How Do Agencies Send Branded Monthly Lead Reports Without Screenshots

Month-end for many agencies still means opening Analytics, opening the form inbox, and pasting screenshots into a PDF. The client gets a slide deck. You get a scramble. The numbers rarely match the named people who actually enquired.

This post explains why screenshot month-ends fail, what free Lead Source 1.0.8 already stamps on every hooked form fill, what a branded scheduled report needs that free does not ship, what Lead Source Pro puts on the client email, how to set one schedule once, and what this still does not do.

Why screenshot month-ends keep failing agencies

Screenshots freeze a moment. They do not freeze a period. A client asks for August. You grab whatever is on screen on 1 September. Filters differ. Time zones differ. The form plugin shows fills. Analytics shows sessions. Neither list is a named lead table with source on every row.

Screenshots also drop the marketing question the client pays for. Which campaign produced the enquiry. Which landing page. Which click ID. A cropped dashboard tile cannot answer which Google Ads click became the person in the CRM.

Agency branding is another miss. A raw Analytics export carries Google’s chrome. A form inbox export carries the form plugin’s chrome. Your logo and agency name are missing unless you rebuild the PDF by hand every month.

Finally, screenshots do not schedule themselves. Someone has to remember. Someone has to be online. Someone has to paste. When that person is sick, the client waits.

What free Lead Source already stamps on every fill

The free Lead Source plugin hooks the form plugins you already use. Native hooks in 1.0.8 are Contact Form 7, WPForms, Gravity Forms, Ninja Forms, Formidable Forms, Fluent Forms, Elementor Pro Forms, Everest Forms, and Forminator. You do not add shortcodes or maintain hidden UTM fields for those builders.

Capture runs in the visitor’s browser. A small vanilla script reads the URL on page load and stores traffic source data in a first-party session cookie. On a successful native submit, the form hook attaches that session data to a Lead Source row.

Free 1.0.8 can store UTM keys when you set them (utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_term, utm_content) and the click IDs named in today’s readme (gclid, fbclid, msclkid, li_fat_id, ttclid). Traffic can be labelled as Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Microsoft Ads, TikTok Ads, organic search (named by engine, such as Organic – Google), Referral, or Direct. Landing page is the first page of the session. Referrer has a server-side fallback.

Attribution on free is same session only. The cookie ends when the browser closes. It is not first-plus-last touch and not a 90 day window. That honesty is covered in Same Session Attribution vs 90 Day UTM Cookies. The click-to-dashboard flow is in How It Works. Overview for form capture is in How to Track Lead Sources in WordPress Forms. Landing page on each row is covered in How Do I See Which Landing Page Produced Each WordPress Lead.

Free also includes per-submission email notifications and daily, weekly, and monthly summary emails. Those summaries are for your inbox. They are not white-label client PDFs. They do not put your agency logo on a scheduled report the client receives without you logging in.

Free Lead Source is fully functional on its own. It is not a trial. Use it when the job is a named lead with a source stamp on a hooked form. Reach for Pro when the job is agency reporting polish.

What a branded scheduled report needs that free does not ship

A client-facing month-end usually needs five things free does not advertise as the deliverable.

1. A saved report view for that client’s leads, not a one-off dashboard click.
2. A date range and a comparison period so this month sits next to last month.
3. A schedule that emails the report without anyone logging in on the first of the month.
4. PDF or HTML the client can open, not a screenshot of your wp-admin.
5. Your agency name and logo on that email and printable page.

Free 1.0.8 keeps unlimited entries and summary emails for you. It does not claim scheduled branded PDF or HTML client reports. It does not claim white-label logo and agency name on client reports. Those sit in Pro on leadsourcepro.net/pro.

Do not treat free summary emails as a substitute for a branded client pack. Do not invent Zapier as the CRM replacement either. Mapping source fields into HubSpot or Salesforce is a separate job covered in How Do I Get WordPress Form UTM and GCLID Data onto a CRM Contact.

