Many businesses receive a monthly marketing report that is long, full of charts and hard to act on. A good report should be short enough to read in ten minutes and clear enough to make decisions from.
It should answer four questions
- What did we spend? Total spend by channel, against budget.
- What did it bring in? Leads, sales or revenue, by channel.
- Was it worth it? Cost per lead, cost per sale or return on ad spend, compared with the previous period and your targets.
- What happens next? The changes planned for the coming month and why.
Focus on business outcomes
Impressions, clicks and click-through rates are useful for diagnosing problems, but they are not results. Lead with the numbers that affect your bank balance.
Explain the why
A number going up or down means little without context. Good reporting explains what caused the change: a new campaign, a seasonal dip, a landing page test, a tracking issue.
Be honest about what did not work
Not every test succeeds. A trustworthy report shows the experiments that failed as well as the wins, along with what was learned.
Connect marketing to sales
Where possible, track leads through to customers. A campaign producing cheap leads that never buy is worse than one producing fewer, better leads.
Keep a live view for the details
A short written report works best alongside a live dashboard. The report gives the story and the decisions; the dashboard gives the detail when you want it.
Want reporting you can actually use? Talk to us about your marketing.
