Marketing and Sales Due Diligence: Revenue Growth Assessment

Want to grow your business now?

Need to understand the potential of a company you are buying?

Seek to maximize the value of a spin-off?

Conduct comprehensive marketing and sales due diligence to discover what makes money, what drives growth and what might be holding you back.

While traditional due diligence examines the financials, management team, technology, intellectual property, operations, and legal risks, marketing and sales due diligence is a deep look into the revenue engine of a brand or a company.

What is marketing and sales due diligence?

Marketing and sales due diligence assesses the marketing organization, the marketing landscape, and the sales function. When everything works together, they generate revenue, protect profit margins, power growth, and nurture loyalty.

Marketing and sales due diligence examines these key areas. Consider them an 11-point engine check on your revenue generator:

Brand strategy, positioning, architecture, image, and voice
Customers, buyers, and users and their buying journey
Products and services features and innovations
Competitive brand positions and marketing tactics
Messages, media, and brand touchpoints
Marketing organization, capabilities, processes, and tactics
Integration with sales and effective sales enablement
Sales structure, capabilities, practices, and tools
AI readiness
Trends and influences
Metrics and reporting

Marketing and sales due diligence in detail

Here is a detailed look into what might be included in a comprehensive assessment:

Brand strategy, positioning, architecture, image, and voice: A company’s brand is more than its name, logo, or advertising. It influences why customers choose the company, what they expect from it, and how much they are willing to pay. A clear, differentiated, and relevant brand drives enterprise value, customer preference, cash flow, and enterprise value. Evaluating the brand starts with asking questions such as:

What does the company stand for?
Why do customers choose it instead of competitors?
Is that differentiation meaningful or simply marketing language?
Does the positioning reflect what customers actually value?
Is the brand strong enough to support the company’s growth plans?
Could the brand stretch into new products, markets, or geographies?
Are there gaps between what the company says and what customers experience?
Does the brand have assets or equity worth protecting?
Is the company relying too heavily on the reputation of a founder or a few key individuals?
And considering its visual presentation, does it stand out and effectively reflect the brand strategy?
How well does the logo work in different sizes and applications?
How consistent is the visual look across applications and channels?
How does the visual brand compare with competitors?

Customers, buyers, and users and their buying journey

It is vital to know exactly who your customers are, what they value and think, and what they buy. For a consumer product, knowing the customer is relatively straightforward. For a B2B sale, many people may be involved in a buying decision. And today, both B2B and B2C customers often work in tandem with an AI agent. Questions to ask include:

Who are the customers, buyers, and users?
Which segments generate the most revenue and profit?
Who actually makes the purchase decision?
How many people are involved in a typical sale?
What needs or problems lead customers to buy? What triggers interest and a sale?
What alternatives do they consider?
What objections or barriers slow down the decision?
What are the stages in the buying journey? How can it be more efficient?
Where are there opportunities to increase conversion, retention, or expansion?
Why do customers stay? Why do they leave?
What unmet needs could create opportunities for growth?
How is the company gathering and using customer insight?
What questions are customers asking of AI agents?

Products and services features and innovations

A strong product does not automatically create a strong business. The product has to meet a real and relevant need, remain competitive, and be easy for customers to understand and buy. A product assessment includes:

What problem does the product or service solve?
What makes it different? Is there overlap with other products and services?
How do customers understand its value?
How is it packaged and priced?
Are there opportunities to upsell, cross-sell, or bundle?
What does the product roadmap/innovation plan look like?
How does the company decide which features or services to add?
Are there products that are underperforming?
Are there opportunities to expand the offering?
Does the current portfolio support the company’s growth strategy?

Competitive brand positions and marketing tactics

You need to know how products, services, and the enterprise itself stack up in the minds of customers—along with how they see you against competitors. You need to see how they are going to market, and also look ahead to spot emerging threats. Questions include:

What are the real alternative products?
How do competitors position themselves?
What do they promise customers?
Where are they stronger and where are they vulnerable?
How do they price, distribute, and promote their offerings?
What are customers saying about them?
Are new competitors, technologies, or business models changing the competitive landscape?
What emerging threats could undermine the company’s position?
Where are there gaps in the market the company could credibly fill?

Messages, media, and brand touchpoints

You need to reach the right audiences with the right messages at the right places and times. Questions to explore include:

Does the company communicate a clear, consistent value proposition across its channels?
What digital and traditional media are effective at explaining the offering and generating qualified interest?
Are marketing channels appropriate and well-coordinated for the target audiences and buying process?
Do campaigns reach the right prospects with relevant messages?
Is content helping buyers understand their problems, evaluate solutions, and make decisions?
Which activities generate qualified leads, pipeline, sales, or customer retention?
Where is the company spending money without clear evidence of return?
Are there gaps in the customer experience across channels?

Marketing organization, capabilities, processes, and tactics

You need more than a solid strategy; you need a well-organized marketing function with the right capabilities and effective processes. An assessment of the marketing function considerers strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in:

Team structure
Roles and responsibilities
Leadership
Agency relationships
Marketing and sales collaboration
Budget allocation
Processes
Technology and data
Measurement and reporting
Executive and board involvement

Integration with sales and effective sales enablement

Marketing and sales share a common objective: profitable revenue growth. Yet they often operate as separate functions, with different priorities, measures of success, and views of the customer. Marketing may generate leads that sales considers unqualified. Sales doesn’t use the materials marketing provides. These questions uncover disconnects, friction, and waste:

Do marketing and sales share revenue, pipeline, or customer growth objectives?
Are responsibilities and accountability clear across the buying journey?
Do both functions agree on target customers and qualified leads?
How are leads handed off, followed up, tracked, and measured?
Does sales provide feedback on lead quality, objections, and lost opportunities?
Does marketing use sales insights to improve targeting, positioning, and campaigns?
Can salespeople clearly explain the company’s value proposition and differentiation?
Do sales teams have the presentations, case studies, competitive information, and other materials they need?
Is content mapped to the questions buyers ask at different stages of the decision?
Are salespeople trained to use marketing materials and communicate the brand consistently?
Do the CRM and marketing systems give both teams a shared view of prospects and customers?
Are meetings, reporting, and planning processes sufficient to keep the functions aligned?
Where do handoffs break down, and what would improve conversion and sales productivity?

