Run it on one page that answers five questions: who are we attracting, where do they drop out, what did it cost to win them, are they worth it, and what are we building for later. Then end every problem with a decision, an owner and a follow-up date.
Most monthly marketing reports stop at the numbers. That's the part I'd change first. CEOs and CMOs often aren't even reading the same scoreboard. In McKinsey's research, 70% of the CEOs surveyed judged marketing by revenue growth and margin, while only 35% of CMOs tracked that as a top metric. [1]
A simple agenda
- Last month's decisions (5 minutes). What did we do, and what happened?
- The five questions (20 minutes). For each number: the result, the target, a fair comparison, the count behind it and one line on what changed.
- The one leak (15 minutes). Pick the biggest break between first contact and revenue, and dig in.
- Decisions (10 minutes). One decision per problem, with an owner and a date.
Why the decision matters most
At a dental group I worked with, our busiest office was booking more new patients than any other. The marketing report said send it more ads. When we followed patients past the booking, only 4 of its 28 patients approved for financing went ahead with treatment. Another office closed 14 of 15.
The fix wasn't more ads. It was coaching the person who sat with patients and walked them through the plan. We only found it because the review went one step past bookings, and the fix had a name next to it and a date to come back.
Marketing leaders want this kind of rigor, too. In The CMO Survey, 86.3% of the marketing leaders who answered said they're building stronger performance tracking. [2]
Keep it to one page
Your marketing scorecard should fit on one page. Detail lives in the back for when someone asks. Write down what each number means, who owns it and where it comes from. If your first month shows you can't answer every question, that's useful. Fixing the missing records becomes part of the plan.