Measuring what matters when the dashboard says everything
Impressions are not progress. How to pick a small set of numbers that reflect real commercial movement — and report on them honestly.
Modern analytics will happily show you two hundred metrics. Almost none of them tell you whether the business is growing.
Separate activity from outcomes
Impressions, clicks and sessions are activity. Enquiries, qualified enquiries, quotes and revenue are outcomes. Report both, but never let activity stand in for results.
Pick five numbers
For most businesses: cost per qualified enquiry, enquiry-to-quote rate, quote-to-win rate, average job value and payback period. Everything else is diagnostic detail.
Track the full path
Server-side or offline conversion tracking closes the gap between a click and a signed job, so the platforms optimise toward revenue rather than form fills.
Report honestly
Include the months that went sideways and what you changed. A report that never contains bad news is not a report, it is marketing.
A small, honest set of numbers reviewed every month beats a dashboard nobody trusts.
See how we report on Google Ads
