Marketing agency reports are very helpful in managing a small business’s marketing budget & relationship with a marketing agency. Here’s why.
When you’re working with a marketing agency, it’s important to be able to trust that they’re doing their job correctly and delivering on their promises. One way to ensure this is by receiving regular marketing reports from them. In this blog post, we’ll outline the pros and cons of client reporting and show you how they can help your small business manage its marketing budget and relationship with the marketing agency.
Marketing agency reports can be incredibly helpful for small businesses. They provide valuable insights into how the agency is performing and where it could improve. Additionally, marketing reports help to hold agencies accountable and ensure that they are delivering on their promises. However, there are also some drawbacks to consider. Marketing reports can be time-consuming to produce, and they may not always be accurate. Additionally, some clients may feel like they’re being micro-managed if they receive too many reports.
Ultimately, whether or not marketing agency reports matter depends on your individual needs and preferences. If you feel like you need more transparency from your marketing agency, then regular reports may be a good idea. However, if you prefer to give them more freedom to do their job, then you may not need reports.
How Can an Agency Help in Reporting Marketing ROI?
Many marketing agencies will offer to help their clients track and report on the return on investment (ROI) of their marketing campaigns. This can be an extremely valuable service, as it can be difficult for small businesses to track ROI themselves. Additionally, having an agency help with reporting can free up time for business owners so that they can focus on other aspects of their business.
If you’re considering whether or not to have your marketing agency produce reports for you, consider your needs and objectives.
- What are your most important KPIs and Metrics?
- Is your company in a growth or maintenance phase?
- What is your budget and acceptable Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)?
- How hands-on do you want to be with the day-to-day operations of the marketing programs?
That kind of guidance will help determine how top-level or in-depth the marketing reports should be to get you the information you need when you need it.
Most Common Types of Marketing Agency Reports
Once you’ve decided that you would like to receive reports from your marketing agency, it’s important to understand the different types of reports that are available. The most common types of marketing reports are outlined below along with some examples from our friends at AgencyAnalytics.
Digital Marketing Reports
A digital marketing report shows how specific campaigns are performing and whether they are meeting their objectives.
With the appropriate digital marketing dashboard, both you and your agency can analyze and optimize campaign performance. PPC costs, keyword ranks, conversion rate, and online revenue.
SEO Reports
An SEO report shows how your website is performing in search engines. It includes data on keyword rankings, organic traffic, backlinks, and more. The goal of an SEO report is to help you understand what’s working well and where there are opportunities for improvement.
SEO Reports often include several sub-types of reports that dig into specific SEO tactics, such as:
- Local SEO Report – A local SEO report provides insights into how your business is performing in search engine results pages (SERPs) for specific geographic locations.
- Website Audit Report – A website audit report assesses the health of your website and provides recommendations for improvement.
- Link Building Report – A link building report shows the progress of your link building efforts over time. It includes data on the number of links you’ve acquired, the quality of those links, and more.
- Content Marketing Report – A content marketing report evaluates the performance of your content marketing efforts and makes recommendations for improvement.
Social Media Reports
A social media report provides insights into how your social media accounts are performing. It includes data on engagement rates, reach, impressions, and clicks. Social media reports can be customized to show data for specific time periods or campaigns.
Email Marketing Reports
An email marketing report shows the performance of your email marketing campaigns. It includes data on open rates, click-through rates, unsubscribe rates, and more. Email marketing reports can help you to understand what’s working well and where there are opportunities for improvement.
Web Analytics Reports
A web analytics report provides insights into how users are interacting with your website. It includes data on pageviews, unique visitors, bounce rates, and more. Web analytics reports can be customized to show data for specific time periods or campaigns.
PPC Report
The PPC report analyzes your pay-per-click campaigns and provides insights into their performance. This can include such marketing channels as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Spotify and much more. If you’re paying to place your ads on a particular platform, it’s important to track the results in a consolidated space.
Content Marketing Report
A content marketing report analyzes your blog posts, infographics, videos, and other types of content to see how they are performing. It includes data on pageviews, social shares, backlinks, and more. Content marketing reports can help you to understand what’s working well and where there are opportunities for improvement.
What does a marketing report include?
A marketing report includes data on the performance of specific marketing campaigns. This data can be used to understand what is working well and where there are opportunities for improvement. Marketing reports often include information on engagement rates, reach, impressions, clicks, organic traffic, backlinks, keyword rankings, and more. Depending on the type of report, this information may be presented for a specific time period or campaign.
A great marketing agency report should include the following:
- An executive summary – this is a high-level overview of the report that highlights key findings and recommendations.
- Channel performance – this section provides insights into how each marketing channel is performing.
- Campaign performance – this section provides data on the performance of specific campaigns.
- Priority metrics and KPIs – this section should highlight the most important metrics and KPIs that are relevant to the client’s business.
- Data visualization – this section should include clear data visualizations such as charts, graphs, and other visual elements to help readers understand the data.Key findings – this section should present the most important
- Key findings & annotations – to highlight the most important insights from the data.
- Recommendations – data is only as good as what you can do with it, so the report should call out how the data in the report is informing the agency’s next moves.
How Often Should You Expect Marketing Agency Reports?
The frequency of marketing agency reports will vary depending on the client’s needs and the scope of the project. For some clients, a monthly report may be sufficient, while others may need a weekly or even daily report. The important thing is that the client and agency are in agreement on what frequency is appropriate for the project.
Marketing Agency Reports: The Pros
There are several benefits to using marketing agency reports:
They help you track progress – Marketing agency reports can help you track your progress over time and see how your campaigns are performing. This information can be used to make necessary adjustments to improve results.
They provide insights into what’s working – Marketing agency reports can help you understand what’s working well and where there are opportunities for improvement. This information can be used to make informed decisions about your marketing strategy.
They help you manage your budget – Marketing agency reports can help you track your spending and see where you are getting the most bang for your buck. This information can be used to adjust your budget accordingly.
Marketing Agency Reports: The Cons
There are also some potential drawbacks to using marketing agency reports:
They can be time-consuming to create – Creating marketing agency reports can be time-consuming, especially if they are detailed and comprehensive. This is time that could be spent working on other aspects of the project.
They can be expensive to produce – If marketing agency reports are detailed and comprehensive, they can also be expensive to produce. This is something that should be considered when deciding whether or not to use them.
They can be difficult to interpret – Marketing agency reports can sometimes be difficult to interpret, especially if they are filled with data and technical jargon. This is something that should be considered when deciding whether or not to use them.
Why Are Marketing Agency Reports Important?
Digital marketing agencies exist to help businesses navigate the ever-changing landscape of online marketing. But with so many moving parts and constant changes, it can be difficult to know what’s working and where to best allocate your resources. That’s where marketing agency reports come in.
Marketing reports are important because they provide insights that can be used to improve the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. By understanding what is working well and where there are opportunities for improvement, businesses can make adjustments to their campaigns to achieve better results. Additionally, marketing reports can help businesses to track their progress over
Reporting can be extremely helpful in managing a small business’s marketing budget and relationship with its marketing agency.
However, it’s important to understand the different types of reports that are available and to consider your needs before deciding whether or not to request reports from your agency. Thank you for reading! We hope this was helpful.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask in the comments below. We’re always happy to help!