We provide unbiased assessments during diligence, with or without access to first-party data, and can provide ongoing support to your portfolio companies. Our team works quickly to stay within your investment timeline, offering pragmatic and cost-effective advisory services for every step of your process.
Private equity and venture capital firms spend countless hours ensuring that they’ve poured over every last detail, but often lack deep digital marketing experience.
Learn more about why leading private equity firms choose us to support their due diligence & portfolio companies.
Eyeful’s consultants and digital marketers can help augment your internal expertise by providing assessments during the bidding process (pre or post-LOI), after investment or can serve as your ongoing trusted digital partner to support your portfolio. We have built trusted relationships with operating partners and act with urgency to help drive your investments.
Our team thinks like operators and brings in-house experience from leading companies, as opposed to consultants who have a strong understanding of theory, but the experience of running multi-million dollar budgets and P&Ls.
“Highly experienced, talented, high-energy team that hits their marks on quality deliverables on time.”
In the high-stakes realm of Private Equity, every decision hinges on due diligence. PE teams invest significant resources in the due diligence process. Don’t make the mistake of overlooking digital marketing risks and opportunities during your due diligence project.
The success of investment decisions often hinge on the quality of the due diligence. Digital marketing audits and analysis provide another valuable data point for PEs to consider during a diligence project.
This is where Eyeful Media steps in. We understand the nuances of the digital landscape and its impact on investments. Our digital marketing expertise backs your investment choices with clear, actionable insights.
Private equity firms leverage our team as part of their diligence process, to ensure that they are making an informed investment decision or to maximize their ROI on an existing portfolio company.
Our digital marketing and strategy expertise provide firms with insights for M&A and other investments, plus we’re available to assist after the deal closes.
Private Equity digital due diligence is not a one-size-fits-all process. At Eyeful Media, we tailor our approach to fit the unique needs of each PE firm and its investment portfolio.
All digital marketing diligence work is reviewed by one of our most senior staff members, with a minimum of 17 years of hands-on digital experience from a blend of in-house operating experience and agencies.
Here's how we do it:
Team of Cross-Channel Experts: Our team is a blend of strategists, analysts, and digital marketers. Our team covers everything from SEO to social media ads, from creating content to turning visitors into customers.
Comprehensive Deliverables: We believe in providing a 360-degree view. Our reports are detailed, actionable, and designed to guide investment decisions. The deliverables include:
Executive Summary: A high-level overview of our findings, perfect for decision-makers who need insights at a glance.
Scorecard: A graded assessment of the digital assets, giving a clear picture of strengths and areas of improvement.
Most Upside: We highlight areas with the most potential for growth and revenue generation.
Risks: Informed decisions require knowing not just the opportunities but also the pitfalls. We identify potential risks that could impact the investment. Factor our findings into your risk assessment.
Comprehensive Appendix: If you like details, we offer a deep dive into our analysis, including our findings and advice.
We're dedicated to giving PE firms the knowledge and tools they need to make smart, confident choices in today's digital world.
SEO Due Diligence for a Leading Private Equity Firm:
In the dynamic landscape of Private Equity, making informed decisions is paramount. Eyeful Media's expertise in digital marketing due diligence was put to the test when evaluating a prominent company. We found some risks in their SEO approach, like using the wrong link words and relying too much on their brand name.
Despite surface-level performance indicators suggesting otherwise, our predictions held true. The company saw a big drop in visits unrelated to their brand, showing that our advice was right. This case underscores the importance of thorough digital due diligence and Eyeful Media’s value.
In today's fast-changing digital world, every choice can change how well your investments do. Don't leave your PE investments to chance. Let us help you make choices backed by clear, data-driven insights to get the best results. Contact us today for comprehensive digital due diligence tailored to your needs. Because in Private Equity, the right insights can make all the difference.
Due Diligence Services
We provide assessments using third-party or first-party data at any stage in the process. Leverage our team to provide an unbiased review of capabilities, digital teams, or marketing programs. Eyeful can also support SEO due diligence.
“Secret Shopper” Assessments
Our team can evaluate websites, messaging, and marketing using only third-party tools and our experience. This is perfect post-investment if you don’t want your portfolio company to be involved or aware.
Digital Transformation Strategy
If your portfolio company isn’t growing as fast as you’d like, we can help evaluate cross-functional opportunities to help build a digital-centric roadmap.
Interim Leadership
When operating partners are transitioning out of a firm, or you have a change in leadership, we can help while you find the perfect hire. We can also help interview candidates to help set up a smooth transition.
Staff Augmentation
If you’ve invested in a firm that has a small marketing or ecommerce team, we can help with an ongoing consulting retainer to tackle marketing & website opportunities.
Digital Media Management
Our team has significant experience working with private equity and venture capital backed businesses. We partner with both the portfolio company and investors to bring them the results they both desire.
How We Work
Eyeful is a data-driven company that begins partnerships by gathering and reviewing both objective and subjective information. We review competitive data, formulate a plan, implement, measure, and optimize to ensure we’re constantly raising the bar on performance. For due diligence projects, we use a combination of third and first-party data depending on the stage in the purchase process and can also interview team members and agencies, as appropriate.
