How to produce a marketing agency's monthly client report

A marketing agency's monthly client report goes out on time when the figures are pulled on a fixed day, each figure is defined once, every number is checked against last month before anyone writes a word, and the account manager's time is kept for the page that says what to do next. Collecting and laying out the figures is repeatable work that an AI worker can take on. The commentary a client pays for, the recommendation and the sending stay with the person who holds the account.

What triggers the job

The report falls due in the first working days of the month, for every retained client at once. An account manager opens Google Analytics, Google Ads and Meta's Ads Manager, or a dashboard built on them, copies the figures into last month's deck, mends the charts and writes a commentary, then does it all again for the next client. The work arrives at the same time as the invoices and the new month's plans, so the report goes out in the second or third week, when the client has stopped wondering how last month went.

How the report gets built today, step by step

1. Pull the figures. The account manager or an account executive takes them by hand from each platform, for the month just closed.

2. Check them. Each figure should be set against last month, against the same month last year, and one platform against another. Mostly this is skipped, and the client finds the odd number.

3. Lay them out. The figures go into the agency's deck or document, client by client.

4. Say what happened. A few plain lines say what went up, what went down and what changed in the account to explain it.

5. Say what to do. The recommendation for next month is the part the client reads.

6. Send it and talk it through. This is the account manager's job, and the reason for the report.

What you can change this month

• Do not pull on the first. Google says data processing in Analytics can take 24 to 48 hours and that figures in reports may change during that time. Fix a pull day a few days into the month, the same for every client, and the figures stop moving between the draft and the meeting.

• Write one definition sheet per client. For each figure, note the platform it comes from, the exact measure as that platform names it, the date range, and which conversions count. An ad platform and an analytics tool count different things, so a "lead" from one will rarely match a "lead" from the other. Decide which the report uses, and say so in a footnote.

• Cut the report to what the client decides on. Ask each client which three numbers they take to their own board. Lead with those, and move the rest to an appendix.

• Keep a change log for each account. New campaign, paused ad set, budget change, site release, tracking fix, each with the date. Half of every commentary is already written in it.

• Set the send date and tell the client. A report promised for the sixth working day and delivered on it is worth more than a better one in week three.

Can AI write the monthly client report?

AI can draft it, and the account manager finishes it. An AI worker works from a specification you approve, and a named person checks what it produces. For the monthly report it can collect each client's agreed figures on the pull day, through the routes the platforms publish, working from each client's definition sheet. It can set every figure beside last month's and last year's, and put a note against anything absent, anything two platforms disagree on and anything that has jumped. It then fills your template and drafts a few lines on the month, drawing on the account's change log, with whatever the account manager should look at first listed at the top. Where a figure could not be collected, the draft says so and leaves the space empty. The role is specified on our page for management reporting. The record of what the client said when you presented the report is a contact report, which is the work of meeting follow-up and notes.

What the account manager keeps

The account manager reads the figures as someone who knows the account, because a figure can be correct and still misleading: a strong month that was one large order, a fall that was a tracking fault. The recommendation is theirs, since it is the agency's advice and the client holds the agency to it. Any explanation of poor results is theirs too, in their own words. Nothing goes to the client until someone you have named has read it, approved it and sent it. Correcting a figure at its source, such as a broken tag or a wrongly counted conversion, is for whoever owns that set-up, and the client call is taken by the person the client knows.

What to have ready before starting

• The report template, and one past report per client that you would call a good one.

• The definition sheet for each client.

• Read access to each client's platforms, granted by the client in the way each platform provides for agencies.

• The pull day, the send day and the name of who approves each client's report.

• The change log, kept up from now on.

Timesheets against retainers, contact reports and new business enquiries sit beside the report on our page for marketing, creative and digital agencies, which sets out the rest of the admin an agency can hand over. What the report costs an account manager across a book of retainers is set out in how to scale a marketing agency without hiring more staff.

For an agency an AI worker would gather and check each client's figures and draft the report in your format, and your account managers would write the recommendation and send it. Are your reports still going out in week three? Talk to our agent.