What counts as real communication
Substance is the test, not frequency. Communication that counts:
- Changes made in the account and the reasoning behind them.
- Problems found, including ones the agency caused or missed.
- Results against the targets that were agreed, not against moving goalposts.
- Decisions that need your input, framed clearly enough to decide.
Communication that does not count: automated dashboard links with no interpretation, and meetings that restate the dashboard out loud. A dashboard is data; communication is what the data means and what is being done about it.
Watch who is writing the updates
The author of your updates matters as much as their frequency. If the person writing your reports is not the person inside your account, you are getting a summary of a summary: the operator tells the account manager, the account manager writes the client version, and detail dies at each handoff.
The failure mode is familiar to anyone who has asked a follow-up question in a status call and watched it get taken away for next week. At Etari Digitals, the person writing the update and the person in the account are the same person, the founder, which keeps reporting accurate by construction.
What weekly and monthly should each cover
The two rhythms do different jobs. Weekly communication is operational: what was done this week, what the data shows, what happens next. It keeps the work visible and surfaces problems while they are small.
The monthly report is where work connects to money. It should tie the month's activity to revenue, show performance against targets, and state the plan for the next month, including what is not working and what changes because of it. A monthly report that contains only good news is not a report; it is marketing. The bad numbers belong in there, because you cannot fix what gets hidden.