Why these three words, in this order
Most media audits stop at analysis. You get a PDF, a presentation, a list of issues. Then the hard part of actually changing anything falls to the client. The Fuel Method is deliberately built around active verbs, because every stage of a good audit is something being done to the problem.
Trace comes first because you cannot diagnose what you cannot see. Most waste hides in the places agencies do not report on: the fees between DSPs and publishers, the queries that should never have matched, the conversions that are being double-counted. Before we form any view on performance, we make the invisible visible.
Test comes second because activity data alone cannot tell you whether a decision was right. A campaign can look efficient against its own targets and still be materially worse than the alternative. We benchmark every meaningful choice (platforms, strategy, creative cadence, commercial arrangement) against market truth, not agency averages.
Transform comes third because a report is not a result. Every engagement ends with a prioritised plan that separates what you can do in week one from what will take a quarter, with owners, timelines and projected impact. And we stay if you want us to.
Stage 01
Trace
We follow every pound through the media supply chain.
If it left your budget and did not reach a real audience, we find it.
We work from source-of-truth data: platform log-level exports, contracts, invoices, server-side event streams. Never from agency-built dashboards. Before we form any view on performance, we prove where every pound actually went.
What we work from
- Read-only access to every ad platform, DSP, ad server and analytics instance
- 12 months of raw platform data: impressions, bid history, query reports, audience reach
- All commercial documents: contracts, rate cards, invoices, rebate disclosures
- Server-side tracking, Conversions API and first-party event data where available
- Media plans, flighting documents and agency reports (for comparison, not truth)
What you receive
- A complete map of your media supply chain: every intermediary, every fee
- Reconciliation of agency-reported spend vs platform-reported spend vs invoiced spend
- Identification of wasted impressions, invalid traffic and MFA inventory
- A full picture of where your investment actually reaches real audiences
Stage 02
Test
We benchmark every decision against market truth, not agency averages.
What you paid vs. what you could have paid. What you bought vs. what a better path would have delivered.
Agencies benchmark you against themselves (against an average of what their other clients paid). We benchmark you against the market. We stress-test strategy decisions, measurement setups, creative rotation, audience architecture and commercial arrangements to surface what a better decision would have changed.
What we work from
- Our proprietary benchmark dataset built from 60+ audits
- Platform-reported performance data reconciled with first-party outcomes
- Competitor auction insights, share of voice and impression share analysis
- Attribution integrity checks: platform-reported vs independently verified conversions
- Contract terms benchmarked against current market rate cards and pitch outcomes
What you receive
- A quantified estimate of what you could be paying for the same or better outcomes
- Platform-by-platform and decision-by-decision scorecards
- Attribution gap analysis: the difference between what is claimed and what is true
- Identification of the commercial arrangements that quietly work against you
Stage 03
Transform
Every audit ends with a prioritised 90-day plan, not just a report.
Savings start in the first week of the plan. Structural gains compound from week thirteen.
Most audits end with a PDF and a meeting. Ours end with a remediation roadmap, sequenced by impact, clear on accountability, realistic on timeline. We can hand it to your team and return at twelve months for a review, or stay through implementation as an extension of your team.
What we work from
- The full findings from Trace and Test stages
- Your commercial priorities, resourcing constraints and stakeholder context
- Renegotiation leverage points surfaced during the contract review
- Measurement, reporting and governance gaps identified in the audit
What you receive
- A prioritised 90-day remediation roadmap with owners, timelines and projected impact
- Immediate-win actions that can be executed in week one (negatives, pauses, restructures)
- Structural work for weeks four through twelve (tracking rebuild, account restructure, contract renegotiation)
- An annual review framework to stop the waste returning
- Optional hands-on implementation support or supplier renegotiation on your behalf
A typical engagement takes six weeks
Discovery and data extraction in weeks one and two. Analysis and benchmarking in weeks two through five. Findings and roadmap delivered in week six. Implementation support available if you want it; we can also return at the twelve-month mark to verify that savings have been retained and waste has not crept back.