Reports emphasise what improved and describe what did not in softer language. Reading one usefully means checking it against your own enquiry records and asking three questions the report does not answer.

The structural problem

Whoever prepares the report chooses what goes in it, and they are also the party whose work it assesses.

That is not an accusation. Any supplier presenting their own results will lead with what improved, because that is what people do.

What it means practically is that a report is a starting point rather than an answer, and the useful skill is knowing what to look for in what is present and what is absent.

The metrics that flatter

Not dishonest, and easy to move without producing anything.

The percentage point is worth watching for specifically. A report presenting only percentages, without the underlying counts, is difficult to assess, and asking for both is entirely reasonable.

The three questions

Which a good report answers and most do not.

How many enquiries. Not conversions as configured in a tool, which may be counting anything. Actual enquiries, by the definition you use in your own business.

What did they cost. Total spend including the management fee, divided by the enquiries. That single figure is comparable across months and across channels.

What changed and why. What was actually done in the period, and what the reasoning was. A report of numbers with no account of the work does not tell you whether anybody did anything.

A supplier who cannot answer those three is either not measuring outcomes or not managing to them.

Checking it against your own records

The step that makes the report meaningful, and only you can do it.

Your own count of enquiries, and of jobs booked, for the same period. Comparing that against the report's figures does two things.

It reveals whether the tracked conversions correspond to reality. A report showing forty conversions in a month when you received twelve enquiries is measuring something other than enquiries, which is worth understanding rather than accepting.

And it converts cost per enquiry into cost per booked job, which is the only figure that matters and which no report can produce without your input.

A business that supplies its booked-work numbers back to a supplier gets better management, because the supplier can then optimise toward the right thing.

What absence tells you

Worth noticing, since omissions are informative.

A report that stops showing a metric it used to show is usually a report where that metric declined.

A report with no year-over-year comparison, in a seasonal business, cannot distinguish a good month from a good season.

A report showing only totals, with no breakdown by channel or campaign, prevents you from seeing that one part is carrying the rest.

None of those is proof of anything. Each is a reasonable thing to ask about.

The reporting period problem

A small technical point with a real effect.

Month-to-month comparisons are affected by the number of working days, holidays, and where weekends fall. A February compared against a January is comparing different amounts of time.

For a seasonal business, comparing against the same month last year is far more informative than against last month, and a report that only does the latter is easy to misread.

Asking for both comparisons is reasonable and most reporting tools produce them automatically.

What a good report looks like

  1. Enquiries and cost per enquiry, at the top.
  2. Comparison against last year as well as last month.
  3. Breakdown by channel, so the mix is visible.
  4. What was done in the period, in plain language.
  5. What is planned next, and why.
  6. Anything that went badly, named rather than omitted.

The last item is the strongest signal available. A supplier who reports a campaign that did not work, and what they changed, is managing rather than presenting.

The conversation rather than the document

Worth saying, because the report is not the point.

A monthly document nobody discusses is an administrative ritual. Fifteen minutes on a call, going through the three questions, is worth more than any dashboard.

It also lets you supply the thing the supplier lacks, which is what happened to the enquiries after they arrived.

That exchange is what turns reporting into management, and it depends on you having your own record of enquiries and jobs, which is the entry no analytics tool can produce, as described in building a dashboard you will read.

Frequently asked questions

Why read a supplier report carefully?

Whoever prepares it chooses what goes in and is also the party it assesses. That is normal rather than dishonest, and it makes the report a starting point.

Which metrics flatter?

Impressions, reach, followers, clicks without outcomes, rankings for terms nobody searches, and percentage changes on small numbers where two to three is fifty percent.

What three questions should a report answer?

How many enquiries by your own definition, what they cost including the management fee, and what was actually done in the period and why.

Why check against my own records?

It reveals whether tracked conversions correspond to reality, and it converts cost per enquiry into cost per booked job, which no report can produce without your input.

What does an omission tell me?

A report that stops showing a metric it used to show usually reflects a decline. None of that is proof, and each is reasonable to ask about.

What is the strongest signal of a good supplier?

Reporting something that went badly and what they changed. That is managing rather than presenting.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Monthly report you skim and file?

We read it against your own enquiry records, which is where the numbers either reconcile or explain themselves.

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