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Every month I present a report to our clients. Nobody reads twenty pages of tables. A useful report comes down to three questions.

The number that counts: cost per inquiry

Cost per inquiry is what you spent on ads divided by the number of inquiries you received. For an online store, it's the cost per sale. It's the first number to read, because it links your money directly to your customers.

A month, line by line

Take a made-up example: a roofer in Lyon keeps the same budget two months in a row. The first month, he gets 20 quote inquiries. The second, 40. Each inquiry costs him half as much. Always read in this order: the spend first, the inquiries next, and the division of the two last. Everything else explains the result but doesn't replace it.

One question remains that the report can't settle alone: compare that cost with what you earn on a customer. If your margin is higher, each inquiry that signs pays. If it's lower, it isn't good yet, however nice the curve looks.

Numbers to ignore

Impressions are how many times your ad was shown. Clicks are a start. Neither pays your bills. A month with fewer clicks and more inquiries is a better month.

Compare, don't read one month alone

One month doesn't say much. Compare it with the month before, and with the same month last year if your business has seasons. A heating company doesn't sell the same in June and November.

A good report always endswith what comes next

What the report doesn't tell you

The account sees inquiries, not what becomes of them. Keep your own note of what each month really brought in: signed quotes, jobs, sales. Add what people say on the phone, like "I saw you on Google". One inquiry in ten signing and one in two are not the same month.

Tell whoever runs your ads: if a campaign sends inquiries that never sign, that's the one to cut, even if its cost looks good on paper.

Three questions to ask

What did we stop this month, and why? What worked best? What do we do next month? If your provider can't answer, they're not really running your account.

When a good number hides a problem

A falling cost per inquiry is good news, as long as the inquiries are serious. If the account counts a visit or a button click as an inquiry, the number will look great and your phone will stay silent. Before you celebrate, ask a simple question: what gets counted as a result?

The opposite happens too. A month can cost more per inquiry because we tested a new ad, or because competition rises before the season. What matters is that someone explains it and tells you what's being done about it.

A five-minute read, as an example

If your report doesn't allow this reading, ask for it to change. That's not a favor: you're paying to understand where your money goes.

What you need to bring

A report takes two people to read. Your provider knows what happened in the account. You know what happened in the business: a postponed job, a closure, a promotion, a competitor who cut prices. Those facts often explain a month better than any table.

Before the meeting, note three things: how many inquiries turned into something, which campaigns brought your best customers based on what they told you, and what's changing next month. Five minutes of prep makes the monthly report twice as useful.

With us, the accounts are in your name: you can check everything. See how we manage your campaigns.