# 75. Marketing Referral Tracker Report

[Marketing Referral Tracker Report](https://autosoftware.company/marketing_referral_tracker_report.php) answers the question every shop owner asks about advertising: which of these is actually bringing people in? It groups your finalized invoices by the referral source recorded against the customer, one line per source, and shows how many customers each one brought, what they spent in total, and what the average customer from that source was worth. Use it to see which campaigns and channels earn their keep, to compare a coupon against word of mouth, and to decide where next year's marketing money goes.

## How do I run the Marketing Referral Tracker Report?

1. From the Home Screen, click Reports → Marketing & Business Analysis Reports → Marketing Referral Tracker Report. The screen is headed MARKETING REFERRAL TRACKER REPORT (FINALIZED INVOICES).
2. Click the Finalize Date box and pick the period. It opens on the first of the current month through today. Invoices are picked up by the date they were finalized, and only finalized invoices count — nothing still open, voided or deleted appears.
3. Type into SEARCH TEXT to match a referral source by name, or leave it empty for all of them.
4. Click SEARCH to load the report. SHOW ALL clears the search and reloads on the same dates.
5. Click [PRINT](https://autosoftware.company/mpdf/marketing_referral_tracker_report_pdf.php) for a PDF copy or DOWNLOAD to export to a spreadsheet. Both appear only when the report has rows.

![Marketing Referral Tracker Report print output](/images/s222_5e4c0608.png)
*Marketing Referral Tracker Report print output*

## How do I work out what a referral source is worth per customer?

1. From the Home Screen, click Reports → Marketing & Business Analysis Reports → Marketing Referral Tracker Report, run it over a long enough period, and pick one line.
2. TOTAL REFERRAL is how many finalized invoices carried that source. Example: WEBSITE COUPON, 8 customers.
3. TOTAL MADE FROM REFERRAL is the net sales on those invoices added up. Example: $2,002.38.
4. AVERAGE AMOUNT is the second divided by the first — what the typical customer from that source spent. Example: $2,002.38 ÷ 8 = $250.30.
5. Compare that against another line to see which source brings the better customer, not just the most. Example: FLEET ACCOUNT CUSTOMER brought 13 customers worth $6,157.80, an average of $473.68 — fewer customers than some sources, but each worth nearly twice a website coupon customer.
6. A source with a single customer shows the same figure in both money columns, because one invoice averaged over one customer is itself. Those lines tell you a source exists, not how it performs.
7. The TOTAL REFERRALS row does the same arithmetic over everything: in the example $22,549.83 across 66 customers gives an average of $341.66, which is the figure to judge any individual source against. A source averaging well above it is worth more of your money; one well below it is worth asking about.

![Marketing Referral Tracker Report referral sources with the totals row](/images/s222_72b8155d.png)
*Marketing Referral Tracker Report referral sources with the totals row*

![Marketing Referral Tracker Report rows used in the calculation example](/images/s222_6e56011b.png)
*Marketing Referral Tracker Report rows used in the calculation example*

## How do I print the period for a marketing review?

1. From the Home Screen, click Reports → Marketing & Business Analysis Reports → Marketing Referral Tracker Report, set the date range and click SEARCH.
2. Click PRINT. The PDF opens in a new tab, titled Marketing Referral Tracker Report with the date range in the heading.
3. It carries the same four columns and the same TOTAL REFERRALS row, but not the TOTAL: and TOTAL AMOUNT: line that sits above the table on screen — note the number of sources from the screen before you print if you need it.

![Marketing Referral Tracker Report date range and filters](/images/s222_d98de083.png)
*Marketing Referral Tracker Report date range and filters*

## About this screen

A month is usually too short a window for this report. Referral sources build up slowly, and over a few weeks most of them show a single customer, which tells you very little. Give it a year and the picture separates out.

Each line shows the REFERRAL SOURCE as it is set up in your customer records, the TOTAL REFERRAL — how many finalized invoices came from customers carrying that source — the TOTAL MADE FROM REFERRAL, which is the net sales on those invoices added together, and the AVERAGE AMOUNT those two give.

Above the table, TOTAL: is the number of different referral sources in the period and TOTAL AMOUNT: is the money across all of them. At the foot of the table, TOTAL REFERRALS adds the three money and count columns down the page. The two are not the same count — in the example, `TOTAL: 11` means eleven sources were used, while the footer's `66` is the number of customers they brought between them.

A customer only appears here if a referral source was recorded against them, so the report measures what you have been told rather than everything that happened. If the totals here are well below your actual sales for the period, the gap is customers with no source recorded, and that is a front-counter habit rather than a reporting fault. The ADD TO FAVORITES switch beside the report title saves a shortcut to the report under your favourites in the main Reports menu.