One client said my reports were too pretty, so I cut the fluff

I run a small agency in Phoenix and for two years I prided myself on those big colorful dashboard reports with tons of charts and heat maps. Then a client in ecommerce, about 8 months ago, told me straight up they only look at two numbers, revenue and cost per click, and everything else was noise. At first I felt defensive but then I checked my own tracking and realized most of my other clients never opened the full PDF either. I switched to a one page summary with just the metrics they asked for plus a short paragraph on what I changed that week. My retention went up, and one client even said they finally understand what I do. Has anyone else found that simplifying reports actually built more trust than impressive visuals? Or do you think the pretty stuff matters for bigger accounts?

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umamartin17d ago

Same thing happens with menus at restaurants, people just want the good stuff.