We begin by listening to your team (or your portfolio company) in order to learn about your objectives for the project.
We perform our services using first and third-party data sources, and direct feedback if available.
With present our findings based on the project objectives, and are available to implement if desired.
If we’re implementing, we’ll measure and analyze results, adjusting or expanding based on findings. We then implement a series of tests to help the business scale and achieve its financial & customer acquisition targets.
“The team works really well with us as well as the leadership of the clients we connect them with.”
— Faton, Sumeru Equity Partners
Services: Portfolio company support, Content marketing
“Just a quick email to say great work on this. Both Jeff and I and the Team are impressed.”
— Barron Fletcher, Managing Partner, Riata Capital Group
Services: Digital Due Diligence for Private Equity
We use a team approach on every project, but below are a few members of the team you may interact with.
No, we can operate fully outside-in to begin. We use third party tools and our own research to identify upside, opportunity & risks. If we have access to accounts for paid media, the work can be more detailed but we can get you started pre-LOI without access.
We undrestand that the candidate company may not be ready to have your firm or others speak with members of their team. Our process has been developed in a way that we can do work without needing to speak with anyone on the team. The more access we have, the better, but it's not necessary and our approach works well for pre-LOI situations and also ahead of final bids.
Turnaround time depends on the scope of the project, but we understand that private equity can move quickly. We can provide a high level diligence report in under a week. For more comprehensive value creation strategy, the timing can range up to two months, however those are usually done post-LOI where there is more time available.
Most of our due diligence work covers SEO (organic seaarch), SEM (paid search), paid social and a review of competitors. We often also review the website for opportunity, as well as display advertising. We can go as broad or narrow as your project requires, and adjust based on the data you have received. We can start fully outside-in, or work with first party data, and gather information from the CIM or data room so that it isn't a burden on your team or the candidate.
For example, for one firm's project, we used Google impression share data to validate the proposed lead model that the company shared with them as part of diligence. If you have a specific request or need, just ask.
This is not an unusual situation. We generally focus on a competitive review in order to help you understand how the prospective company's website traffic and other metrics compare to their competitors, and to highlight the marketing mix others are employing. From there we can build a digital strategy that provides you with guidance on the biggest opportunities to act upon as soon as the deal closes.
We work on B2C, B2B, eCommerce, lead gen, short sales cycles, long sales cycles and everything in between. Our team brings extensive experience in both business to consumer, as well as business to business sales. We have worked across dozens of industries and are well positioned to evaluate companies of any size and make up.
We would love to support your porfolio company with paid search, seo, content creation, digital strategy and more after the deal closes. We understand that marketing teams are often lean when they are acquired by private equity, and our team is ready to help with implementation so that you start building value right away.
We can support your firm any way you believe is best. Some firms with smaller deal flow use us on a project basis, while others have us on a retainer. The retainer model ensures we are always available for quick turnaround projects. If there's not a diligence report needed in a given month, we often shift hours to support a portfolio company or evaluate a competitors.
The work is completed by subject matter experts and reviewed by a senior member of our team to ensure alignment on upside and risks. Members of our team bring 13 years of digital experience on average, and we have no junior employees.
Most of our diligence work is delivered in a PDF format of a Word doc. This allows us to give you insights quickly. We provide an executive summary, scorecard, most upside, risks and a detailed appendix.
Value creation or digital strategy is delivered in a Slides or PPT format.
Although it's rare and most of our projects result in finding upside, we occasionally find risks quickly. In this instance, we will reach out to you right away and let you know that there may be an issue. We then do more diligence to validate or confirm our concerns.
Our diligence offering is more focused on identifying upside and risks for you, the investor. An audit is more focused on providing deep guidance on issues and recommendations on how to fix them. They are complementary offerings, and depending on the stage of your investment process, it may make more sense to have us create audits. More simply, a diligence report treats the firm as the client, an audit treats the candidate as the client.
Yes, we are happy to speak with members of your investment candidate. Our CEO and/or head of strategy participate in these conversations so that we can gain an undersatnding of their strengths and areas for potential growth.
In private equity, due diligence refers to a potential investor's process for assessing the value, desirability, financial viability, possible risks, and overall potential of an investment before committing. Due diligence is how private equity firms evaluate investment opportunities to determine which to pursue.
A due diligence audit is conducted within a company to determine if that company or business is ready for sale. The purpose is to explore the questions and issues that arise during a standard due diligence process to ensure the founder group is prepared to address any objections. A due diligence audit also provides the necessary backup and planning to ensure a successful transaction.
The due diligence process involves a compliance check, an audit to assess risk, and verifying facts and information. It's the background work done before agreeing on the scope of a partnership agreement. Equity firms predominantly handle due diligence. It involves reviewing a company's performance, comparing the data over time, and setting benchmarks against competitors.
Our team sits in a sweet spot between expensive consulting firms and large ad agencies, providing a more boutique experience that’s perfect for sensitive situations.
