What a restaurant agency client report should include

A report an agency can defend does four things in order: it says what was spent, what is tied to paid checks, how sure the agency is about that, and what will change next month. Everything else belongs in an appendix.

Picture the end-of-month call. The client's controller has the agency's report open next to the P&L. Page three has a chart of impressions and a line about click-through rate. She scrolls, finds no total, and asks the question out loud: "So what did we sell?" The account manager starts to say it was a strong month for engagement, and both of them can hear how that sounds.

That is the moment this report is built for. A client can be pleased with the work and still need a number to take into their own finance meeting. The agency doesn't need a perfect attribution number for that. It needs a number it can explain.

What goes on the page, section by section?

1. The frame. The period, the brand, the locations, and the decision this report supports, in two lines. Definitions stay the same month to month and live on the last page, where a new finance reviewer can find them.
2. What was spent. By channel, in dollars, using the client's ad spend. Put the agency's fee on its own line so the two don't blur.
3. What it brought in. Three lines, kept apart: revenue tied to paid checks, bookings and orders that came from the ads, and what the platforms estimate. A reservation is valuable, but it isn't automatically a completed meal. A modeled visit helps explain demand, but it isn't a paid check.
4. How sure we are. The share of visits at each location that can be connected to a check. If a location has incomplete data, say so before the client has to find it.
5. What we recommend. One or two decisions, each with the evidence behind it. Not a list of ideas.
6. Last month, alongside. The same figures for the month before, so movement is visible.
7. Appendix. Reach, clicks, follower counts. They help explain the result, but they aren't the result.

What does that look like with numbers in it?

Here is a made-up excerpt. Say an agency spent $9,000 of a client's money in September across three locations: $5,400 on Meta and $3,600 on Google.

• Tied to paid checks: $27,900, or 3.1x.
• Not yet connected to a check: 61 bookings from the ads, which the platforms value at $12,200. This sits on its own line, labeled as an estimate.
• How sure we are: 64% of visits at Downtown can be connected to a check, 58% at Eastside and 31% at Harbor.
• What we recommend: Move $1,000 of Meta budget to Eastside, where results are strongest. Don't judge Harbor yet: only 31% of visits there can be connected to a check, so we will add a code at the check presenter before the next review.

Notice what the last line does. It admits a limit and turns it into an action. That is where an agency shows judgment, and it is the part a finance reviewer remembers. The report becomes a record of decisions rather than a collage of screenshots.

How do you present numbers that aren't all equally certain?

Show the strictest figure first and the others beneath it. A smaller number that traces to actual checks carries more weight in the room than a larger one nobody can audit, and it makes next month's number believable when it moves. The same logic applies to any budget conversation, which we walked through in why Google and Meta ROAS don't match your register.

What happens to the report when the account manager changes?

Clients should be able to keep their reporting history as teams change. Agree on access, definitions and ownership at the start, so confidence in the numbers doesn't depend on one account manager's spreadsheet.

You can test your own reports this week. Open the last one you sent and mark every number as one of three things: tied to a paid check, estimated by a platform, or activity. If the first group is empty, that is the section to build first.

If you would rather run client measurement on the restauWant app, each client brand connects its own register and ad accounts, and the Partner Program page explains how agencies work with us.

Next step: Use the agency client-measurement handoff checklist before the first campaign review, to agree on access, definitions and a baseline with the client.