7 September 2026 · 5 min read · Oscar Markham
The Friday report: the only marketing number a trades business needs
Most marketing reports are written to protect the agency, not to inform the client. Reach, impressions, engagement rate and click-through are all real numbers, and none of them tell a plumber in Ennis whether the phone rang. We stopped sending them. Here is what we send instead, and why it works.
One page, four lines
Every Friday our clients get one page. It says what was spent, how many enquiries came in, what each one cost, and how many turned into booked work. Underneath is one line about what we are changing next week and why. That is the whole report.
It works because those four numbers are the only ones connected to the client's bank account. Everything else is a leading indicator at best and a distraction at worst. If enquiries are up and cost per enquiry is down, the campaign is working. If not, the one line underneath says what we are doing about it.
How to judge an agency in a month
Ask three questions. Can they tell you, today, what your cost per enquiry was last week? Can they show you the enquiries themselves, with the answers to the qualifying questions? And when something is not working, do you hear it from them first? An agency that fails any of the three is reporting to look busy.
The trap on the client side is judging by the wrong number. A cost per lead of €4 sounds better than €18 until you notice the €4 leads never answer the phone. Insist on cost per booked job as the number you both watch, and be patient for the first month while the campaign learns who responds.
Why weekly and not monthly
A month is long enough to waste a lot of money on a campaign that stopped working in week two. Weekly reporting forces a decision every seven days: keep, change or stop. It also means the client never has to wonder what they are paying for, which is the reason most agency relationships end.
If your current report has more than one page and fewer than four useful numbers, send us a copy with your free growth audit request and we will tell you what it should have said.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.