The three numbers we report every week

A forty page monthly report is usually a way of avoiding a short conversation. We send three numbers every week, and the monthly call is about what they did.

1. Qualified enquiries

Not sessions. Not impressions. Not form submissions either, because a form submission from somebody selling you web design is not an enquiry.

A qualified enquiry is a real person who might reasonably buy. Counting it requires the client to tell us which leads were junk, which is why we ask for that feedback weekly rather than at the end of a quarter. Marketing that is not corrected by sales drifts within about six weeks.

2. Cost per qualified enquiry

Total spend, including our fee, divided by the number above. Including the fee is deliberate. A cost per lead that excludes the cost of the agency is a number designed to flatter the agency.

This is the figure that tells you whether to increase budget, hold, or stop. It is also the one that makes a bad month unmistakable, which is the point.

3. The direction of trend, not the value

One week is noise. We report whether the four week trend is up, flat or down, and say which of the two numbers above is driving it.

Weekly figures move for reasons that have nothing to do with performance. A festival, a holiday, one large order. Reacting to a single week is how accounts get ruined by their own reporting.

What we deliberately leave out

Impressions, reach, click-through rate, follower growth, keyword position screenshots. These are diagnostic tools. They help us decide what to change, and we will show them the moment they explain something. They are not evidence that the work is paying, and presenting them as if they were is the oldest trick in this industry.

Why weekly

Monthly reporting means a bad campaign runs for four weeks before anyone acts. Weekly means the worst case is seven days. The report itself takes minutes to read, which is the only reason it actually gets read.

This is the measurement layer behind everything we run, and it is set up in the first fortnight of any engagement. More on how we build it in analytics and performance reporting, or ask us what your current reporting is not telling you.