The Great Data Delusion: Why Your Reports Are Lying to You
I’m going to be blunt: most of the cross-channel reports I see sitting on the desks of Brisbane business owners are total rubbish.
Last week, I sat down with a retail client in Newstead who was beaming with pride over his 'integrated' dashboard. It showed a 400% ROI on Facebook Ads and a 300% ROI on Google Search. He was ready to double his spend. My first question was: "If your marketing is this successful, why is your bank balance flat?"
Silence.
Here’s the reality the big platforms won’t tell you: Google wants to take credit for every sale. Meta wants to take credit for every sale. Your email platform wants to take credit for every sale. If a customer sees a Facebook ad, clicks a Google ad two days later, and finally buys through an email link, your 'cross-channel' report might record three separate sales when only one actually happened.
We call this the 'Data Graveyard'—a place where context goes to die and business owners make expensive mistakes. If you aren't careful, you're just building data graveyards instead of professional insights. In this post, I’m going to tear down the three most common approaches to cross-channel reporting and tell you which one actually puts money in your pocket.
Approach 1: The 'Platform-Native' Trap (The Lazy Way)
This is the most common approach, and quite frankly, it’s the most dangerous. This is where you log into Google Ads, see a number, log into Meta, see a number, and add them together in an Excel spreadsheet.
Why it’s rubbish:
Double (or Triple) Counting: As mentioned above, platforms are greedy. They use different attribution windows (Meta defaults to a 7-day click/1-day view, while Google often uses a data-driven model). They don't talk to each other. The 'Post-View' Problem: Meta loves taking credit for 'view-through' conversions—someone saw your ad while scrolling for 0.5 seconds, didn't click, but bought something three days later anyway. Was it the ad? Or were they going to buy anyway? Zero Visibility on the Journey: You have no idea how these channels interact. You’re looking at silos, not a business.If you are still relying on platform-native reporting to make budget decisions, you are effectively flying a plane while looking out the side windows but ignoring the windshield. I’ve seen this backfire more times than I can count, usually resulting in a business owner cutting 'underperforming' top-of-funnel ads only to see their 'highly profitable' search ads dry up two weeks later because the demand generation stopped.
Approach 2: The GA4 'Last-Click' Obsession (The Safe Way)
Most agencies will tell you that Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the 'source of truth' because it sees everything in one place. While GA4 is a massive step up from looking at Meta in isolation, it has a massive flaw: it struggles with the reality of hybrid journeys.
The Reality Check:
GA4 is great at telling you what happened on your website. It is terrible at telling you what happened in the human mind* before they got there.In 2026, the path to purchase for a Brisbane homeowner looking for a pool builder isn't linear. They might see a project on Instagram while waiting for a coffee in Paddington, search for 'pool builders Brisbane' on their work laptop, and finally convert on their iPad at home. GA4 often sees these as three different people, or it gives all the credit to the final 'Direct' visit.
The Verdict: GA4 is a tool, not a strategy. If you rely solely on it, you will naturally over-invest in 'bottom-of-the-funnel' tactics (like brand search) and starve the channels that actually introduce new people to your brand.
Approach 3: The Profit-First Attribution Model (The Expert Way)
This is where we separate the amateurs from the pros. Instead of asking "Which channel gets the credit?", we ask "How does the combination of these channels affect my bottom line?"
To do this properly, you need to stop looking at 'Return on Ad Spend' (ROAS) and start looking at Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER) or 'Blended ROAS'.
How to implement a Profit-First approach:
1. Calculate your Blended ROAS: (Total Revenue / Total Marketing Spend). This is the only number that doesn't lie. If this number is going up, your business is growing. 2. Use Incrementality Testing: Every now and then, turn off a channel in a specific region (say, turn off Meta ads only in Toowoomba) and see what happens to your total sales. If sales don't drop, that channel was 'noise'. 3. Focus on Leading Indicators: Stop obsessing over the final sale in every report. Look at 'Add to Carts', 'High-Value Page Views', or 'Time on Site' across channels.Look, I get it—another article telling you to 'focus on quality data' is maddening when you're just trying to figure out if your $2,000/month LinkedIn spend is doing anything. But the truth is that your marketing dashboard is lying if it isn't accounting for the overlap between these platforms.
The Brisbane Context: Why Local Data Matters
If you’re a QLD-based business, your cross-channel reporting needs to account for local nuances. We’ve found that for many of our clients in the trades or professional services sectors, 'offline' conversions (phone calls, walk-ins) are often the biggest piece of the puzzle.
If your cross-channel report doesn't integrate your CRM data or call tracking, you're missing 50% of the picture. We recently worked with a medical clinic in Fortitude Valley that thought their SEO was failing. When we integrated their offline booking data, we realised their SEO was actually driving 70% of their high-value surgical inquiries—the 'cross-channel' report just wasn't 'crossing' over into the real world.
Actionable Steps for SMB Owners
If you want to fix your reporting by Monday, do these three things:
1. Stop looking at individual platform ROAS as gospel. It’s a directional metric, not a financial one. 2. Demand a 'Blended' view. Ask your agency for a report that shows total spend vs. total revenue, regardless of where the 'credit' goes. 3. Implement UTM parameters religiously. If you aren't tagging every single link—from your email signatures to your 'Link in Bio'—you are choosing to be blind.
Conclusion: Data is a Servant, Not a Master
Cross-channel reporting shouldn't be about winning an argument over which channel is 'best'. It should be about making better bets with your capital. The industry wants to overcomplicate this with AI-driven attribution and complex 'black box' models, but for 90% of Australian SMEs, the answer lies in simplicity, incrementality, and a ruthless focus on profit.
Are you tired of looking at dashboards that don't match your bank account? It's time to stop measuring noise and start measuring what actually moves the needle for your Brisbane business.
Ready to see what’s actually happening under the hood of your marketing? Contact Local Marketing Group today and let’s build a reporting engine that actually drives growth.