Key takeaways
- A report starts with the one number from your brief, not with reach or impressions.
- Spend, leads and lead quality should sit side by side, by channel.
- In the Gulf, WhatsApp enquiries need their own line, followed through to sales.
- Every report ends with what changes next and what the agency needs from you.
Agency report checklist
Hold each report against this list. Mark every row shown, partly shown or missing.
| Report section | What it should show | Ask this if it's missing |
|---|---|---|
| The agreed number | The one goal and number from the brief, this period against last period and against target. | "Which number are we judged on, and where is it?" |
| Spend | Spend by channel against plan, taken from the ad platforms, separate from the agency fee. | "How much went to each platform, and does it match the platform invoices?" |
| Leads by source | Form fills, calls and WhatsApp enquiries, split by channel and campaign. | "Where did each lead come from?" |
| WhatsApp enquiries | Conversations started from ads, and how many became real enquiries. | "How many of these chats were real buyers?" |
| Lead quality | Feedback from your sales team: qualified, not qualified, won. | "What happened to last month's leads?" |
| Cost per result | Spend divided by qualified leads or sales, by channel. | "What did each qualified lead cost us, per channel?" |
| What was shipped | Campaigns, ads, pages and content delivered against the scope. | "What did you deliver this month, against what we agreed?" |
| What was learned | What worked, what didn't, and why they think so. | "What would you stop doing?" |
| Next month | Specific changes, with dates. | "What will you change, and when?" |
| What they need from you | Approvals, assets, product facts, sales feedback. | "What is slowing you down on our side?" |
| Access | Confirmation that your company can open the accounts and analytics behind every number. | "Can I see this in our own account?" |
Use Print or save this sheet under the table to keep a copy. Follow Voyuma on X at @getvoyuma.
Start with the number you agreed
A report is only as good as the brief behind it. If you never agreed one main goal and one number to judge it by, the agency will report what looks best. Fix that first, whichever Digital Marketing channels you use: our guide to brief a digital marketing job before you spend asks you to name one KPI before any money moves.
Once the number is agreed, it goes at the top of every report. Everything below it should help explain why that number moved, or didn't.
Reach, impressions, followers and click-through rate still matter. They tell you whether people saw and noticed the ads. But they are signals, not results. A month with high reach and no qualified leads is not a good month, however the chart looks.
Spend, leads and quality side by side
The most useful page in a report puts three things next to each other for each channel: what you spent, how many leads came in, and how many of those leads were any good.
That last column needs your sales team. An agency can count form fills and chats. Only the people who speak to the customer know which ones were real. Agree a simple way to send that feedback back, even a shared sheet each week, and ask for it to appear in the report.
When you can see spend, leads and quality together, you can ask the question that matters: what did each qualified lead cost on each channel? That is the honest version of "customer acquisition cost" for most service businesses.
Spend should come from the ad platforms themselves and match the invoices from Google or Meta. The agency fee is a separate line. If the two are mixed into one number, ask for them to be split, as our guide on whether an agency can guarantee results explains.
WhatsApp leads, followed to the end
If your customers enquire on WhatsApp, a report that only counts form fills and calls misses part of the picture.
For click-to-WhatsApp ads, Meta reports a metric called messaging conversations started. According to Meta's definition, it counts people who messaged your business for the first time or after at least seven days without messaging, from a click on your ad. It tells you the ad started a chat. It does not tell you the chat was a buyer.
So ask for two lines, not one: chats started from ads, and chats your team marked as real enquiries. If nobody marks them, the second line will be empty. That is a process gap on your side, and worth fixing.
If you want help reading a report you already have, message us on WhatsApp.
Read the numbers yourself
A report is a summary. The numbers behind it should live in accounts your company owns: the ad accounts, Google Analytics 4 and your Meta business portfolio. You should be able to open any of them and see the same figures.
One naming note that confuses many buyers: Google Analytics 4 now calls important website actions key events, and uses "conversions" for the actions shared with Google Ads, according to Google's Analytics Help. If a report uses both words, ask which is which.
Before you sign with any agency, ask to see a sample report with client details hidden. Our questions to ask a digital marketing agency before you sign include that question and what a good answer looks like.
When the report is the problem
If report after report shows activity but no actions, or the agreed number never appears, raise it in writing with this checklist. If nothing changes, you have a clear, documented reason to review the relationship, and our guide on how to switch digital marketing agencies without losing your accounts shows how to do it safely.
Some of the work in a good report is manual: pulling numbers from several platforms and matching WhatsApp chats to sales. If that is eating your team's time, automating it is AI Integrations & Solutions work, scoped on its own.
Bring the checklist to your next review
Use the checklist with your current agency at the next monthly review, or with any agency you are talking to. When you're ready to talk about your own reporting, book a call. You can read about Digital Marketing work at Voyuma before we talk.