How to Read a Marketing Report (Without Falling Asleep)

You close it. Here is what you should actually be looking for. Marketing reports are designed to look impressive.

Loads of graphs. Loads of colours. Words like 'impressions' and 'reach' and 'engagement rate' scattered everywhere like confetti at a wedding nobody asked for.

And most of the time, they are padding. They are telling you things that look good but do not actually mean anything useful. Here is what actually matters.

Three numbers. That is it. Number one.

How many people came to your website this month compared to last month? And where did they come from? If that number is not going up, something is wrong.

Number two. What did those people do when they got there? Did they call?

Fill in a form? Buy something? If not, you have a traffic problem or a website problem.

Those are different problems with different solutions. Number three. What did it cost?

What did you spend on ads, content, and agency fees versus what came back in? If nobody can answer that, you do not have a marketing strategy. You have a hope strategy.

Everything else is noise. Impressions are noise. Follower counts are noise.

That pie chart your agency put on page 27 that nobody has ever looked at? Noise. Our reports are short.

They show what happened, what it cost, and what we are doing next. If you need a glossary to read your marketing report, the report has failed. Not you.

Next time your agency sends you a report, ask those three questions. If they cannot answer them clearly, you know what to do.