Auditing a channel
Scored out of ten, topic by topic, with the good scores explained as carefully as the bad ones.
The short version
Is this for you? For anyone tired of audits that only flatter, or of advice with no score attached to it. Not much use yet on a channel with barely any videos to read; a scored audit needs a body of work to find a pattern in, and a handful of uploads is not one.
What leaves your plate. A scored reading, topic by topic, with the working shown and the strengths named as precisely as the faults, so nobody has to take a verdict on trust.
What starts working. An honest picture of where the channel stands, written to survive being forwarded to somebody who was never on the call.
The smallest way in. A free audit: three fields, and a written reading back, usually within about three working days. It commits you to nothing.
What to read next. The five levels to see where this fits, or the casework to see it done.
Scored out of ten, with every score explained
Everything is scored, and every score is explained
Main topics and sub-topics, marked out of ten. A number on its own is a verdict, and a verdict is not useful to anybody who has to act on it, so each score carries the reason it landed where it did and, where it is low, a recommended fix. The document is short enough that somebody actually reads it.
What already works gets the same paragraph as what does not
Strong scores are explained in as much detail as weak ones. A partner who understands why a topic performed can repeat it without us, which is the entire point and also, commercially, the least convenient thing to write down. An audit that only lists problems is a sales document wearing a lab coat.
The audit comes before there is anything to quote
Nobody has to earn one first, and asking for it is the whole of the commitment. Pricing a channel nobody has read means pricing an assumption, and the partner is the one who pays for that assumption being wrong. This is the same free audit offered on the strategy line, read here through a YouTube manager's eyes rather than a strategist's; it costs nothing, it is complete on its own terms, and what it finds belongs to you whether or not anything follows.
Competitors are read one at a time
A file of comparable creators, each with its own short read on what it does well and where it is exposed. Saturated topics get named, and so does the ground nobody has claimed. That comparison is what a strategy is built from, and a generic list of things a channel ought to be posting is not.
What an audit reads, and what it hands back
What gets read
The flagship account in detail: recent uploads, packaging, metadata, cadence, the visual identity, the topics the niche has already exhausted. The stated purpose of the channel and the result it is meant to produce. Where analytics access has been granted, the numbers behind the public surface, which usually disagree with it in at least one interesting way.
What comes back
A fit snapshot, the scored topic list with its reasoning, two or three prioritised opportunities, and a recommended next step. Sometimes that step is equipment, or a different problem entirely, or nobody at all for six months. A fifty-page audit is a document that gets admired and never opened.
A score with no reasoning attached is a grade, and a grade tells a partner nothing they could act on tomorrow morning.
So every mark, good and bad, arrives with the reason it landed where it did.
What changes for you
An honest reading of where the channel stands, in language that survives being forwarded to somebody who was not on the call, with the good news explained well enough to be repeated deliberately rather than accidentally.
Related: The free audit · Channel strategy and DNA · Market and audience research · Reading a video
The audit reads the channel the way a manager would: cadence, packaging and what the analytics are asking for next. What we would change comes back in writing, before any commitment.
Request your free audit.
Three fields, and a written reading back: a fit snapshot, two or three prioritised opportunities, and a recommended next step.
A person reads the channel and writes the audit by hand: a considered read typically takes three working days. That is the usual shape, not a promised turnaround. We use these details only to reply to you: no lists, no lurking.
What you will get
A fit snapshot: where your channel stands, and whether we are a match.
Two to three opportunities: specific, prioritised, yours to keep.
A recommended next step, even if that step is not us.
The audit is free and commits you to nothing: nobody follows up with a call you did not ask for.
The casework shows all of this done.
The case studies are the same work with the numbers, the sources and the dates attached.
See the casework →