The four numbers that matter
Everything else on a marketing report is context. If you only read four lines a month, read these.
Enquiries received. How many people in your territory asked you for work. Cost per lead. Total spend divided by that number. Close rate. How many of those enquiries you turned into a booked job. Revenue per lead. Your average job value multiplied by your close rate.
The last figure is the one that decides everything. If revenue per lead sits comfortably above cost per lead, the arrangement is working. If it does not, no amount of dashboard colour changes that. The arithmetic is worked through in what a lead is worth.
What we send and when
Enquiries reach you live by SMS and email as they arrive. The monthly summary lands in the first few days of the following month and covers the four numbers above, the lead log by suburb, the month against the same month last year where we have the history, and anything we changed.
Two of those four figures are yours, not ours. We can count enquiries and cost per lead precisely. Close rate and revenue per lead depend on you marking leads won or lost in the client portal. Clients who do that get far more useful reporting than clients who do not, because we can then see which suburbs and which job types are actually converting and push the campaigns towards them.
What we deliberately leave out
No keyword position tables. No impressions, reach or share-of-voice charts. No social media engagement figures. None of those tell you whether the crew has work next week, and a long report full of them is usually hiding a short one that says very little happened.
We also do not report on activity — hours spent, pages published, posts made. Activity is our problem, not yours. You are buying enquiries, and the measure of that is enquiries.
Reading seasonality honestly
Trade demand is not flat. Tree work spikes after storms, hot water fails in winter, detailing lifts before Christmas, restoration follows floods and fires. A year of history makes a quiet fortnight legible instead of alarming, which is why the monthly summary shows the prior year alongside wherever the territory has been running that long.
Where a territory is new, we say that the comparison is not available rather than filling the gap with an industry average we made up.
Disputes and adjustments
If a billed lead was out of area, for a service you do not offer, or plainly a sales call, flag it in the portal and it comes off the invoice. The definition is written into the terms and conditions rather than left to our discretion, and the practical detail is on the lead generation page.
Questions about a specific month go to info@sugarloafdigital.com.au or 0468 062 773 — the contact page has the hours.
Frequently asked questions
Why do you not report keyword rankings?
Because rankings are a means, not a result. Positions can improve while the phone stays quiet, and they routinely differ by device and location so the number in a report is an average of something that varies. We report calls, enquiries and cost per lead, which are the things your bank account notices.
How do you count a call as a lead?
A call over ninety seconds from your territory about a service you offer. Under ninety seconds is usually a wrong number or a hang-up and is not billed. The recording is attached to every one so you can check our judgement rather than take it on trust.
Can I see the reporting before I sign up?
We will show you a live example from a territory in your trade with the client details removed, so you know exactly what lands in your inbox. We will not show you another client's actual lead volumes, for the same reason we would not show them yours.
What if my numbers look bad one month?
We say so and explain why. Trade demand is seasonal and weather-driven, and a quiet month in a genuinely quiet season is not a failure. A quiet month in peak season is, and that conversation is the useful one. Hiding it behind a green dashboard helps nobody.