What a dashboard answers, and what a brief adds
A dashboard is good at showing where the numbers are right now. It is less good at telling a busy marketing director what changed last week and what to look at.
Monday Brief is the kind of build we mean. It pulls the previous week's data from analytics, ad platforms and the CRM, checks it against the source totals and drafts a short explanation of what changed. Each figure links back to where it came from, so anyone on the team can challenge a number and see the answer.
You can have both. Many teams keep a dashboard for browsing and use the brief for the weekly meeting.
What goes into the brief
Every figure has a source, a date range and an owner. We agree on these with you before anything is built.
| Figure | Source | Date basis | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spend | Google Ads | Day the cost was incurred, account timezone | Paid media lead |
| Enquiries | GA4 key event or CRM | Event date or lead created date | Analytics owner |
| Qualified leads | CRM | Date the lead was qualified | Sales operations |
| Cost per qualified lead | Calculated | Same reporting week for both parts | Analyst |
The sources don't always line up neatly. Google Ads may attribute a conversion to the day of the click, GA4 to the day of the event and the CRM to the day someone updated the record. Timezones can differ too. We write down how each figure is counted so the report says the same thing every week, and so nobody is surprised when two systems disagree.
How the numbers are checked
Before the draft goes anywhere, the build checks its own work.
- Source totals. Weekly spend in the report must match the Google Ads total for the same dates. The same goes for each figure that has a source total.
- Coverage. Every expected export or connection must be present for the full week.
- Late or missing files. If an export is late or incomplete, the draft stops and tells the analyst which file is missing. It does not fill the gap with an estimate or send a partial report.
AI writes the commentary only after the figures are complete and checked. It describes what changed using the numbers that passed. It does not calculate the numbers or decide which ones to trust.
What the team receives
- A weekly brief in the format you choose, such as an email, a shared document or a page in your existing dashboard.
- Source links behind every figure.
- An approval step. The analyst reviews and sends.
- A report archive so last month's numbers are easy to find.
- Written instructions for a normal week and a week where something fails.
We agree up front who maintains the data connections after handoff.
Dashboards and Google Ads reporting
If the deliverable you need is a dashboard or a recurring Google Ads report, this is the right page. We build the data connections and the report around the questions your team asks. If you want someone to run the campaigns themselves, see Google Ads management.
How the project runs
The Monday report walkthrough on How we work follows this kind of build from the first conversation to handoff. If your sources disagree before you even start, a GA4 and GTM audit may come first.
Read the guide: How to automate a weekly marketing report.