What a Monthly Report Should Contain
The monthly report arrives and you don’t understand it. 📊 There are charts, numbers and terms — and after reading it you still can’t say whether things are going well. This is extremely common and it isn’t your fault.
The problem: most reports describe what was done, not what it achieved. Ten posts, a thousand clicks, three campaigns — all accurate, none answering your question. 🎯
Worth stating up front: a report isn’t a formality, it’s the spine of the relationship. Written well it binds both sides to the same reality; written badly it lays the ground for a misunderstanding that runs for months. 🔗
Output or Outcome? ⚖️
This is the fundamental distinction. Output is the work performed; outcome is the value that work produced — and they’re very different things.
Reporting output is easy; it increases every month and looks good. 📈 Reporting outcome takes nerve, because sometimes it comes out badly.
Six Sections of a Good Report 📋
A useful report has six sections, and the order matters: it opens with outcome and closes with detail — not the reverse.
Compare your current report against this. 🔍 Missing sections are questions to ask.
| Section | Contents | Question answered |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Summary | The month in three sentences | How did it go overall? |
| 2. Outcome figures | Enquiries, orders, unit cost | What did we gain? |
| 3. Comparison | Versus last month and last year | Is it improving? |
| 4. Work completed | What was done this month | What happened? |
| 5. Previous items | Status of last month’s list | Were commitments kept? |
| 6. Next month | The coming plan | What now? |
Four Numbers Every Report Needs 🔢
However comprehensive the report, four numbers must appear. Without them it’s incomplete.
Track these four in the same place each month. 📈 Seeing the change matters far more than any single month’s figure.
Signs of a Poor Report 🚩
BU BÖLÜMÜN ÖZETİ
- Only good news
- Much narrative, few figures
- Terms left unexplained
- No actions
Four signs indicate a report written to produce an impression rather than convey information.
These usually reflect habit rather than bad faith. ⚠️ The result is the same: performance that can’t be evaluated.
Only good news
If everything is going well every month, something is being left out. An honest report records the number that fell and explains why.
Much narrative, few figures
Long explanations and sparse numbers. 📄 When narrative substitutes for evidence, the evidence is usually unfavourable — or was never collected. Test it: ask which figure a given claim rests on.
Terms left unexplained
A report full of jargon doesn’t get read, and an unread report may as well not exist. 🗣️ A good report uses the term and explains it alongside.
No actions
The situation is described but what happens next isn’t written. A report isn’t a photograph; it’s the plan for the next step. 🗺️
How to Use the Report 🧭
BU BÖLÜMÜN ÖZETİ
- Ask the same four questions monthly
- Ask about what you don’t understand
- Keep your own comparison
- Get an outside view annually
The report arrives — what do you do with it? An unread report helps nobody, and report quality usually rises in response to the questions its reader asks.
Thirty minutes a month is enough. ⏱️
Ask the same four questions monthly
How many contacts, what was the unit cost, where is visibility, what happened to last month’s items. The same four, every month. 📊
Ask about what you don’t understand
Not understanding is the report’s gap, not yours. 🗣️ Every question asked makes the next report plainer. Don’t hesitate — a provider who knows their work doesn’t mind explaining it.
Keep your own comparison
Write the four numbers into your own sheet. Seeing six months of trend tells you far more than one month’s figure. 📈 What each of these costs to produce is covered in our pricing guide.
Get an outside view annually
A monthly report is a self-written scorecard. An independent annual review also shows what fell outside the brief: Digital Audit. 🔍 This applies to us too — we argue for our own work being audited.
Frequently Asked Questions 💬
Sık Sorulan Sorular
Content published, clicks, impressions, posts. All measurable and all real — and none of them tell you how many customers arrived.
People who made contact, orders received, what one customer cost you. 💰 These are the numbers a business actually cares about.
Two reasons: measurement isn’t configured, or showing outcome is uncomfortable. 📉 The first is a technical gap and fixable; the second is a choice.
It should, but not on its own. Seeing the work matters too; the point is presenting the work alongside the result. 🔗 A good report says: we produced these pieces, those pages received this visibility, this many enquiries came — read as one chain.
Because most people don’t read the whole thing. The first three sentences should give the month’s position; 📄 whoever wants detail scrolls down, whoever doesn’t reads the summary and moves on.
A number alone means nothing. Against last month and, where possible, the same month last year — the second filters out seasonality. 📊 If January is normally slow in your sector, reading the dip as failure produces a wrong decision.
The most valuable section. Tracking the status of last month’s agreed work in writing keeps the list moving; without it the same items carry over for months. ✅ It also produces the most objective measure available: how many items closed in a year?
Length isn’t the measure. Readability is; 📏 forty pages of tool screenshots does less work than three pages of clear reporting.
Not clicks — contacts: calls, forms, messages. 📞 If this isn’t measured, the first job isn’t a new campaign but configuring measurement; how that gap is identified is covered in our audit method guide.
Total spend divided by contacts received. 💰 The question isn’t whether the figure is good but whether it’s falling month over month.
Search positions and listing interactions should rise over time. Flat for several months means the work isn’t producing effect, whatever the activity report says.
The simplest and most effective question. 📋 Asking about the status of previously agreed items keeps the list moving; not asking lets it carry over indefinitely.
Six sections: summary, outcome figures, comparison, work completed, status of previous items and next month’s plan.
Output is the work performed — posts, clicks, campaigns. Outcome is the value produced: contacts, orders, unit cost.
Two reasons: measurement isn’t configured, or showing outcome is uncomfortable. The first is fixable.
Four: contacts received, cost per contact, visibility trend and the status of last month’s items.
Length isn’t the measure — readability is. Forty pages of screenshots does less work than three clear pages.
No. An unclear report is the report’s gap. Every question you ask makes the next one plainer.
Four signs: only good news, narrative instead of figures, unexplained terms and no actions.
Something may be left out. An honest report records the number that fell and explains why.
Spend thirty minutes monthly on the same four questions and log the numbers in your own sheet; six months of trend says more than one month.