Media Transparency
Know where your media spend goes — and where leads slow down.
Northrun’s Media Transparency Audit reviews your ad accounts, platform spend, agency fees, software, tracking, and how inquiries are followed up until they become bookings. You receive a written, evidence-based read and action plan; Growth adds a report preview and findings call. Starter is $497; Growth is $1,250. Implementation is $3,500 – $5,000, server-priced, and Monitoring & Optimization starts at $1,000/month. The audit does not promise to uncover fraud, prove authenticity, recover money, or guarantee ROI.
Audit disclaimer — read this first
Read this first. The audit reviews what your account, platforms, vendors, software, and follow-up already produced evidence for — it does not adjudicate
“This is an evidence-based operational/reporting review, not a promise to uncover fraud, recover money, prove authenticity, or guarantee ROI.”
Read-only engagement: the audit does not make campaign changes during the read. No new tools are installed, no tracker pixels are added, no authentication codes are changed, and no spend is refunded on the buyer's behalf.
The audit sits inside the broader NorthrunMedia Transparency frame. The brand-wide Safety & Legal wording lives on the canonical disclaimer page — it covers the wider slice surface.
Read the canonical Media Transparency disclaimer →Who this is for
Four buyer shapes. One ladder.
Find the problem. Build the fix. Maintain the control. Pick the rung that sounds like you — each card pairs to the tier card below.
Audit — Starter buyer
You run one platform — search, social, or a local paid channel — and most new inquiries come through it. You want one clear read of the spend, the path to booking, and the follow-up you already pay for.
Starter reads the evidence in your one main source. Five deliverables, a written action plan, and a working-day timeline your team can hold open.
Audit — Growth buyer
You run two or more marketing sources, or one source that needs a wider review of spend, ownership, the path to booking, and what each record can show. You also want a report preview and a findings call.
Growth reads every source, every invoice, and the full path from inquiry to booking — plus slow-response gaps and the limits of what each platform can show.
Audit — Implementation buyer
You have a written audit (Starter or Growth) in hand and the same-named leak appears in two or three places across the channels you already run. You want one team to build the fix against that evidence, not a generic plug-in stack re- pitched by another vendor.
Implementation is sized $3,500 to $5,000 against the audit — narrower briefs land at the lower end; multi-channel builds with SMS / voice / booking land at the upper end. The configurator prices every quote.
Audit — Monitoring buyer
Your team has the audit (or the build) on file but does not have time to check spend weekly, review the path to booking monthly, and write the quarterly recap. You want a defined monthly review using the same records the audit opened.
Monitoring & Optimization starts from $1,000/month — weekly spend read, monthly booking-path review, quarterly written readout, and one same-day response lane for review questions. The review remains read-only.
The four rungs
Four rungs. One ladder.
Each rung carries its own scope, deliverables, timeline, expected outcome, and next step — Starter + Growth post to/api/stripe-billing/checkout, Monitoring posts to the same endpoint on a recurring handle, and Implementation routes through the existing/sprint/new configurator so every quote is sized against the audit findings, not off the shelf.
Media Transparency
What you walk away with
- Account ownership and admin access — who can actually access the records.
- Platform spend versus agency fees — where the money is going.
- Unclear software, creative, and tracking costs — what each charge covers.
- A path from new inquiry to booked work — where the first gap appears in your records.
- A written action plan that one owner can read without a spreadsheet.
Timeline
Around 7 working days
Expected outcome
A short written review you can read and keep, whether or not you book the next stage.
For a local service business with one main marketing source.
Media Transparency
What you walk away with
- Account ownership and admin access — every connected source, mapped.
- Platform spend versus agency fees — every source split out, every invoice traced.
- Unclear software, creative, and tracking costs — what each line covers, where the redundancy sits.
- A path from first inquiry to booking across every source.
- Response-time and follow-up gaps — the cost of a slow reply against your own numbers.
- What each source can and cannot prove, written down.
- A written action plan ordered by likely impact and effort.
- A report preview plus a findings call to walk through the plan with your team.
Timeline
Around 10 to 14 working days
Expected outcome
A written review, a report preview, and a findings call based on the markets and platforms already in your records.
For businesses running multiple sources or needing broader review.
Media Transparency
What you walk away with
- Reply tools — chat or reply flows written for the path from inquiry to booking.
