If you pay for marketing every month and can’t say whether it’s working, you’re not alone, and it’s not because you aren’t clever enough to follow it. Most marketing reports are built to look busy, not to answer the one question you actually have: is this bringing in business?
You don’t need to learn SEO, ads or analytics to find out. You need three numbers, and any decent agency, freelancer or in-house marketer should be able to give them to you within a day or two, in plain language.
The three numbers are:
- Enquiries: how many real people contacted you because of your marketing
- Cost per enquiry: what each of those enquiries cost you
- Customers and revenue: how many became paying customers, and what they were worth
What most marketing reports show, and why they don’t help
Most reports are full of numbers that measure activity, not results. Impressions, clicks, website visits, followers, keyword rankings and “engagement” all sound impressive, and all of them can go up while your phone stays quiet.
That isn’t always dishonest. Those numbers are easy to collect, so they end up in the report. But a business doesn’t pay wages with impressions. It pays them with customers.
Here is a simple test. Look at your last marketing report and ask: can I tell, from this page alone, how many people contacted my business because of it? If not, the report is answering the wrong question.
Number 1: How many enquiries did marketing produce?
An enquiry is a real person asking to buy or to talk: a phone call, a contact form, a WhatsApp message, an email or a booking. Ask for the total for each of the last three months, split by where it came from (search, ads, social media, referrals).
Two things to check:
- Calls and WhatsApp messages are counted, not just form fills. For many South African businesses a large share of enquiries arrive by phone or WhatsApp, and a report that only tracks forms will make your marketing look weaker than it is.
- Spam and wrong numbers are filtered out, so you are counting people you would actually want to speak to.
If nobody can tell you this number, the tracking isn’t set up properly. That is the first thing to fix, because nothing else can be judged without it.
Number 2: What did each enquiry cost?
Cost per enquiry is your total marketing spend divided by the number of enquiries it produced. It is the fastest way to see whether money is being spent well, and it works for any channel.
Use the full cost: the ad budget, the agency or freelancer fee, and any tools or software, not only the ad spend. Say you spend R20,000 a month in total and get 40 enquiries. Each enquiry costs R500.
On its own, R500 is neither good nor bad, because it depends on what an enquiry is worth to you (that is number 3). What you are looking for is the trend. Falling or steady while the number of enquiries grows is healthy. Climbing three months in a row is a conversation to have with whoever runs your marketing.
Number 3: How many enquiries became customers, and what were they worth?
This is the number most businesses don’t have, and it is the one that matters most. Of the enquiries marketing produced, how many became paying customers, and how much did they spend?
This usually can’t come from your marketing team alone, because they don’t see your sales. It takes a few minutes from you: ask new customers how they found you, or keep a simple note against each enquiry (won, lost, or still talking). A shared spreadsheet is enough.
Once you have it, you can work out two things:
- Cost per customer: total marketing spend divided by new customers won.
- Return on spend: the revenue from those customers compared with what you spent.
A business can have a cost per enquiry that looks high and still do very well, if those enquiries turn into large or repeat sales. The reverse also happens: cheap enquiries that never buy. Only number 3 tells you which one you have.
What it looks like with real numbers
Here is a made-up example for a service business spending R20,000 a month on marketing. The figures are illustrative, not a benchmark.
| Metric | Month 1 | Month 2 | Month 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marketing spend (R) | 20,000 | 20,000 | 20,000 |
| Enquiries | 25 | 34 | 42 |
| Cost per enquiry (R) | 800 | 588 | 476 |
| New customers | 5 | 7 | 9 |
| Cost per customer (R) | 4,000 | 2,857 | 2,222 |
In month 1 it looks expensive. By month 3 the same budget brings in about two-thirds more enquiries and nearly double the customers. If each customer is worth R10,000 in their first year, month 3 returns about R90,000 on R20,000 spent. That is a story you can act on: keep going, or put more money in.
Compare that with a report that says “website visits up 18%”. That sentence could be true in a good month and in a bad one.
What to do if you can’t get these numbers
If your agency or marketer can’t, or won’t, give you these three numbers, that tells you something. Tracking may never have been set up, or the results may not be good. Either way, you are entitled to know.
Start with a polite, specific request, by email so there is a record: “Please send me, for the last three months, the number of enquiries by source, the total marketing cost, and the cost per enquiry.”
Then check three things for yourself:
- Who owns your accounts? Your ad accounts, analytics, Google Business Profile and website should be in your name, with your agency added as a user. If they own them, you can’t walk away with your history.
- Are phone calls and WhatsApp clicks tracked? If not, ask for call and WhatsApp tracking to be set up.
- Is there a plain-language report every month? You shouldn’t need a glossary to read it.
If the answers are vague, that is a good moment to get a second opinion.
Want a second pair of eyes?
We can help in two ways, and neither locks you in.
Our free keyword ranking scan shows how your website ranks for up to 10 of your key search terms, with no obligation. If you want a proper look at your tracking, search, ads and website, our fixed-fee Digital Marketing Audit gives you a written 90-day plan you can use with us or with anyone else.
Either way, you will leave with numbers you can understand and a clear idea of what to do next.
Get your free scan or book an audit.
