Seven Numbers to Demand From Your Marketing Agency — One Is the Money

The monthly marketing report lands and you leave it sitting there. You are not alone. Mo. Abubakar Lala, chief operating officer at RS Gonzales, a US digital marketing agency that works with home-services contractors, says most contractors he speaks with have stopped reading theirs. He wants seven numbers on one page instead.

Seven Numbers, One Page, Two Questions

Mo. Abubakar Lala is the chief operating officer at RS Gonzales, a US digital marketing agency that works with home-services contractors, and the founder of Soltiks (Private) Limited. His article in Plumbing & Mechanical is written for heating, cooling and plumbing contractors, but my read is that the list works for anyone who pays for leads.

He wants seven numbers, every month, each one set beside last month's figure and beside the same month a year ago. Here is the list he wants:

• Calls from your Google profile, plus direction requests and website clicks. Watch calls first.
• If you use Local Services Ads, ask for the lead count, total spend, and cost per lead, plus how the ones that were not real jobs got sorted.
• Conversions, and a one-line definition of what counts as a conversion for you.
• Total visits, and how many of those visits produced a call or a form.
• How many new reviews came in this month.
• Search Console appearances, clicks and average position, for the searches that matter in your trade plus the towns you serve.
• Revenue from marketing-sourced jobs, which only you can supply.

All of it goes on one page. That is the ask. Why most owners stop reading the report is the next part.

Why Most Owners Stop Reading the Report

Lala's description of the monthly report will sound familiar to anyone who has paid an agency. It runs long. The charts move every month. And none of it answers the owner's real question: did the work we paid for make the phone ring more?

Of the contractors he speaks with, he says: "Most of them have stopped reading it."

My read: the data is usually not the problem. The problem is that a long report has no next step in it. Nobody leaves the meeting knowing what to change.

His ask is one sheet of paper, set beside the prior month and the equivalent month twelve months back, plus a comment on what conditions did. That sheet should prompt two questions at the meeting: which figure changed the most, and how the agency intends to respond during the coming month. He argues that the best partners will be glad to hand it over. An agency that cannot build the page, or refuses to define what counts as a conversion in your account, is also sending a message.

Two things on that page do the heavy lifting. One is the weather. The other is a blank line.

The Weather Is Doing Half the Talking

Comparing a month to the same month last year is not decoration. Lala points out that demand for heating and cooling tracks the weather. He notes that a hot July can flatter a so-so campaign, while a mild October can make a solid one look like a failure. Plumbing moves for different reasons: a hard freeze that bursts pipes, or heavy rain that backs up sewers, can send calls up.

Lining this month up against the same month a year earlier strips out some of that weather effect, and he wants the report to say what the weather did so you read the figures with that in mind.

My read: the same rule holds anywhere demand moves with the season. Pool builders live and die by the swim season. A fitness studio sees January signups that no October campaign will ever match. If your report compares this month to last month and nothing else, you are reading a chart with the season stripped out of it.

Season explains a swing. It does not explain a zero.

Zero Conversions, and the Line Most Reports Leave Blank

Conversions are the number that matters, Lala says, and a conversion is only as good as the definition behind it. Ask your agency to spell out, in one sentence, what counts as a conversion for your account: a call past a set length, a booked job, or a form. When the conversion value sits at zero month after month, the tracking is likely not set up, and budget calls are being made blind.

Traffic has the same trap. Ask for the visit count, and for how many visits ended with a call or a form. If that second figure is zero, that does not mean nobody called; Lala says a website change usually broke the tracking. Get it fixed before anything else is optimized.

Then there is the line. Lala calls it "the number most reports leave blank," and he says it is not the agency's fault. Nobody but you knows which jobs came from where, or what each one paid. Hand your agency the revenue from marketing jobs each month, even a rough figure. Without that number, no one can tell you what your marketing brings back. With it, the meeting stops being about clicks and starts being about money.

That line changes how you read the other six. Here is what it looks like in two businesses.

What This Means for an Owner Who Sells

This part is my opinion, built on his list.

Picture a pool builder in the middle of the season. June closed a stack of jobs. July closes half that. The two-column report says the campaign fell apart, so the budget gets cut — in the same month a website update quietly broke the form tracking, and the conversion value has read zero ever since. The owner is making a spending call on a number that is measuring a broken form, not demand. A same-month-last-year column and a written conversion definition would have shown him that in ten seconds.

Now picture the revenue line. Same builder, one page. The agency reports leads and cost per lead; he adds what the closed jobs were worth. Suddenly the expensive month that produced fewer leads produced more money, and nobody has to argue about a chart again.

Now a fitness studio. The front desk answers calls, and most new members come in through a form on the site. If the agency defined a conversion as a call over a set time, the form never counts, and the studio looks like it gets traffic and nothing else. The fix is not more ad spend. It is one sentence about what a conversion is and someone checking it.

Run the review count the same way. Lala says the count of new reviews each month shows whether the crew is still asking customers for them, and that a small, steady trickle beats one big push a year. My read: for a studio, reviews are one of the first things a new member checks. If that count drops, he says "the problem is usually in the field, not in the marketing" — meaning the fix starts at the front desk, not with a new campaign.

Two businesses, one pattern: the number that decides the budget is usually the one nobody asked for.

How to Use This in the Next Seven Days

1. Ask for the page. Send your agency one message today: seven numbers on one page, each set beside last month and beside the same month a year ago, plus a note on the weather. Ten minutes to write.
2. Get the conversion definition in one sentence. Ask what counts as a conversion in your account. Write the answer down. If the answer is vague, you have found your first problem.
3. Open your Google profile numbers yourself. Calls, direction requests and website clicks. If profile views climb while calls fall, Lala says something in the profile is turning people away: stale hours, weak photos, or a service area that misses where your crews really drive.
4. If you run Local Services Ads, add three numbers. Leads, total spend, cost per lead. Then ask each month how the junk leads were handled — Google gives credit for some bad leads and lets you rate the others.
5. Send the revenue line. Pull the closed jobs that came from marketing last month, add up what they paid, send the total. Rough is fine.
6. Check the review count. One number. If it dropped, walk out to the front desk before you call the agency.
7. Ask the two questions in the meeting. Which number shifted the most, and what will you do about it this month?

Scripts you can copy, one per trade:

Subject: One page instead of the full report Hi — starting this month I want one page. Calls, direction requests and website clicks from our Google profile. Leads, spend and cost per lead if we are running Local Services Ads. Conversions, with one sentence on what counts as a conversion in our account. Visits, and how many of those produced a call or a form. New reviews this month. Search appearances, clicks and average position for the searches that matter in our trade, in the towns we serve. Each set beside last month and beside the same month a year ago, with a note on the weather. I will send the revenue from marketing jobs each month.

Subject: The conversion definition, in writing Hi — for the studio, I want the one-sentence definition of a conversion in our account, in writing. Then the page: visits, how many of those produced a call or a form, new reviews this month, search appearances for the gym searches plus our town, and leads, spend and cost per lead if we are running Local Services Ads. Compare each to last month and to last year.

Subject: This month's two questions Which number shifted the most, and what will you do about it this month?

Mistakes I'd Avoid

• Judging a month with no last-year column. A heat wave or a mild spell can flip the story. Compare to last year before you cut anything.
• Treating zero conversions as a slow month. It usually means the tracking is not set up. Fix that before you touch the budget.
• Letting the meeting become a chart tour. One page, two questions. If it runs an hour, you are being sold to, not briefed.
• Rounding your revenue number into something flattering. Rough is fine. Wrong makes every return figure after it wrong too.