- Connections — low-code flows linking customer-facing channels to your customer list or booking system.
- Customer records — one named system connected to the audit view, not a replacement for the system you already run.
- Text or voice — added where the response-time evidence supports the cost.
- A written build log showing what shipped and what did not.
Timeline
Sized against the audit — typically 4–8 weeks
Expected outcome
A working build connected to your existing systems and sized from the audit findings. Yours whether or not you continue monthly support.
The /sprint/new configurator prices each quote from the audit findings.
Media Transparency
What you walk away with
- Weekly spend check — platform and agency spend against plan, so a change is visible in the same week.
- Monthly booking-path review — the same source-by-source read refreshed against current records.
- Quarterly written readout — what moved, what did not, and what to change. Yours to share with the budget owner.
- One same-day response lane for review questions — a single thread, not a standing meeting.
- No campaign edits during the cadence — the review stays read-only.
Timeline
Monthly — starts after the audit deliverable is signed off
Expected outcome
A defined monthly cadence against the same evidence the audit reviewed. Yours whether or not you return to the build stage next quarter.
Recurring $1,000/month — the monthly review starts after the audit is signed off.
Starter and Growth are one-time payments, server-priced. Monitoring is a recurring monthly subscription billed through Stripe; Implementation is sized against the audit by the /sprint/new configurator.
After checkout you will receive a kickoff confirmation within one business day. See the full intake checklist →
What is in the audit
Eight things the audit reviews and writes down.
Same shape regardless of tier — Starter covers lines one through five, while Growth covers every line and adds the report preview plus a findings call.
A written record of who actually owns the data on every account connected to your marketing. The "owner" is the person who can answer the next question without checking in.
Every dollar you spent last quarter, split into platform fees and the agency fees your team is paying on top. Plain English, no rounding.
Where the real spend sits when you look closely — the tools and creative retainers and tracking subscriptions you are paying for that have unclear ownership.
A clear read of where the first stuck point sits between a new inquiry and paid work, sized against the number the build would be based on.
What a slow reply may be costing you against your own numbers. Often the first gap the audit can size.
What the platforms will and will not tell you, including where the records cannot connect an inquiry to a booking.
Yours to read and share. Ranked by what moves the most against what costs the least. The audit deliverable you can hand to another vendor.
A report preview you can show your team, plus a findings call where the audit author walks the plan through with the people who will run it.
The five-step process
How the audit moves, in order.
Five steps. The first three are conversation and review; the last two arrive in writing. You stay in the loop on every step.
Step-by-step cadence
The same cadence for Starter and Growth — the working-day window shortens for Starter and lengthens for Growth; the steps themselves do not change.
- 1. Kickoff call. A 30-minute call where we name the source we will read first, the dollar number we are sizing against, and the calendar window your team holds open for the audit.
- 2. Evidence-collection window. You send the access agreed on at kickoff. We read what the platforms, vendors, invoices, and follow-up logs already contain — no new tools and no tracker installs.
- 3. First read. A first-pass write-up of what the records show. Anything without supporting evidence is marked inconclusive; the audit does not invent a number.
- 4. Report draft. The full report draft arrives in writing. You read it on your own schedule; it clearly marks what the evidence supports and what it does not.
- 5. Findings call. A 60-minute call where the audit author walks through the plan with your team. The plan is yours whether or not you book the next stage.
Working-day windows
About a week for Starter. About ten to fourteen working days for Growth.
Starter lands around 7 working days; Growth lands around 10–14 working days. Both are estimates, sized against your intake shape. The kickoff call locks the calendar window your team holds open for the read.
Frequently asked
9 questions readers ask before they book.
Plain-language answers, the same way the brief asked for them. Where the read touches on a non-audit domain — legal, accounting, forensic — the answer says so out loud.
After the audit
Where the audit ends, and what comes next.
After the audit the next steps are the Setup Sprint from $3,500 and ongoing Performance Transparency from $1,000/month — sized against the audit, not off the shelf.
The four rungs are read in order — find the problem, build the fix, maintain the control. Find the problem. Build the fix. Maintain the control. The audit is yours whether or not you re-enter the ladder at any rung.
Talk to us first
Want a reply before you book?
Send the basics and we’ll reply within one business day. If a paid audit is the right next step, the reply will name which tier fits and on what evidence. If not, the reply will say so. Same cadence, same one-business-day window.