Sales structure, capabilities, practices, and tools

A company’s sales organization is where strategy meets the customer. Its structure, leadership, talent, processes, and tools all influence how effectively it acquires customers, converts opportunities, grows accounts, and delivers revenue. Questions to assess current effectiveness and changes that can drive future growth include:

Is the sales organization structured for the right geography, product, industry, account size, or customer type?
Are territories, accounts, quotas, and responsibilities allocated effectively?
Does the team have the right mix of skills, experience, and leadership?
Are sales incentives and compensation plans encouraging the right behaviors?
Is the sales process clearly defined, consistently followed, and appropriate for the buying cycle?
How effectively does the team prospect, qualify opportunities, manage the pipeline, and close deals?
Where do opportunities stall, and why are deals lost?
Are forecasts accurate and supported by reliable pipeline data?
Do sales managers coach effectively and use performance information to improve results?
Does the team have the training, playbooks, competitive intelligence, and sales materials it needs?
Are CRM systems and other sales tools used consistently and effectively?
Are account management, customer success, renewal, and expansion opportunities being addressed?
What prevents salespeople from spending more time selling?
What changes in structure, skills, processes, tools, or management could improve productivity and profitable growth?

AI readiness

AI is changing how prospective customers research, consider, and decide to buy. Questions to uncover the AI-readiness of marketing and sales include:

Are marketing materials accessible to AI and structured for AI to understand, evaluate, and use your content?
How much content is on sites with restricted access, anti-bot technology, licensed platforms, in JavaScript or PDF form, and with gated access?
How much material is marketing fluff and promises, and how much is factual claims supported with proof?
How widely available is information beyond just your website?
How consistent is the material?
Have you included testimonials, customer reviews, references, third party recognition, and in independent validation?
How deep is the available material in order to establish authority?
How are you showing up in AI answers vs your competition?
Is your marketing and sales organization gathering data and using AI to analyze it for lead qualification, personalization, forecasting, or customer insights, and more?

Market trends and influences

Changes in customer behavior, technology, regulation, distribution, pricing, and industry economics can create opportunities or threaten an established business model. The questions vary by company and industry, but may include:

How is the target market changing in size, structure, and growth potential?
How are customer needs, preferences, or buying behaviors shifting?
Are demographic, economic, technological, or regulatory changes affecting demand?
Are new distribution models or channels changing how customers discover and purchase products?
Are competitors adopting new technologies, business models, or pricing strategies?
Are there adjacent markets, customer segments, or unmet needs worth pursuing?
Are current products, services, and positioning likely to remain relevant?
What external risks could affect pricing, margins, customer retention, or market access?
Which trends support the current strategy and which threaten it?

Metrics and reporting

Measuring the right things, using reliable data, and putting it to use at every level uncovers opportunities, provides an early warning of problems, and keeps your business on track. Evaluating your measurement and reporting involves looking into

Which sales and marketing metrics are you tracking?
Can the company connect marketing spending to qualified pipeline, new business, and revenue?
Does management understand customer acquisition cost, conversion rates, retention, and customer lifetime value where relevant?
Are sales forecasts, pipeline reports, and win-loss data reliable?
Can the company identify performance by product, customer segment, channel, geography, or sales team?
Are customer profitability, discounting, pricing, and margin trends visible?
Does reporting distinguish activity from business outcomes?
Are metrics reviewed regularly by the appropriate leaders?
Do executives and investors receive the information they need to assess performance and make decisions?
Where are data quality, attribution, or reporting gaps obscuring opportunities or risks?

What can marketing and sales due diligence uncover?

A good review should produce more than a list of weaknesses. It should identify opportunities and areas to improve such as:

A repositioning that could open a larger market
A product that has more potential than its current marketing suggests
Customers who could buy additional products or services
Diversification of customers and potentially industries
A sales organization that needs better tools and messaging
A brand that needs to evolve after an acquisition
Marketing resources that are being spent in the wrong places
An unclear customer journey that is slowing growth
A strong competitive advantage that the company has failed to articulate
New markets or audiences the existing brand can credibly enter

When should you conduct marketing and sales due diligence?

Before an acquisition: Evaluate commercial strengths, growth potential, competitive position, and risks that could affect the investment thesis.
After an acquisition: Establish a performance baseline, identify quick wins, and prioritize improvements that support the business plan.
When growth stalls: Identify barriers to revenue, conversion, customer retention, or marketing effectiveness before investing more resources.
Before a sale, spin-off, or strategic change: Determine whether the company’s positioning, customer relationships, and commercial strategy support its next stage of growth.
When a major opportunity emerges: Evaluate the market potential, competitive landscape, and capabilities needed to capture the opportunity and drive growth.
When leadership or ownership changes: Identify commercial strengths, gaps, and priorities to help new leaders set direction and create value.