Client reporting templates by cadence: daily, weekly, monthly, and what goes in each
Most automated client reporting fails for the same reason: everything is sent at the same cadence. Here is a slot-by-slot template — what belongs in the daily pulse, what belongs in the weekly review, what belongs in the monthly debrief.
Client reporting templates by cadence: daily, weekly, monthly, and what goes in each
If you run an agency, you have already lost a weekend to "this client wants more reporting." If you haven't, congratulations, it's coming.
The trap is that "more reporting" usually means more frequent reporting of the same thing. That's worse than the original problem. The client gets buried, you spend more time, and the actual signal gets diluted. The fix is to decide which thing goes in which slot, and stick to it.
Here's the cheat sheet we use.
The daily slot: pacing and pulse
Daily is for things that could go wrong today. Not for performance. Not for trends. Not for thinking.
What goes in:
- Ad budget pacing. A line chart of spend vs even-pace. The whole conversation in one image. See budget pacing for paid ads in Slack.
- Revenue today (for ecommerce). Last 14 days against the prior period. See Shopify revenue to Slack.
- Anomaly alerts. Campaign paused, ads disapproved, the leakier-than-usual conversion rate.
What doesn't go in:
- Cumulative metrics that barely move daily.
- Anything requiring a paragraph of explanation.
- Anything the client could only act on weekly.
Daily is fast, short, almost-no-words. If a daily post needs a paragraph to interpret, it isn't a daily post.
The weekly slot: performance and decisions
Weekly is for "what should we do next?" — the meaty, decision-driving stuff that actually justifies the retainer.
What goes in:
- Multi-source performance summary. Ads + organic + email, side by side. We covered this in agency multi-source internal reporting.
- Top movers in keywords / pages / products. For SEO see keyword performance reports in Slack. For ecommerce, top products from Shopify.
- AOV, conversion rate, MQL count, whichever is the most-asked-about metric for this client. Twelve-week history beside it.
- Pipeline-to-quota or budget-to-target. Things the client wants to feel confident about before Monday.
Weekly is where AI commentary really earns its keep. One line on what moved, then the chart. The client gets enough to ask a smart question by 9:15 Monday.
The monthly slot: storytelling and stakeholders
Monthly is for the wider audience — the client's leadership, the board, the people who don't live in the operating channel. The job is narrative, not novelty.
What goes in:
- Full P&L impact summary. Spend, return, ROAS, channels.
- Funnel-stage view. Top of funnel down to revenue, with the bottlenecks highlighted.
- MRR breakdown (for SaaS clients). See tracking MRR in Slack.
- Forecast vs actual. With a 2-3 sentence commentary on the gap.
Monthly is also where you fix the template. Weekly is operating; monthly is reflection. Sneak in the "we should change our cadence for X" note here, not in the daily channel.
What this looks like wired up
A typical agency client in Slack Connect (#client-acme):
- Daily 8am: ad-spend pacing chart.
- Daily 9am: Shopify revenue (or pipeline-created for B2B).
- Mon 9am: weekly performance summary — top movers, multi-source view.
- Mon 10am: AI commentary thread under the summary, three sentences.
- First of month, 10am: the monthly narrative post — three charts, a paragraph of context, a calendar link if there's a meeting.
That's six recurring posts. The client reads them in under three minutes a week. Both sides are happier than they would be with a 40-page monthly deck.
How Chartcastr fits
Connect the sources you use. For each chart you want to send, pick the destination and the cadence. The "template" isn't a file — it's the set of standing posts you've configured into the channel.
When you onboard a new client, you replicate the standing posts in their new channel. We're working on a literal "templates" feature for exactly this — until then, the pattern is to keep a master config in a notes doc and recreate per client. Onboarding takes about 20 minutes.
