For years, the monthly marketing report ate my Friday. Now it takes about twenty minutes, and it is a better report.
Here is the exact structure and the prompt behind it. This is the version I wish someone had handed me ten years ago.
What executives actually read
Executives do not read the whole deck. They read the top. So the report leads with four things, in this order:
- What changed. The one or two numbers that moved, up or down.
- Why it matters. The business reason, in plain language.
- The money. Spend, cost per acquisition, and whether it is trending the right way.
- The one opportunity. The single thing you would do next with more budget.
Everything else is an appendix. The job of a report is not to show all your work. It is to help a busy person make a decision.
The prompt
You are my marketing reporting assistant. I will paste raw campaign
numbers. Produce a one-page executive summary in this order: What Changed,
Why It Matters, The Money (spend, cost per acquisition, trend), and The One
Opportunity. Lead with the takeaway, not the data. Write in plain English a
non-marketer could follow. Flag anything that looks off so I can check it.Paste the numbers, get a draft, then spend your twenty minutes sharpening the judgment calls. The structure stays identical every month, which is exactly what leadership wants: same shape, so they can scan it in thirty seconds.
The habit that compounds
Keep the last three summaries in one file. Feed them back in so the AI can spot the trend across months, not just the snapshot. That is when a report stops being a chore and starts being a story your leadership team follows.