or conflicting tags, not just whether Google Analytics 4 is technically installed on the site.
- Ask for at least ninety days of account history in the audit's data window; a shorter window can hide seasonal patterns or a change that happened just before the audit started.
- Findings should be ranked by likely impact on leads or revenue, not just listed in the order they were noticed, so you know which fix to prioritize first.
- A technical SEO audit and a Google Ads account audit are different disciplines with different checklists; a single generalist bidder covering both should show experience in each, not one skill stretched across two scopes.
What This Audit Covers, and Where the Report Stops
Scope this engagement as a diagnostic review of what already exists across your Google Ads account, your website's SEO, and your analytics and tag setup, delivered as a written report. It is not a retainer, and it does not include implementing any of the fixes it recommends; those are a separate, priced engagement once you have decided which findings matter most to you.
Be specific about which accounts and how much history are in scope: the Google Ads account and its full campaign structure, the site's technical SEO and on page factors, and the Google Tag Manager container along with GA4 configuration. If you also want a review of your Google Business Profile or your review management, name those explicitly, since they are commonly left out of a generic "marketing audit" quote.
Make clear this is a fixed price, fixed scope engagement with a defined end date, not an open ended hourly arrangement that can run indefinitely without a deliverable.
What Read Only Access an Auditor Actually Needs
Grant read only access wherever the platform allows it: viewer access to your Google Ads account, viewer access to GA4 and Google Tag Manager, and read access to Google Search Console. An auditor does not need edit rights to diagnose a problem, and limiting access to read only removes any risk that a review accidentally changes a live account.
Provide login access to your CMS in a low permission role if the audit includes on page or technical SEO review of pages that require a login to inspect, such as gated or staging content.
Hand over any prior audits, past agency reports, or known issues you are already aware of, so the vendor's time goes toward finding what you have not already identified rather than re-discovering problems you already know about.
Who Owns the Findings Once the Report Is Delivered
The written report, every finding in it, and any screenshots or data exports the auditor produced belong to you outright once payment is complete. There is no ongoing access to revoke, since the engagement is read only from the start, which is one reason a standalone audit is lower risk than a retainer.
Confirm the report is yours to share with a different vendor, including a competing agency, without restriction. Some audit providers try to make the findings a lead-in for their own retainer and write vague, hard-to-action reports on purpose; state in the RFP that the findings must be specific enough for any competent vendor to act on them.
If the auditor recommends specific fixes, ask whether the report names exactly what to change, not just that something is wrong, since a vague finding is far less useful when you take it to whoever implements the fix.
A Fixed Delivery Date, and a Findings Report as the Test
Set a single, fixed delivery date for the written report from the day access is granted; a reasonable window for a full ads, SEO, and tracking audit is two to three weeks, not months. Build the access grant date into the contract as the clock start so delays on your side do not get blamed on the vendor.
The acceptance test is the report itself: every finding ranked by likely impact, the evidence behind each one, and a specific recommended fix. A report that lists ten issues with no ranking and no evidence has not met a reasonable bar, regardless of how many pages it runs.
Require a live walkthrough call to present the findings, not just a document sent by email, so you can ask questions about anything unclear before you sign off that the engagement is complete.
How to Score Audit Proposals
Weight technical depth heavily: 30 percent for the specificity of the audit checklist they propose (does it name checking the GTM container for duplicate tags, checking Core Web Vitals, checking for cannibalizing keywords, or is it vague), 20 percent for relevant sample findings from past work, redacted, 20 percent for the clarity of their reporting format, 15 percent for price, and 15 percent for turnaround time.
Be skeptical of a bid priced far below the others; a full audit across three platforms takes real hours, and an unusually cheap price often means a template report with generic findings rather than a genuine account by account review.
Ask for a sample of a past, redacted audit report as part of the proposal itself, not just a promise to deliver one; the sample tells you more about the rubric than any description of their process.
Questions Every Audit Bidder Should Answer
Before scoring anyone, get a written answer to each of these: What is your checklist for a Google Tag Manager audit specifically, and does it check for duplicate or conflicting tags? How do you rank findings by impact rather than just listing them? What is included and excluded from your standard audit versus what would be an add-on? Can you show a redacted sample report from a past client?
Also ask directly whether the audit is designed to lead into a retainer pitch, and ask them to confirm the findings will be specific enough for a different vendor entirely to act on. A vendor who hesitates on that question is telling you something about how the report will be written.
Related questions
No, keep them separate. An audit is a diagnostic report with findings and recommendations; implementing those fixes is a different engagement with its own scope and price, and combining them upfront makes it harder to compare audit bids on the same terms.
Read only, wherever the platform supports it: viewer access to Google Ads, GA4, and Google Tag Manager, plus read access to Search Console. An auditor diagnosing a problem does not need edit rights to any live account.
Two to three weeks from the day access is granted is reasonable for a combined Google Ads, SEO, and tracking audit. Longer timelines are common when the scope is broader; be wary of a quote with no fixed delivery date at all.
It ranks findings by likely impact, backs each one with evidence such as a screenshot or data export, and names a specific fix rather than a vague description of a problem. A report a different vendor could act on without follow-up questions has met the bar.
It happens, but it should not be the point. Write into the RFP that findings must be specific and actionable by any vendor, not just the one who wrote the report, so the audit stays useful to you regardless of who you hire next.
SearchPod is a vendor for this kind of work and would answer this RFP; the acceptance tests here are the ones we agree to.
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