Agency pages we reviewed that show the report or dashboard they sell. Reporting software shows its own; the agencies name nineteen deliverables between them and picture none. One sells dashboards on a page with no images on it at all.
Source: Southern Tide Media review of 11 provider pages, August 2026That say what happens to your dashboard, your data connections and your account access when you leave. Those are the assets most likely to be held hostage at the end of a relationship.
Source: Southern Tide Media review of 11 provider pages, August 2026What reporting software costs per month. Worth knowing before anyone sells you “reporting.” The tool isn’t the service, and we’ll tell you exactly what the difference is.
Source: Published pricing, reporting platforms reviewed August 2026What’s included
Nobody reads a dashboard. A report is worth reading when it answers the three questions an owner has: did it work, why, and what happens now. Ours is written by the people doing the work.
Focus areas · Strategy & measurement
Monthly scorecard
The handful of numbers that matter for your business, tracked month after month.
Plain-English narrative
Written by the person running your account, not generated by software and forwarded.
Channel breakdown
Paid, organic, email and AI visibility, each read on its own terms.
Attribution, gaps included
We tell you which results we can tie to which channel, and where we can’t. That’s more often than most agencies admit.
AI Visibility scorecard
From the Growth plan up: how you show up in AI search and AI answers, and what it earned you.
Live dashboard
For when you want to look mid-month. The dashboard is the raw feed. The report is what it means.
What we did this month
A dated list of the actual work: what shipped, what’s in progress, and what’s waiting on you. It answers the question every owner is really asking, and it’s the section nobody else’s report has. See a sample report →
Year over year, not month over month
For a beach resort, “down 40% from July” isn’t a finding. It’s the calendar. Seasonal businesses get compared to the same month last year. We still show the month-over-month number, but we never draw a conclusion from it.
Quarterly review
A longer look at where things are heading, beyond the last thirty days.
The “what we’re changing” section
Every report ends with what happens next and the decisions we need from you, each with a date on it. That’s the whole point of the report.
The accounts stay yours
Analytics, ad accounts, tag manager, the dashboards: all in your name, all yours to keep. If you ever leave, there’s nothing to hand back because none of it was ever ours.
Page one of the monthly report
It’s laid out as a document on purpose: the writing first, the numbers underneath. Three things here that no competitor page in this category shows: a dated list of the work we did, a finding that is bad news, and a decision with a date on it. Read the full sample report →
August did what August is supposed to do, and a little better: 214 booked trips against 189 in the same month last year, at a cost per booking that came down 11%. The Labor Day package page you approved on the 12th carried more of that than we expected. It took 31 bookings in nineteen days and is now the second-best-performing page on the site. The thing that needs your attention is paid social: spend is up 18% and bookings from it are flat. We think that’s audience fatigue rather than the creative, and we want to pause the retargeting set rather than keep feeding it. There’s a decision on that below, and we need it by the 20th.
The grayed figures are month over month. They’re there for completeness, not for conclusions. July is your peak; being down against it is the season, not the marketing. Every number that carries a judgment in this report is compared to the same month last year.
| Date | What we did | Where | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 4 | Rebuilt the booking conversion after the plugin update moved the confirmation step | Tracking | Shipped |
| Aug 7 | Search term review: 9 of 41 searches blocked as negatives (the rental family) | Google Ads | Shipped |
| Aug 12 | Built and published the Labor Day package page from your copy | Website | Shipped |
| Aug 18 | Two new creative variants from the summer shoot; the worn-out pair retired | Paid social | Shipped |
| Aug 21 | Structured data added to the six trip pages so AI answer engines can read the details | AI visibility | Shipped |
| Aug 26 | Fall email sequence drafted (three emails), with you for approval | In progress | |
| Aug 28 | Guide headshots for the About page, waiting on the photos from you | Website | Blocked |
The retargeting set has been shown to the same audience so often that it has stopped working: frequency is 6.2 against a 3.0 target. The prospecting set is still performing and should be left alone.
Decision needed by the 20th: pause the retargeting set and move that budget to prospecting?31 bookings in nineteen days from one page. The pattern is a specific dated offer with one thing to do on it. Your evergreen trip pages ask visitors to choose between five.
Decision needed by the 15th: build the same shape for the fall dates?You now appear in answers about half-day paddle trips on two of the four engines we track, two weeks after the structured data went on. Two engines still name competitors only.
No decision needed. Reported so you know what the August 21 work bought.It’s there whenever you want to look mid-month, it’s in your own account, and it refreshes on its own. What it can’t do is tell you that a frequency of 6.2 is why paid social stopped working, or that being down against July is the calendar. That part takes a person, and that person signs the report.
- The writing comes first. The numbers sit under the paragraph, not above it. If someone who never opens the rest can’t understand the summary on its own, the report hasn’t done its job.
- The work list answers the real question. “Is anyone actually doing anything?” Seven dated lines, including one still in progress and one waiting on you. No competitor page in this category shows a work list at all.
- One finding is bad news, with a date attached. An agency that only reports good months isn’t reporting. Every finding ends in a decision and a by-when, so the report is something you act on, not something you file.
- The dashboard is drawn small on purpose. Reporting software costs $9–$159 a month and produces the screen. The reading of it is the service.
A dashboard, and a report
Both are useful. They aren’t the same thing, and the second one is what this page is about.
What a dashboard gives you
- A number.
- Every metric, because filtering costs the tool nothing.
