A monthly report with fifteen different metrics isn't more useful than one with three, often it's less useful, because it buries what matters among what doesn't. You don't need to be a marketing specialist to read a report critically: you need to know which questions it should answer, and in what order to look at them.
The 5 questions a good report should answer
- How much did I invest? The starting point, without this number, no other data point has context.
- How many customers or sales did I get? The business result, not the platform result (not standalone "leads" or "conversations," but what actually turned into revenue).
- At what cost? The CAC , spend divided by new customers.
- Is it profitable? Compare that CAC against your maximum tolerable CAC, calculated from your margin and your average ticket.
- Am I improving over time? The same number compared against the previous month and, if applicable, against the same month last year (see seasonality in campaigns).
What to look at first, and what to look at after
The order matters as much as the numbers:
- First: CAC and MER, the business metrics, the ones that answer whether the investment is being profitable.
- Then: the breakdown by campaign or channel, where, specifically, that result is (or isn't) being generated.
- Last, as diagnosis: platform metrics like CTR or CPM, useful for understanding why something happened, not for deciding on their own whether something "went well."
Looking at it in reverse order, starting with CTR or reach, is the most common way to walk away with the wrong impression of how the month went.
Warning signs in a report
The report highlights reach, impressions or "engagement" as the main result. These are context data points, not business results, see what sets a performance agency apart from a generalist one.
There's no CAC and no comparison against the business's margin. Without that, it's impossible to know if the month was profitable.
There's no month over month comparison or seasonality context. The same number can be a red flag or something expected, depending on the time of year.
The report's format changes every month. This makes comparison harder and is usually a sign there's no systematic reporting process behind it.
The bare minimum a monthly report should include
- Total spend for the period, by channel.
- Customers or sales achieved, not just leads or platform reported conversions.
- CAC for the period, compared against the previous month.
- MER or breakeven ROAS, along with the reference margin used to calculate it.
- A brief written takeaway, what worked, what didn't, and what will be tested next month.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which metric should I look at first in my report?
CAC and MER, these tell you whether the investment is being profitable. The rest of the metrics help explain why, not decide whether the month was good or bad.
Is it normal for my report to not have CAC?
It shouldn't be missing. A report without CAC or a comparison against the business's margin doesn't let you know whether the investment was profitable, no matter how good the platform metrics look.
What do I ask my agency if I don't understand the report?
Ask them to translate every number into one of this article's 5 questions: how much I invested, how many customers I got, at what cost, whether it's profitable, and whether I'm improving. If they can't answer those five questions with the report, the report isn't doing its job.
Conclusion
A good report doesn't need more metrics, it needs the right metrics, in the right order. Learning to read it with this criteria doesn't replace a specialist, but it does let you take part in the conversation from an informed place, instead of nodding along to a pile of disconnected numbers.
Does your current report leave you unsure whether you're being profitable? Book a free audit with KLIV and we'll show you how we report: CAC, margin and profitability, not vanity metrics. Book a call →