5 shocking things your customers don’t care about!
As a marketer, agency owner, or freelancer, it’s easy to fall into the trap of assuming your clients care about the same things you do. You pour hours into perfecting strategies, crafting beautiful reports, and chasing the latest trends—only to realize that many of these efforts barely register on their radar.
The truth? Clients care about results. Everything else is noise.
Here are five surprising things that most marketing clients genuinely don’t care about (and why freeing yourself from these assumptions will make you a better partner).
1. Your Fancy Process Diagrams and 47-Step On-boarding Checklist
You spent weeks building a “world-class” on-boarding process complete with color-coded timelines, Slack channels, and a 12-page welcome packet. Impressive? To you, yes. To your client? Not really.
Clients don’t care how many steps your process has—they care that it works smoothly and doesn’t waste their time. They’d rather have a simple, friction-less experience than a beautifully documented one.
What they care about instead: Feeling confident that you know what you’re doing and that things are moving forward without constant hand-holding.
2. How Many Hours You Worked This Month
Time tracking, detailed time sheets, and “here’s how I spent every minute” updates might make you feel transparent, but most clients see them as red flags.
They hired you for outcomes, not hours. Sending a breakdown that shows you logged 47 hours tweaking ad copy can backfire—it makes them wonder why it took so long.
What they care about instead: Results delivered on time and within budget. If you’re consistently hitting goals, they’ll happily pay your invoice without scrutinizing the clock.
3. The Latest Marketing Trend or Shiny New Platform
You just read that everyone’s moving to Threads/Be-real/whatever-the-next-big-thing-is, and you’re excited to pitch a strategy around it.
Your client? Probably rolling their eyes internally.
Unless the new platform directly ties to measurable business growth, most clients don’t care about being early adopters. They’ve seen trends come and go—and they’ve wasted budget on plenty of them.
What they care about instead: Proven channels that reliably bring in leads or sales. Innovation is great, but only when it’s low-risk and high-reward.
4. Your Impressive Portfolio of Big-Name Past Clients
Name-dropping Fortune 500 clients or showing off award-winning campaigns might stroke your ego, but it rarely moves the needle for prospects or retainers.
Clients care far more about whether you understand their business, their audience, and their goals than about who else you’ve worked with.
What they care about instead: Evidence that you can get them results. Case studies with similar businesses, specific numbers, and relatable challenges exceed brand-name bragging every time.
5. Perfectly Polished Monthly Reports with 50 Metrics
You’ve built a gorgeous 20-page report packed with vanity metrics: impressions, click-through rates, engagement rates, share of voice, and more.
Your client skims it for 30 seconds, nods politely, and asks: “So… how many leads did we get this month?”
They don’t care about the rainbow charts or industry benchmarks. They care about the numbers that hit their bottom line—leads, sales, revenue, ROI.
What they care about instead: A one-page summary that clearly answers: “Are we on track to hit our goals? What’s working? What’s next?”
The Bottom Line
Great marketers obsess over tactics, tools, and trends. Great client partners obsess over what keeps their clients up at night: growth, revenue, and peace of mind.
Stop trying to impress them with process, hours, trends, credentials, or data overload. Start focusing relentlessly on delivering clear, measurable results—and communicating them simply.
When you do that, you won’t just keep clients longer. You’ll become the one they recommend without hesitation.
What’s one thing you’ve realized your clients don’t actually care about? Drop it in the comments—I’d love to hear your stories.
This post was inspired by a post previously posted by Scott Flood Writing A colleague of mine, and someone I respect, admire and always recommend in the industry. Looking for an amazingly witty writer, he’s your man. If you are looking for a small marketing agency who cares about YOUR details, understanding you and your clients, and building leads, sales, and maintaining and growing ROI, Market*TING is a great company to talk to. Located in Indianapolis, but able to work from anywhere, what can a great, insightful, well thought out brand do for you?
