Field notes
Negotiating agency reporting when every channel uses different dates
20 March 2026 · Minh Tran
One agency exports Monday–Sunday. Another uses calendar months. A freelance buyer sends screenshots in ICT while your finance system closes in UTC. The paid media planning meeting then spends forty minutes reconciling dates instead of deciding budgets.
Set a house calendar
Pick one reporting week for all performance marketing conversations — we recommend Monday 00:00 to Sunday 23:59 ICT for Vietnam teams — and require every partner export to match. Put the rule in the insertion order or SOW so it is not a polite request.
Naming that survives handoffs
Campaign names should carry objective, geo, and flight code. When attribution settings change mid-flight, add a suffix rather than silently editing the live campaign. Your future self, and any consultant reviewing the account, will thank you.
Make the planning memo the source of truth
Our retainers treat the monthly planning memo as the document that overrides slide decks. If an agency chart disagrees with the memo’s agreed KPIs, the memo wins until the next planning cycle. That single habit removes more friction than any new reporting template.