Ask any digital marketer, and he or she will always say the most important thing is data. With enough data, you can identify where a campaign is failing and turn it around. Data can also take a successful Ad-spend and optimize it further. However, data is nothing without proper structure and visualization. Getting the right reports from your data is critical. Here are some tips for creating killer reports:
Focus – Maintain focus when creating reports. Just because you have every variable from a specific campaign does not mean that all that information is useful. Focus on the metrics you want to measure. If a particular statistic or metric has no usefulness, don’t include it.
Questions – Often, reports just show how data trends over time. The key to effective reporting is to identify key questions. For example: Is overall traffic increasing? Are sales of product X increasing? How is the average profit per sale trending? What is our share of the market?. Now build a report that answers those questions.
Intention – Sometimes a client will hand over a list of metrics they want in a report. Before you commit to generating reports, sit down with the client and talk about the intention behind some of the metrics they requested. Make sure all the metrics are part of the overall goal.
Customize – Do not try and create a single report for all situations. You will need different reports that answer different questions at various stages of the year. Understand the different times that you will need to track different metrics and build custom reports for those phases.