The short answer: a useful ad agency report shows what you spent, what it produced in business terms, what changed since last time, and what the agency will do next. If your monthly PDF is a wall of impressions, clicks and click-through rates with no mention of leads, sales or cost per customer, it is describing activity, not results.
We have taken over accounts from other agencies and read many reports in the process. The weak ones follow a pattern: they look busy and avoid commitment. Below are the seven numbers a report should contain, four that are fine to include but mean little on their own, and the questions to ask when something is missing.
The seven numbers every ad report should contain
- Total spend, split by platform and campaign. It should match the invoice or the platform billing. If it does not, ask why. The report must also state what portion is the agency fee and what portion is media, because those are different things.
- Conversions as you define them. A conversion is a purchase, a qualified enquiry, a booked call. Page views, video views and “engagements” are not conversions. Ask the agency to list exactly which events are being counted and why.
- Cost per conversion, trended over time. One month in isolation says little. Three to six months side by side show direction. For online shops, the equivalent is return on ad spend against your break-even point; see our guide to break-even ROAS.
- Conversion value or revenue, where measurable. For businesses with direct online sales this should come from your own data, not only from the ad platform, because platforms tend to credit themselves generously.
- Lead quality or downstream outcome. How many conversions became customers? This needs your input, but a good agency will ask for it and build the feedback loop, for instance through call tracking and offline conversion import.
- Share of spend on waste. For search campaigns, how much went to irrelevant queries, and what was excluded? A report that mentions negative keywords and search terms shows someone is reading the account.
- Next-period actions and tests. What will be changed, why, and what result would count as success? Without this, the report is a rear-view mirror.
Four numbers that sound impressive and mean little alone
These are not useless. They are diagnostic. The problem is when they are presented as the result.
| Metric | Why it misleads alone | What to ask |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | Cheap to inflate with broad targeting | How many were in the right audience? |
| Click-through rate | A catchy ad can attract clicks from people who never buy | What happened after the click? |
| Reach or followers gained | Awareness has value but is hard to link to revenue | How does this connect to leads or sales in the next quarter? |
| Platform-reported ROAS | Platforms often count conversions that other channels also claim | How does this reconcile with our own sales figures? |
If your report leads with these four, it does not prove the agency is bad. It does mean you have to ask for the numbers that connect spend to money.
What a good report looks like in practice
The format matters less than the structure. We aim for one to two pages, readable in five minutes, with these sections.
- Headline: two sentences stating how the month went against the goal, in plain language.
- The numbers: a small table with the seven metrics above, this month versus last month versus the target.
- What drove the change: the two or three things that moved results, good or bad.
- What we did: the changes made, so you can match them to the outcomes.
- What is next: the plan, the tests and the decisions that need your input.
- Risks and open issues: tracking problems, budget limits, creative fatigue, anything you should know about.
The last section is the best test of honesty. Reports that never mention a problem are almost always hiding one. We describe our own approach in more detail in the post on what we include in every monthly client report.
Red flags in a report
These are patterns that justify a direct conversation.
- No mention of your business goal. The report never uses the words leads, sales, bookings or revenue.
- Constant improvement. Every metric is “up”, even when sales are flat. Real accounts have bad weeks.
- Changing definitions. The key metric is different each month, so trends are impossible to track.
- Averages that hide the split. A blended number covers one great campaign and one wasteful one.
- No access to the raw data. You cannot log in to the ad accounts or see the underlying figures. We explain why this matters in our guide on who should own your ad account.
- Vague recommendations. “We will continue to optimise” is not a plan.
Questions to ask in your next meeting
- Which conversion events are counted, and have they changed since we started?
- How does the conversion count compare with the enquiries and sales we recorded ourselves?
- What is our cost per customer, not just per lead, and how is it trending?
- Which campaign should we cut first, and why?
- What did you try last month that did not work?
- If we kept the same budget and cut your fee in half, what would you stop doing?
The last question is deliberately uncomfortable. A thoughtful agency can answer it, because it knows which work moves results and which is routine. For a longer list built around the same idea, see the 12 questions to ask your current paid media agency.
What if your goal is awareness, not leads?
Some campaigns, such as a product launch or a brand introduction in a new market, are not meant to produce immediate conversions. That is a legitimate goal, but it still needs a measurable definition. Ask the agency to agree on proxies before the campaign starts: branded search volume, direct traffic, returning visitors, or a before-and-after survey. Set a review date, usually three months out, and decide in advance what result would justify more budget and what would justify stopping.
The trap is leaving “awareness” undefined. An undefined goal can never fail, which is exactly why it is attractive to a report that wants to look successful. If you are paying for reach, you are entitled to know what you expect it to turn into, and when.
What should you do if the report is weak?
Do not jump to firing the agency. Start by asking for the changes in writing: a new template, a defined set of metrics, and a monthly call of thirty minutes. Give it two reporting cycles. Good agencies usually welcome the clarity, because it also protects them from vague complaints. If nothing improves, or if you cannot get access to the raw data, that is your answer.
When you do decide to move, our checklist on vetting a paid media agency before you sign and the pricing explainer on paid media agency fee models will help you compare alternatives on the same footing.
Define your own scorecard first
The simplest improvement is to decide what you want to see before the next report arrives. Write down your goal for the quarter, the maximum cost per customer you can afford, and the three metrics you will check first. Send that to the agency as the brief for the report. The result is a document built around your decisions, not around the platform’s default dashboard.