A client asked me for the monthly report eight months in a row. Not out of politeness. They asked for it because it was their only way of knowing whether what they were paying for was any use.
I'm Nico, a freelance digital marketing consultant in Seville. The monthly report is the part of the monthly action plan my clients appreciate most. And the part that sells least, because nobody hires someone for “a report”. Here's what mine includes, what gets decided with it and why it fits on one page.
What is a monthly digital marketing report?
It's the document a business uses to decide, every month, what to do with its marketing. It contains three things. What happened: five numbers. What was done: the list of actions for the month. What gets decided: three decisions for the following month. If it doesn't include the third, it's a summary, not a report.
Some things look like one and aren't: a collection of Analytics screenshots, or the forty-page document nobody reads. Nor is it the place where the invoice gets justified with followers and likes.
The report exists because of something I've been told more than once in a meeting: “if you leave, everything goes dark”. When a small business hires someone external, its fear is being left in the dark. The monthly report is the light left on. The client knows what was done, what happened and the reasoning behind what comes next. Even if I left tomorrow, they'd have the history.
The five numbers and where they come from
The same ones I explain in the digital marketing KPIs that matter for a small business. Three stages: visibility, acquisition and conversion.
| Number | What it measures | Source | Compared with |
|---|---|---|---|
| Impressions for your 20 target searches | Whether Google shows you to people searching for what you do | Search Console, performance report filtered by query | Previous month and same month last year |
| Average position for those searches | How far you are from the first page | Search Console | Previous month |
| Enquiries by channel | Forms, calls, WhatsApp, with their source | GA4, traffic acquisition report with key events by channel | Previous month |
| New clients and where they came from | The only thing that pays the bills | Your billing records and a spreadsheet | Year to date |
| Cost per client | What was spent on the channel divided by the clients it brought in | The same spreadsheet | Quarter |
Search Console gives you clicks, impressions, CTR and position by query and by page. GA4 gives you key events broken down by channel in the traffic acquisition report. And it compares periods in one click: previous month, same period last year. If you have a Google Business Profile, its performance panel adds calls, website clicks and requests for directions. All three sources are free. The hard part is looking at them on the same day every month.
The 30-minute meeting
The report goes out two days beforehand, so the meeting is for deciding. The script I follow:
- Five minutes: the five numbers. What went up, what went down, and one line of interpretation per number. No unnecessary charts.
- Ten minutes: what was done. The list of actions for the month. What went as expected and what didn't. This is where the learning happens.
- Ten minutes: three decisions. What we reinforce (what works), what we correct (what doesn't) and what we stop doing. Always three. More than three don't get done.
- Five minutes: next month. Dates, who does what and what I need from the client. It goes into the report and the updated version is sent that same afternoon.
Every three months the meeting lasts an hour and the question changes: instead of “what do we adjust?”, it's “what do we change?”. It's the only review where the strategy is revisited. The rest of the year is for execution.
What I see with my clients
Right now I do this report with 6 clients every month. And of the businesses that start working with me through a Digital X-Ray, around 7 in 10 carry on with the monthly plan afterwards. The method is recent and the figure will move; I'm noting it as it stands.
The pattern in the first meetings repeats itself. The client arrives with followers, likes and visits. They leave with enquiries by channel and cost per client. The first time they see that Instagram brought in 0 enquiries and Google 6, the report stops being a formality.
I generate it with my own system, in Python. The data from Search Console, Analytics and social media goes into a spreadsheet. It comes out as a presentation for each client, with the same structure every month. The part I don't automate is the interpretation and the three decisions. I write that myself, with the client in front of me.
And the client who asked for the report for eight months was right. Without a report, marketing is an expense paid on faith. With a report, it's an investment you adjust.
Before you pay for follow-up, measure for a month
Paying for marketing and nobody tells you which enquiries each channel brought in? In 30 minutes I'll show you what your report would look like. In the Diagnostic Session I review your website and your data before the video call. And I tell you which three numbers to watch. Free, two slots a week. Book yours. If you'd rather start in writing, the digital presence audit includes setting up measurement and the first report.
Sources
- Search Console Help, Performance report (search results): clicks, impressions, CTR and position by query and page: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7576553?hl=es
- Google Analytics Help, Traffic acquisition report (key events by channel): https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12923437?hl=es
- Google Analytics Help, Change and compare date ranges in reports: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13412290?hl=es
- Google Business Profile Help, Profile performance and insights (calls, website clicks, directions): https://support.google.com/business/answer/9918094?hl=es
- Google Search Central, Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content (10 December 2025): https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/creating-helpful-content?hl=es
- Own data: Auve Nico's log of clients with a monthly report and of Digital X-Rays (2026), and client quotes gathered in the 2026 internal audit (anonymised).
Freelance digital marketing consultant in Seville. I work on the digital presence of professionals and small businesses with one simple principle: your website as your operations hub. Building websites, doing SEO and running social media with my own hands since 2018.
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