Once your workspace is ready, Beside goes away and researches your market properly: who you are up against, what your customers are searching for, where you show up and where you do not. It writes what it finds as a report.
That report lives on the Marketing Audit page, in the Grow section of the left menu.
💡 This is not the free audit you saw at signup: The free audit is a quick look at what is public about you, before you have an account. The marketing audit is the deep version, and it runs on its own once you are set up. 📖 Get your free business audit
When it runs
Automatically, once, as soon as your workspace is set up at the end of signup. There is nothing to start and nothing to schedule.
It takes a few minutes. You do not have to sit and watch it: leave the page and come back, and the report will be waiting.
While it is running
The page shows Building your marketing audit, with the step Beside is on right now and how long it has been going. The steps appear as it works through them, so you can see what it is actually doing rather than watching a bar fill up.
What it works through:
What it does | What it is working out |
Locates your market area | Where you actually compete, and the area your customers come from |
Reads your Google listing and your reviews | What a customer sees before they call you, and what your customers say |
Reads your website | What you offer, and how it is described |
Profiles your competitors | Who Google puts next to you, and what they are doing that you are not |
Explores keywords and measures demand | What people in your area actually type, and how many of them |
Checks your rankings | Where you come on Google Search and on Maps for those searches |
Checks directory listings | Where your business is and is not listed |
Asks ChatGPT | Whether you get recommended when someone asks an assistant instead of searching |
Reading the report
When it finishes, the page says Audit complete with how long it took, and the report is there in full.
It is written to be read start to finish, once. It is worth doing that: it is the most complete picture Beside will ever put in one place, and it is what your agent's plans are built on. You do not have to act on any of it yourself.
✅ The report is the start, not the homework: Everything in it that is worth doing turns into work your agent proposes. You read it to understand your own market, not to build a to-do list.
What keeps being measured afterwards
The report is a snapshot of one moment. The numbers behind it keep being re-measured, under Ads, in the Analytics view:
Visibility, for how easily customers find you. 📖 Understand your Visibility score
Convert, for what happens to the ones who do. 📖 Understand your Convert score
So the audit tells you where you stood on the day; those two pages tell you where you stand now.
Troubleshooting
The page says "No marketing audit yet". Your report will appear there when the audit starts. If your workspace was only just set up, this is normal.
It says the audit has not started yet. Starting is taking longer than expected. Beside keeps checking for the report, so leaving the page and coming back later is the right move.
It says the audit could not finish. The research did not complete. Your agent still works from everything it already knows about your business, so nothing else is blocked by it.
It says it could not load the latest audit. That is the page failing to fetch, not the audit failing. Select Try again.
FAQ
Can I run it again?
Can I run it again?
Not from the page. The marketing audit runs once, when your workspace is set up. What replaces it is continuous: your Visibility and Convert measurements are refreshed on their own, and your agent re-reads your market as it works.
How long does it take?
How long does it take?
A few minutes. The page shows the elapsed time while it runs, and you do not need to stay on it: the report is there when you come back.
How is this different from the free audit?
How is this different from the free audit?
The free audit is what you saw before signing up: a quick read of what is public about you. The marketing audit goes much further, into search demand, rankings, competitors and directories, and it is what your agent's plans are built on. 📖 Get your free business audit
Something in the report is wrong about my business.
Something in the report is wrong about my business.
The audit works from what is public, so a mistake in it usually means the same mistake is out there where customers see it. Correct it in your Business Profile and your agent works from the corrected version. 📖 Keep your business information accurate
Does the audit cost credits?
Does the audit cost credits?
No. Research and thinking are free; credits are only spent when work is actually carried out. 📖 Understand your plan and credits