01 — Marketing
Plain-English reporting: the power move.
Most marketing reports are high-fiber anxiety with a dashboard attached. Your team deserves better: a page that says what moved, why it moved, and what's next — and nothing else.
What to track
- Conversions (the only number that writes the cheque). Sales, signups, booked calls — whatever your funnel ends in. Report percentage change, not just volume.
- Cost per outcome. Spend ÷ conversions. This is the number that survives every budget freeze.
- Retention/watch-then-act. For video: the FIRST audience. The rest are noise.
- Leading indicators.Sessions, ad reach, and something the team can actually do something about.
What to ignore (hardest discipline)
Reach and impressions are vanity if they don't convert; follower count belongs on a poster, not in a monthly update; and "engagement rate" without a funnel is a warm feeling with a number on it.
The 20/80 template
Every report we ship follows the same arc: number-first headline ("Sessions +18%, conversions +12%, cost per acquisition −9%"), then three asks ("A: check the menu page. B: duplicate the winning reels. C: sponsor the two posts underperforming"), then next week's guess on where the lever is. It's short, it's plain, and it makes the CFO feel smart.
Try this at home
Next monthly report: cut the first three sections, write zero buzzwords, and end with "we are spending X on Y because Z — worth it?" The answers you get will be ten times more useful.
Theater is a report's worst feature. The power move is boring, and boring wins every negotiation.