Dmitriy К. Google Ad Expert

4 tips for newbies on how to report online advertising

Preparing reports for an advertising campaign is not the most favorite part of the work of most specialists as you need to combine data from different advertising systems, remember everything important that you need to talk about. But if we put aside the formality, then this stage is important not only for the customer, but also for the performer.

Why progress reports are needed

The client, without interfering much in the work processes, can keep abreast and control the progress of work at his level. And if necessary, make adjustments to the strategy or established KPIs, based on the real situation in the business and the results from the report.

For the contractor, a report is an opportunity to sum up the intermediate results or the final result of their work, for example, on optimizing a campaign, promoting a product, testing a new tool, and showing the customer their professional value in the language of numbers. Drawing up a report is an occasion to emerge from the routine for a while, to notice and reflect on the results of your work.

Now let's talk about what principles you need to be guided by in order to write a good and useful report.

Think about the recipient of the report

The format and content of the report depends on its addressee. For example, if an advertising campaign was carried out for a micro-entrepreneur, then the abundance of numbers and complex abbreviations can confuse the customer even more, and he may not physically have enough time to read a 15-page report. For such a client, two or three presentation slides with key indicators for the business, a description of the work done and a plan for the next month will be enough.

For a client-side marketer, on the other hand, baseline campaign performance metrics may not be enough.

If an agency or a freelance specialist works with different types of clients, then the best solution is to develop a special advertising report template for each segment and personalize it with a specific client.

Agree with the client about deadlines and stick to them

Standard practice in the Internet advertising market is a monthly report. If we are talking about marketing and promotional activities with a limited duration, such as events, product launches, special promotions and sales, then the frequency of the report can be more frequent, for example, every day or week, or at the end of the activity.

It all depends on the agreements between the contractor and the customer. Therefore, the ideal option is to discuss the frequency of the report before the start of work.

Keep focus on the essentials

The structure of the report can be either from general (ad systems and campaigns) to details (ads and key phrases), or vice versa. What sections should be included in the report of an advertising agency or a freelance specialist for a client:

- period of the advertising campaign;

- KPIs are key performance indicators, they must be set before the start of an advertising campaign and correspond to the goals and objectives of the business;

- actual advertising campaign indicators in the area of ​​responsibility of the performer: the number and cost of impressions and clicks, CTR of ads, the number of visits to the site or correspondence in instant messengers, the cost and number of applications or other targeted actions (for example, subscribing to email or Instagram account, downloading materials);

- analysis of hypotheses in advertising campaigns: effectively worked and unsuccessful;

- the total amount of the advertising budget and its distribution between advertising campaigns, channels and targets;

- conclusions, forecasts and recommendations for the future period.

This is the basic set of online advertising report elements. But more value for the customer will bring a report that will give information a little beyond the metrics of the advertising campaign.

Most often, an online advertising specialist influences the generation of applications, but is not responsible for the final sales of a service or product. And the entrepreneur does not always understand what to do with the received numbers in the form of the cost of transitions or the number of applications from different sources.

In this case, the specialist can request data from the sales department or from the client himself (if it is a micro business) about the conversion of applications into transactions, the average bill, repeat purchases and sales volume. Then the following sections may appear in the report:

- analysis of advertising channels or individual campaigns by the number of sales, average bill and turnover;

- ROI or more targeted ROAS.

You should not include all available parameters in the report: as sometimes less is better. At the start, discuss with the customer what indicators he would like to see in the report and why.

One entrepreneur will not need information on search queries, while another will want to view it and adjust key phrases. A manager on the side of a large advertiser will be interested in a report that will describe the results of testing creatives or tools, the causes of surges and declines, and other operational information, and will be able to find specific numbers in different sections in the visualization and analytics system.

Take care of the report layout

There is no single template here and the form depends on the recipient: a micro-entrepreneur or marketer can arrange a report in Google Docs, while a top manager or participants in an important meeting will need a presentation with layout and design.

Part of the data for the report can be downloaded from advertising platforms, analytics systems and CRM in the form of tables, charts or PDF documents. But we still recommend not just sending the download, but submitting the information in a structured way, in the client's language and with your own comments and conclusions.

What to add to the report:

- screenshots from advertising accounts and analytics systems;

- graphs and charts for clear visualization of results;

- dashboard with general data and final results in accordance with KPI; tables.

If the work is carried out regularly, then the results of the past period can be added to the report to show the dynamics.

But a marketer on the customer's side, regardless of the format, will probably want to turn to the system with all the data: an end-to-end analytics service, Google Data Studio, Power BI or any other. In this case, graphs with key indicators can be shown in the report as screenshots, and links to sections where the data are located next to it.

With such an analytical and slightly creative approach, the report turns from a boring document that people usually do not like to make and then read, into an important element of online advertising service: a specialist sells his work for the next period and shows his efficiency and professionalism, and the customer effectively manages the process and develops the project.

Get a website traffic audit as a bonus