The dealership marketing report that fits on one page

Fourteen pages of impressions, reach and engagement rate. Nobody reads past page two — and they are right not to. If your marketing report does not answer "did this sell cars?", it is a document for the agency, not for you.

The one-page version

A useful dealership report fits on one page and answers five questions:

1. How many leads did we get, and from where? Website forms, calls, chat, third-party sites, walk-ins who said they saw us online.
2. How fast did we respond? Median minutes to first human contact.
3. How many became appointments, and how many showed?
4. How many sold? By source, as best you can.
5. What did it cost? Total spend divided by units sold from marketing-sourced leads.

Then one paragraph: what we changed last month, what happened, and what we are changing next month.

Report on units, not clicks. Impressions do not hit a forecast.

What to leave out

• Impressions and reach, unless something is badly wrong.
• Social "engagement" with no link to traffic or leads.
• Rank reports with fifty keywords. Pick the five searches that matter and track those.
• Anything you would not change a decision based on.

Getting the data

Most of this lives in your CRM already. The hard part is source tracking — making sure every lead is tagged with where it came from. Use call tracking numbers per channel, UTM tags on every link you run, and have the team ask "how did you hear about us?" on walk-ins.

It will never be perfect. A consistent 80% picture is worth far more than a perfect report nobody fills in.

Cost per sold unit beats cost per lead

Cost per lead rewards cheap, low-quality leads. A $15 lead that never answers the phone is more expensive than a $60 lead that buys. Look at cost per sold unit by channel each quarter, and move money toward the channels that sell.

Make it a habit

Fifteen minutes, first week of every month, with the GM and whoever runs digital. Same page, same five questions. After three months, you will know which channels earn their keep, and nobody will need fourteen pages again.

If your follow-up numbers are the weak spot, the lead leak calculator puts a dollar figure on it.