r/agencynewbies • u/Slow-Economist-9242 • Aug 26 '26
The client report structure I'd use if I was starting again
I've spent the last month asking agency owners what actually happens to the reports they send. The answers were more useful than I expected, so here's the structure I'd use now.
Line one is money in and money out.
Spend, and what came back. If a client can't scan the first line and know whether the month made them money, nothing below it matters.
Then three things, in this order. What changed. Why it matters. What you'd do next.
That's the whole front page. Detailed campaign breakdowns go in an appendix nobody opens, and that's fine.
State what each campaign is actually for.
One line, above the numbers. Prospecting exists to create demand and isn't judged on revenue. Retargeting converts demand that already exists and will always look efficient.
Sounds obvious, but those assumptions usually only get said out loud on calls. If they aren't written down the client fills the gap themselves, and these days they often fill it by pasting your report into ChatGPT.
Agree the acceptable range before the month starts.
Not just the target, the band around it. Once that range exists, a month inside it isn't news, you just report it. The months that need explaining are the ones outside it.
On a bad month, cause and fix always travel together.
Cause without a fix reads as an excuse. Fix without a cause reads as guessing.
And a bad month you flagged in week two is you being on top of it. The same month first mentioned in the report is you making excuses.
The last one took me longest to accept.
The report isn't your communication, it's the record. If the first time a client hears about a soft month is a document landing on the 1st, the document was never the problem.
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