What Lead Source Pro puts on the client email

Lead Source Pro is $99 a year. Free stays fully functional. Pro adds the layer that answers follow-up agency questions.

For reporting, Pro ships saved and prebuilt reports with date-range comparison, saved segments, and scheduled branded PDF or HTML client reports. White-labeling puts your logo and agency name on reports and dashboards. You can set a brand colour for email headers and chart bars, hide the promotional footer, and override the From name and address on outgoing mail.

Scheduled client reports mail on a cadence you set. You name the report, pick which leads it covers, set the day and hour, and choose the period and comparison it should show. Web versions add a printable browser copy behind an unguessable, expiring link. That is the month-end without the screenshot paste.

Pro also adds full lead-journey tracking, per-source notification routing with per-recipient schedules, good-lead marking, internal traffic exclusion by IP or user role, and bot and spam filtering. Routing detail for multiple inboxes is already covered in Lead Source Notification Emails to More Than One Address. This post stays on the branded report job.

Pro settings can choose how many days a visitor source is remembered. Free readme still describes same-session. Do not blur those windows when you brief a client. If the report period spans returns after the browser closed, say which product window you are using.

How to set one scheduled branded report once

Use this sequence when Pro is active on the client site and you already capture leads on a native form hook.

1. Confirm free capture is working on a hooked form. Submit a test lead and open the Lead Source row. Source, landing page, and click ID should match the session.
2. In Pro, save a segment for that client’s channels, sources, forms, or campaigns. Name it so a human can find it next quarter.
3. Open reports. Pick the segment, the period, and a comparison such as last 30 days versus the previous 30. Confirm the KPI cards and breakdowns look like the story you would tell on a call.
4. Set white-label branding. Agency name, logo from the media library, brand colour, From name and address if you override mail. Hide the promotional footer if the client should not see it.
5. Create a scheduled client report. Name it, point it at the segment, set day and hour, choose PDF or HTML, set period and comparison.
6. Send yourself a test or wait for the first cadence. Open the email on a phone and a desktop. Confirm logo, agency name, dates, and that internal or junk traffic you meant to exclude is out.
7. Tell the client the cadence in writing. Do not promise live wp-admin access unless that is part of your retainer.

You set this once per client report pack. Month-end becomes a check that the email arrived, not a rebuild of slides.

What this still does not do

Lead Source Pro does not replace your CRM. Scheduled reports do not push contacts into HubSpot or Salesforce by themselves.

Free 1.0.8 does not email a branded PDF. Free summary emails are operator summaries, not white-label client packs.

Neither free nor Pro invents install-count claims for your pitch deck. Do not quote Forge client roll-out numbers as wordpress.org installs.

Pro journey tracking still depends on capture running in the visitor’s browser on pages you control. Cross-origin iframe embeds sit outside native WordPress form hooks. That wall is in Why Embedded Forms and iFrames Lose UTM and Click IDs.

This post does not teach full per-source routing. Use the notification emails guide for that job.

Short checklist for the next client month-end

1. Stop pasting Analytics tiles as the only client proof of lead source.
2. Confirm the client’s form is one of the nine native hooks in free 1.0.8, including Forminator if that is the builder.
3. Install free Lead Source, finish the wizard, and verify a test fill carries source and landing page.
4. Keep free if the only job is a named lead stamp. Add Pro when you need scheduled branded PDF or HTML with your logo.
5. Save a segment, set white-label branding, and create one scheduled report with a comparison period.
6. Exclude internal traffic and review good-lead marks before the first client send if quality rate matters on the pack.
7. Soft-check Pro only for the report and polish job. Soft-check free for the stamp on every fill.

Agencies do not need another screenshot ritual. Free Lead Source stamps the source on each hooked fill. Lead Source Pro turns that table into a scheduled branded report the client can open without you living in wp-admin on the first of the month. That is the honest split. Capture is free. Client-facing cadence and white label are Pro.