Notes from the desk.
Short pieces on building SendTidings, running an agency, and what makes a monthly report worth reading.
Which page brought the enquiry?
Conversions now has a page of its own: enquiries day by day, and the two lists that matter — the page someone arrived on, and the page they enquired from. And every section of the monthly email now links straight to it.
Read the post-
How often should you send client reports?
Monthly is the default for good reasons, but it's worth knowing what they are. When weekly becomes noise, when quarterly loses the thread, and why consistency matters more than frequency.
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The demo you send should have your name on it
Every agency now gets its own copy of the demo dashboard, on its own domain, with its own branding. Here's why sending a prospect your supplier's demo quietly costs you.
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Why our demo client doesn't exist
There's a live demo dashboard now, and the garden centre in it is invented. That was deliberate, and the reason is the most useful thing we can tell you about how we handle client data.
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What to charge for a website care plan
Nobody publishes their care-plan pricing, so everyone guesses low. Here's how to work out a number from what you're actually carrying, and why the monthly report is what makes it defensible.
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Some things still need to be a PDF
The client dashboard has one flaw I could never design around: it lives at a URL. Export puts the month on one page your client can forward, file, or drop into a board pack.
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What WordPress agencies should send clients beyond the maintenance email
Backups taken, plugins updated, 99.9% uptime: the care-plan email proves you did the work, but it doesn't tell a client whether the site is earning its keep. Here's what to add.
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Your client dashboard just started earning its keep
Two new features turn the client dashboard from a rear-view mirror into a shared plan: measurable goals your clients can watch, and recommended work they can request in a click.
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Dashboard or report? Your clients need both
A dashboard answers 'how's the site doing right now?'. A report answers 'here's what mattered this month.' They're different jobs for the same client, and picking one leaves a gap.
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Enquiries, not just traffic
SendTidings now shows real customer enquiries — call clicks, email clicks, contact-form submissions and WooCommerce purchases — in the client dashboard and the monthly report, right next to the traffic. The number that proves your worth.
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Silence isn't feedback
The new Engagement page shows which clients open their live dashboard, and when: ranked, with a quiet 'at risk' flag for the ones who've stopped looking. A retention signal, not a vanity metric.
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We said we didn't do trials. Now we do.
We made a virtue of not having a free trial. We've added a 14-day one on paid plans: card upfront, £0 if you cancel, and the free tier is unchanged. The honest why.
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The window is open
The live client dashboard is here: a real-time, white-labelled view for each client, opened with a magic link. No login. Included on Starter and Growth.
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Your client list, now portable
SendTidings has a read-only API (v1), so your clients, sites and report history can flow out into a CRM or automation: Twenty, Attio, Folk, HubSpot, whatever you run. The groundwork for deeper CRM integrations.
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The report is a photograph. We're building a window.
A live, white-labelled client dashboard is on the way: your clients' numbers, your branding, no login. It's in private beta with a handful of agencies first.
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From report to care report
SendTidings now connects to MainWP, so your monthly client reports can show the WordPress maintenance, pending plugin, theme and core updates, alongside the traffic. The upkeep work, finally visible.
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Open rates are a vibe check, not a count
Apple Mail inflates them. Outlook with images off ignores them. Open tracking is directional, not precise. Here's how to read it without lying to your clients.
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Connect once, send forever
Why every integration in SendTidings lives at the org level, and why I typed thirty Plausible API keys before deciding never again.
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Tag your clients and sites: slice your list any way you think
SendTidings now has tags: name + colour, apply to any client or site, filter your lists by one tag or six. Plus bulk add and remove on the Sites table.
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Verified by Google
SendTidings is now a verified Google Cloud app. What changes for users connecting Analytics or Search Console, and why getting that little green tick took longer than the code.
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Uptime is the cheapest trust you can buy
Your client doesn't lie awake over bounce rate; they worry the site's down and nobody told them. Why 'nothing broke this month' belongs in every client report.
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What to put in a monthly client report (and what to leave out)
The handful of things worth including in a monthly client website report, the vanity metrics to cut, and why how you send it matters as much as the numbers.
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The reporting tool I couldn't find
I send detailed care reports to my Managed WordPress clients. For everyone else, crickets. So I went looking for a tool, and ended up building one.
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The first of the month
Why the schedule matters as much as the content, and how a fixed cadence changes the conversation with clients.
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Why we're building SendTidings
A short note on the monthly-report problem, and why we think a beautiful email beats a Looker Studio screenshot.