- Month over month, because that’s the default setting.
- A chart, with nothing written next to it.
- Data, delivered on a schedule.
What a report gives you
- A number, and what caused it.
- The three to five numbers your business is judged on, agreed with you before we start.
- Year over year for seasonal businesses, with the month-over-month figure shown but never used to draw a conclusion.
- A note pinned to anything unusual, written by the person who knows why it happened.
- A decision we need from you, with a date on it, and the list of what we did to earn the month.
Where it starts
IncludedIn every planEvery plan includes the monthly report. Foundation at $499/mo covers site health and analytics.
How pricing worksWhy so many agency reports read like a dashboard export
A reporting tool connects to your accounts, pulls the numbers and emails a PDF on a schedule. It costs somewhere between $9 and $159 a month and does that part well. We use tools like this too. There’s no virtue in retyping numbers.
Deciding that your business is judged on booked trips, cost per booking and direct share, rather than sessions, impressions and bounce rate, is a judgment about your business. Three to five numbers, agreed with you up front, is the whole difference between a report and a data dump.
Platform-reported numbers flatter themselves and rarely agree with each other or with your booking system. Somebody has to check them against the money before they’re reported, and say so when they don’t line up.
Why the number moved, what we changed because of it, and what we need you to decide, with a name on it. That’s the part you’re paying for, and it’s the part that can be wrong and has to answer for it.
Where the numbers come from
Every number in the scorecard comes straight from the source systems, never from a screenshot. They’re the same connections we run our own reporting on.
So here’s the pitch. If all you need is the screen, buy the tool. It’s cheap and it’s good, and we’d rather tell you that than sell you a retainer for a PDF. What we sell is the reading of it, the work behind it, and someone accountable for both.
How pricing works
Reporting isn’t sold on its own. It’s built into everything we do, and the prices below are for what feeds it.
Every plan includes the monthly report. Foundation at $499/mo covers site health and analytics.
Growth ($1,295/mo) and above add the full AI Visibility report: how you show up in AI search, what changed, and what it earned you.
GA4, Search Console and Tag Manager set up correctly, so the numbers being reported are true.
Bundling is cheaper than buying the pieces.
See plans & pricingHow long it takes
What to expect
Good reporting is a habit with a setup cost: two weeks of wiring, then a rhythm that doesn’t slip.
Which numbers represent success for you. Usually three to five, and rarely the vanity ones.
Sources connected once, properly, so the figures agree with each other. No report is better than its plumbing.
Scorecard and write-up in the first week of the month, ending with what we’re changing because of it.
Who we help
Every business has a different “three to five numbers.” These are the ones we already report on.
Hospitality & Resort
Bookings, direct share and season pacing, not just sessions.
Explore →E-commerce & DTC
Revenue, return on ad spend and margin after fees, checked against the store.
Explore →Medical & Med Spa
Consults booked, shows versus no-shows, and cost per patient.
Explore →Home Services & B2B
Qualified leads and the value of the deals in progress, not raw form fills.
When you win, we win
Real clients, real numbers. Ratios and rankings, sourced, with each client’s sign-off.
Don’t take our word for it
“The Southern Tide Media team has smartly positioned itself as partners, versus “vendors.” Each step along the strategic path, I feel as if they are “all in” and have our best interests at heart.”
“Southern Tide Media increased our conversion rates on our SEO campaigns by 60% in short time… Brandon takes the worry out of all the technical jargon and translates that into workable applications you can understand as a business owner.”
“In every dealing I have ever had with Brandon Evans, he has been knowledgeable, fair, and has responded quickly. I would highly recommend using him for any of your business’s marketing or advertising needs!”
Questions, answered
Can I see a sample before I commit to anything?
Yes. The whole thing is here, filled in for a business we made up. There’s also a paid-media scorecard if ads are the part you care about. You shouldn’t have to imagine a deliverable before you buy it. Of the eleven provider pages we reviewed for this page, not one shows theirs.
Can I see the raw data?
Always. The accounts and the dashboards are in your name, we’ll walk you through any number in them, and every figure in the report says which source it came from.
Why a report at all? Isn’t a dashboard enough?
A dashboard tells you a number. It can’t tell you why it moved, which three numbers matter for your business, or what we did about it. Reporting software costs $9–$159 a month and does the screen part well. If that’s all you need, buy the tool. What we sell is the reading of it.
Which numbers actually matter for a business my size?
Three to five, agreed with you before anything is built, and almost never the vanity ones. For a resort it’s usually bookings, direct share and cost per booking. For a med spa, consults booked and shows against no-shows. For home services, qualified leads and the value of the deals in progress. Sessions and impressions help diagnose a problem. They aren’t results.
Does the report say what you DID, not just what happened?
Yes. A dated work list every month, including anything still in progress and anything waiting on you. Most reports don’t have that section. If ours were ever empty, you should ask why.
What if a month goes badly?
You’ll read that in the report, with the reason and the change we’re making. Bad findings come with a decision and a date, the same as good ones. An agency that only reports good months isn’t reporting.
How do you handle a seasonal business?
Year over year, not month over month. For a beach business, “down 40% from July” is a calendar entry, not a finding, so anything we draw a conclusion from is compared to the same month last year. The month-over-month figure is still shown. It just isn’t used to make an argument.
Is reporting included in a plan?
Every plan includes a monthly report. Foundation covers site health and analytics; Growth and up add the AI Visibility scorecard.