The 15-Minute Weekly Marketing Report for Mortgage Brokers

20 August 2026·6 min read

Quick answer: You do not need a full attribution platform to know if your marketing is working — you need five or six numbers, checked at the same time every week, for fifteen minutes. Track new enquiries by source, cost per enquiry where you're paying for ads, enquiry-to-appointment rate, appointment-to-application rate, and settled loans by original source, then glance at trend rather than obsessing over any single week. This simple habit tells you which channel is actually bringing in business long before a full analytics overhaul would. It will not give you perfect attribution, but it will stop you flying blind. 📈

Please note: general information, not financial advice — check current official guidance before relying on it.

Most mortgage brokers we work with are running Google Ads, chasing referral partners, posting on Instagram and doing open homes with agents, all at the same time — and when asked which one actually settled their last five loans, they genuinely cannot say. 💖 That is not a failure of effort. It is a failure of measurement, and it is completely fixable without hiring an analyst or buying software you will use twice. A weekly fifteen-minute habit, tracking five or six numbers by hand or in a simple spreadsheet, tells you more about what is actually working than most brokers learn in a year of guessing.

What most mortgage brokers get wrong

The most common mistake is confusing enquiry volume with enquiry quality — celebrating a spike in leads from a Facebook ad without checking whether a single one of those leads ever became an appointment, let alone a settled loan. The second mistake is trying to build a full attribution system from day one, spending weeks setting up tracking software, then abandoning it after a month because it was too complicated to maintain. The third is checking numbers only when something feels wrong, rather than on a fixed weekly schedule — by the time a broker notices referrals have dried up, it has often been happening quietly for two months.

The asset: your 15-minute weekly report

The 6-number weekly marketing check (copy into a spreadsheet)

Every week, at the same time (Monday morning works well), fill in these six numbers. Keep a running row per week so you can see trend, not just a single snapshot.

New enquiries this week, by source (Google Ads, referral partner, Instagram/Facebook, website organic, walk-in/phone, other) — just a tally per source
Cost per enquiry for any paid channel (ad spend this week divided by enquiries from that channel)
Enquiry-to-appointment rate (appointments booked this week divided by enquiries received this week, roughly — a lag is fine)
Appointment-to-application rate (applications started divided by appointments held)
Settled loans this week, tagged by original source (this is the one number that matters most, and the one brokers most often skip)
Referral partner activity (a quick note: which partners sent something this week, which have gone quiet)

At the bottom of each week's row, write one sentence: 'what changed, and what am I doing about it.' That single sentence is what turns a spreadsheet into an actual decision-making habit rather than just data collection.

Real brokers, real numbers

A broker settling around 8 loans a month with no idea which channel they came from: After a few weeks of tagging every enquiry by source in a simple spreadsheet and tracing settled loans back to their original enquiry, it became clear that two long-standing buyers' agent referral partners were responsible for over half of settled volume, while a Google Ads campaign running for a year had produced plenty of enquiries but barely any settlements. Ad spend was redirected toward deepening the two relationships already working.

A broker running Google Ads alongside a growing referral network of three accountants: Enquiry volume looked healthy overall, but the weekly report showed the ads were producing a high enquiry count with a low appointment rate (lots of tyre-kickers), while accountant referrals had a much smaller volume but a far higher appointment-to-application rate. Rather than cutting the ads entirely, the broker adjusted the ad targeting to filter for more qualified enquiries and kept nurturing the accountant relationships, which were quietly doing more of the heavy lifting.

A solo broker who had tried three different reporting dashboards and abandoned all of them within a month: The complexity was the problem, not the discipline. Switching to the six-number spreadsheet version, filled in every Monday at 8am before the day's calls started, meant the habit survived past the first month because it took fifteen minutes rather than an hour of wrestling with a dashboard.

How to actually run this every week

Block fifteen minutes in your calendar at the same time every week — Monday morning before calls start works well, since it sets your focus for the week ahead. Use a simple spreadsheet, not a new platform; a shared Google Sheet with one tab per month and one row per week is enough. Tag enquiries by source as they come in rather than trying to reconstruct it later — ask directly ('how did you hear about us?') when a source is not obvious, and note it immediately in your CRM or even just a notebook by your desk. For settled loans, work backwards: when a loan settles, take thirty seconds to trace it back to its original enquiry source and record it in that week's row, even if the enquiry happened months earlier. Review the last four to six weeks of rows monthly, looking for trend rather than reacting to any single week's numbers, which will always bounce around.

💡 Settled loans, not enquiries, are the number that matters. A channel producing lots of enquiries but few settlements is quietly costing you time and, if it's paid, money — while a quieter channel with a high settlement rate deserves more of your attention than its enquiry volume alone would suggest.

Mistakes to avoid

Judging a channel by enquiry volume alone, without following it through to settlement
Building an elaborate tracking system in week one that is too complicated to maintain by week four
Forgetting to ask 'how did you hear about us' for enquiries that arrive by phone or in person
Reacting to a single bad week instead of watching the trend over four to six weeks
Never revisiting referral partner activity, so a quiet partner goes unnoticed for months
Skipping the weekly habit when busy, which is exactly when the numbers matter most

Frequently asked questions

Do I need marketing attribution software to do this properly?

No — this six-number weekly check is deliberately designed to work in a plain spreadsheet. Attribution software can add precision once you have outgrown manual tracking, but most brokers get real value from the simple version for a long time before that becomes necessary.

What if I can't trace every settled loan back to its source?

That is normal, and it is honestly one of the limits of doing this manually — some enquiries genuinely come through multiple touchpoints and the true source is a judgement call. Track what you reasonably can and treat the numbers as directional, not perfectly precise.

How is this different to marketing attribution?

Full attribution tries to map every touchpoint across a customer's journey, often needing dedicated software and setup time. This is a much simpler weekly habit using a handful of numbers you can track by hand — it will not replace proper attribution, but it will get you most of the practical benefit for a fraction of the effort.

Should I involve my broker support staff in this?

Yes, if you have support staff handling enquiries or CRM entry, involve them in tagging sources as enquiries come in — it keeps the data more accurate than trying to reconstruct it yourself once a week.

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Written by

Kate, founder of Chronically Online

I help Gold Coast and Brisbane businesses grow with branding, websites and marketing that actually works.

Work with me ✦