Score each brand on five columns, once a month, against its own last three months, then assign one action: repeat, fix, pause or escalate. That takes about 10 minutes per brand and replaces the 40-slide report nobody reads.
TLDR: Use one sheet with the same five columns for every brand: reach, engagement rate, link clicks, conversions, and cost of the time spent. Compare each brand to itself, not to the others. End every row with one verb: repeat, fix, pause or escalate.
The five columns that go on every brand's row
Multi-brand teams drown because each brand reports different things. Fix the columns first and the rest gets easy.
| Column | What to enter | Why it is on the sheet |
|---|---|---|
| Reach | Unique accounts reached, all platforms | Shows whether the brand is being seen at all |
| Engagement rate | Engagements divided by reach | Shows whether those people cared |
| Link clicks | Clicks to site, shop or booking page | The first step toward money |
| Conversions | Leads, sales or bookings you can tie to social | The number the client or boss really wants |
| Hours spent | Team time on that brand this month | Turns ROI into something you can calculate |
If a brand has no tracked conversion, say so in the cell. A blank column is a finding, not a failure: it tells you that brand needs a tracking link before anything else.
Score against the brand's own last three months
Do not rank brands against each other. A local bakery and a software company live in different worlds. For each brand, mark every column as up, flat or down against its own three-month average.
For context, in Mydrop's data on 336 accounts, the median Instagram post earns a 3.1% engagement rate, but the middle half of posts range from 1.1% to 6.7%. So a single month at 2% is noise, and a three-month slide from 4% to 2% is a signal.
Turn the ticks into one decision per brand
Read each row left to right and pick the first rule that fits:
- Repeat: reach up or flat, clicks up. Do more of what worked. Name the post type.
- Fix: reach fine, clicks down. The content is seen but not persuasive. Change the call to action or the first line.
- Pause: reach down and hours up. You are spending more to get less. Cut the lowest-performing format for 30 days.
- Escalate: conversions down while clicks hold. The problem is past social: landing page, offer or follow-up. Hand it to the owner with the evidence.
Write the verb in the last column and the reason in six words or fewer. That is the page the client reads.
Make the 10 minutes real
Ten minutes only works if collection is already done. Three habits make it so:
- Pull the numbers on the same day each month. The first Monday works well.
- Use one report layout for all brands. Build it once, copy it per brand.
- Keep the sheet to one screen. If a brand needs scrolling, you added a vanity column.
Mydrop's reports and analytics do the collection step: they pull the native metrics for each profile, show daily trends, and export a white-label PDF with a share link, so the sheet is half-filled before you open it. You still make the decision, which is the part that cannot be automated.
Run it on your noisiest brand this week
Pick the one brand that always generates questions. Fill the five columns for the last three months, mark up, flat or down, and write one verb. If you want the numbers gathered for you, start free with Mydrop and connect that brand's profiles first. For the next level of detail, see the 10-minute engagement-to-ROI audit.
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