How do I know if my agency's reports are actually good?
A good report leads with a one-line, checkable verdict, such as "healthy," "rough month, here's why," or "watching X," before any charts, not buried after them. It explains why a number moved using a specific, checkable mechanism rather than a vague phrase like "performance was mixed" or "the algorithm is optimizing." It also flags what it doesn't know instead of presenting every number with false confidence.
"The algorithm is optimizing" isn't an explanation, it's a placeholder for one. A specific mechanism sounds more like "cost per result rose because a top-spending ad set hit high frequency on a shrinking audience" or "conversions dipped because a tracking pixel stopped firing for two days." You should be able to check either of those claims yourself if you wanted to.
Reports that hedge appropriately (calling out a metric that's ambiguous or a data gap that limits confidence) are usually more trustworthy than ones that sound certain about everything. If your reports consistently open with charts and numbers instead of a plain verdict, or explain every swing in vague terms, that's a specific and fair thing to ask your agency to change.