Create a Monthly Practice Marketing Report

Why a monthly report

A monthly rhythm is frequent enough to catch problems, such as a broken booking form, a tracking number that stopped ringing or an ad campaign that drifted, and slow enough that the numbers mean something. Weekly figures for most practices are too small and noisy to act on.

The report is not the goal. Its job is to lead to a decision each month, even if the decision is to change nothing. If nobody can name what changed because of last month's report, it is too long or measuring the wrong things.

The numbers to include

Lead with outcomes, then the steps that lead to them, then supporting data:

• •New patients by source: from your scheduling system, using the "how did you hear about us" answer and your tracking data. Group sources the same way every month.
• •Spend and cost per new patient by source: what each paid channel cost divided by the new patients it produced. Our acquisition cost guide covers the calculation.
• •Inquiries: new patient calls, form submissions and online bookings. Our call tracking guide explains how to count real new patient calls.
• •Booking rate and show rate: the share of inquiries that booked, and the share of booked first visits that were kept. These show whether problems sit in marketing or at the front desk.
• •Google Business Profile: calls, website clicks, direction requests and bookings from the Performance view. Calls here count taps on the call button, not answered calls.
• •Search and website: clicks and impressions from the Search Console Performance report, and from Google Analytics the sessions and key events (such as form submits and booking clicks) by source. Engagement rate is a helpful page-level signal, as Google defines an engaged session by time, key events or page views.

Tag links in ads, emails, social posts and your profile website button with UTM parameters so these sources show up separately in analytics instead of blending together. Our KPI guide goes deeper on choosing measures.

A simple structure

1. Summary: new patients, total spend and cost per new patient, each with last month and the same month last year.
2. By source: one small table with a row per source and columns for inquiries, booked, new patients, spend and cost per new patient.
3. Supporting numbers: profile, search and website figures, only where they help explain a change.
4. What changed: two or three short notes, such as a new campaign, a closed week, a tracking fix or a website update, so changes in the numbers can be read in context.
5. Actions: what will change next month, who owns it and how you will know it worked.

Keep the same layout every month. A familiar layout makes changes stand out.

Charts that help

A few simple charts make trends easier to see than a table:

• •Line charts over 12 months for new patients and cost per new patient, so seasonality is visible.
• •Bar charts comparing sources side by side for the current month.
• •A simple status color next to each headline number, against a target you set from your own history.

Skip charts that need explaining, and avoid pie charts with many thin slices. A spreadsheet is enough to start; our SmileTrak reporting service is one way to bring the sources together if you would rather not assemble it by hand.

What to compare against

Published industry averages for dental and medical marketing vary widely and rarely match your services, fees or market, so they make poor targets. More useful comparisons:

• •Last month and the same month last year: the second accounts for seasonality, holidays and school calendars.
• •A rolling three-month average: smooths out a single unusual month.
• •Your own targets: set from your capacity (how many new patients you can actually see) and from what a new patient is worth to you.

When a number moves, check the data before reacting. A sudden drop is often a broken tag, a changed form or a tracking number that was removed, not a real change in demand.

Turning it into actions

End every report with one to three actions, each written the same way:

• •What changes: for example, move part of a weak campaign's budget to a stronger one, fix after-hours call handling or update a slow service page.
• •Who owns it and by when.
• •How you will judge it: the one number in next month's report that should move.

Start the next report by checking last month's actions. That habit is what turns reporting into improvement. If you suspect spend is going to channels that do not produce patients, our spend audit guide covers a fuller review.

Presenting it to the owner

Owners and partners usually want three answers: are we getting enough of the right new patients, is the spend paying off, and what is changing. Lead with those in plain language, then show the detail for anyone who wants it.

Be direct about uncertainty. Say when a month is too small to judge, when a tracking problem affected the numbers, or when a change needs more time before it can be assessed. Avoid predictions you cannot support; a range based on your own past months is more honest than a promise.

If an agency prepares the report, ask for the same layout every month, the date range and data source for each number, and read-only access to the underlying accounts so you can check any figure yourself.

Sources

• •Google Business Profile Help: Understand your Business Profile performance and insights
• •Search Console Help: Performance report (Search results)
• •Google Analytics Help: About key events
• •Google Analytics Help: Engagement rate and bounce rate
• •Google Analytics Help: URL builders: Collect campaign data with custom URLs