An audience audit answers three questions: who is on this list, which of them matter commercially, and what should change next quarter. Here's the sequence, timed.
Minutes 0–5: hygiene first
- Import and validate the full list
- Note the invalid percentage — over 8% means deliverability is already bleeding
- Remove invalids before reading anything else; they distort every downstream number
Minutes 5–15: identity pass
- Run resolution on the cleaned list
- Read the industry and seniority mix in People — is this who the content thinks it's for?
- Check the work/personal address split; B2B lists over ~60% personal addresses usually signal lead-magnet tourism
Minutes 15–25: money pass
- Open the core-readers segment — how many, and what do they have in common?
- Open active non-buyers — this is the conversion backlog; describe them in one sentence
- Compare dormant share to list age; old list + low dormancy means the count was already pruned (good sign)
Minutes 25–30: write the three moves
- One content move: which direction does the core segment over-index on?
- One growth move: which segment deserves lookalikes first?
- One hygiene move: what gets suppressed or re-permissioned this month?
Deliverable: one page, three moves, evidence attached. Agencies — this audit is a legitimate paid product; run it in the first week of every engagement.
Run this on your own list.