Judging creative work by what it sells
Likes and reach are easy to report. We would rather tie our work to sales, even when that is harder. Here is how we think about it.
There is a version of marketing that is very easy to report on. Followers went up. Reach went up. A post did well. These numbers are real, and they can be useful, but on their own they say very little about whether a business is better off.
We believe every piece of work should point to sales. Reach and likes matter only when they lead somewhere.
Starting with the right question
When we plan a month of content or a campaign, the first question is not what will look good or what will get attention. It is what this work is meant to change for the business. More enquiries. More orders. More repeat customers. A stronger reason to choose this brand over another.
That question shapes everything that follows: what we make, where it runs, and how we judge whether it worked.
Reach and likes matter only when they lead somewhere.
Tracking what matters
Over the last two years we have become a return-led agency. We track return on investment across the work we run, and for clients whose online stores we manage, we track sales month on month.
For a store, that means looking at the orders, not just the ads. Which campaigns brought people in. Which products they bought. Whether they came back. Platform numbers are a useful guide, but we always try to read them alongside what actually happened in the store.
Reporting set to the work
How often we report depends on what we are running. Clients with active campaigns get weekly updates and a weekly call. Most clients have a monthly call to review the month and plan the next. And whenever something needs discussing, we pick up the phone rather than waiting for the next review.
We keep internal reporting just as open. Bad news shared early is always better than bad news found late, and a campaign that is not working is far cheaper to fix in its first week than in its last.
Craft still matters
None of this means the craft matters less. Work that sells is almost always work that is well made, true to the brand and built for the people it is meant to reach. Tying our work to sales simply keeps us honest about why we are making it.