Reporting is crucial to your agency’s success. It builds relationships, educates clients and establishes a reputation for transparency. Automating your reporting process can strengthen those bonds at scale.
The reality is that your clients expect you to deliver advanced, strategic reporting. If you’re not doing so, you could damage your client relationships and lose trust. Forty-three percent of marketers already believe AI could handle a lot of their agency’s work. Don’t further this belief with mediocre reporting. Focus on using automated reporting tools to deliver the analytics clients can’t get themselves.
Automated reporting tools pose a huge opportunity for agencies
The most important benefit of good reporting is the opportunity to facilitate insightful marketing measurement and analysis. The foundation of good measurement is good reporting. The two are always interconnected, even though they are distinct processes. Reporting focuses on centralizing and organizing marketing data, while measurement requires expertise to find meaningful insights in that data.
Good reporting starts with having a central marketing data hub — a foundation that's becoming increasingly vital today as only 47% of marketers say agencies focus on measurable outcomes, and 75% expect flat or falling outsourcing spend.
Automated reporting tools help agencies prove their value when clients question traditional agency relationships.
Automated reporting tools provide the data foundation for making information accessible and reliable. Agencies can then add measurement expertise to deliver more advanced insights.
Core components of effective automated reporting tools
The best-automated reporting tools solve real agency challenges; they don’t just make fancy dashboards.
Data collection and integration
You want a tool that automatically aggregates data from advertising accounts, analytics tools and marketing systems into a single unified view.
Data storage
Think of this as your agency's data foundation. Your teams can access client data anytime, and the system scales smoothly as your client list grows.
Automated data processing
The system automatically cleans everything up, handling different currencies and custom calculations. AI works in the background to spot patterns and suggest opportunities you might have missed.
Visualization
Your tool should be able to build impressive dashboards using the metrics that matter most. These update automatically with fresh data, and you can create templates for consistent quality across all reporting.
Data validation and transparency
Behind those polished visuals, you want an effective validation system to constantly check accuracy and flag unusual patterns. That way, you can confidently stand behind every number.
Strategic insights and recommendations
Despite the tool’s processing power, your team's expertise remains crucial. Your team bridges the gap between business outcomes and strategy.
Funnel's approach to automated reporting
Funnel is an automated data collection and reporting tool that provides a solid foundation for agencies to perform advanced analysis, including techniques like marketing mix modeling (MMM). By centralizing and structuring marketing data, Funnel enables powerful insights without requiring users to handle complex data wrangling themselves.
Automated data collection
Bringing your data into one platform is the first step. Funnel plugs directly into over 500 different marketing tools and channels. This means no more copy-paste errors into Excel, and your reporting stays consistent even when team members change.
Setting up these connections doesn’t require technical expertise. Simply connect your advertising accounts, analytics tools and CRM systems — no manual data imports or complex configurations are needed.
All your marketing data flows through a single platform, centralizing information from ad channels to analytics tools.
When platforms update their systems or add new metrics, we automatically adapt. Your reports won't suddenly break, and you won't need developers to keep everything working.
Automated data normalization
Once your data comes in, Funnel gets to work making sure it’s all communicated in the same language. The system converts data into matching formats, keeps everything up to date based on what each platform allows and turns scattered information into clean, analysis-ready data.
Funnel's architecture transforms fragmented marketing data into a unified analytics foundation.
From there, your team can build their own custom metrics. You can set up KPIs once and know they'll be calculated the same way across every client account, even for complex metrics. Meanwhile, the system keeps an eye on your data quality and flags any unusual patterns while keeping historical data intact.
Budget and KPI tracking
Making sure you don't overspend your clients' budgets while still hitting targets is part of agency life. Funnel lets you keep your target, budget and spend data all in one place, so budget and performance tracking is significantly easier. Visualization tools let you compare cost versus budget or performance, too.
Performance monitoring
Keeping all of your performance data under one roof makes it easy to create roll-up reports for internal tracking and benchmark clients' data against each other.
Teams can proactively respond to trends in their data and use our scalable solution for managing marketing data across multiple accounts.
Dashboard creation and management
When data is clean, it flows into the dashboards you've built with drag-and-drop elements that don’t require technical expertise. The dashboards update whenever new data comes in, so you'll always have fresh numbers ready for client meetings.
A drag-and-drop report builder gives you insights at a glance while letting you drill into key KPIs.
We provide dashboard templates so you can quickly set up new client reports. You can still adjust each dashboard to fit the specific needs of each client, but you won't have to start from scratch every time.
Advanced analytics foundation
The real power of having all your marketing data cleaned and centralized is that it opens up sophisticated analysis options. With Funnel's data foundation, agencies that have data science expertise can potentially implement more complex analytical approaches, like statistical analysis that can help you prove your value with greater rigor.
You’ll also be able to incorporate multi-touch attribution (MTA) insights and incrementality tests, which fill in the user and campaign-level gaps MMM leaves behind.
Export and delivery capabilities
We've built direct connections with the analytics tools agencies already use: Looker Studio, PowerBI and Tableau. If these are your visualization tools of choice, you can automatically pull in clean Funnel data.
Use the tools that are already a part of your workflow in conjunction with Funnel.
Our automated data warehouse exports keep historical records flowing on schedule. We've also made sharing insights flexible with spreadsheet exports and interactive dashboards that look great on any device.
Security and governance
Data security can create friction between clients and agencies. Only 22% of agencies find it easy to get IT buy-in, and 17% report smooth legal approvals. To address these challenges, we've built enterprise-grade security features.
Most agencies hit roadblocks with IT and legal teams when introducing new data reporting tools.
Our granular permission controls let you manage access by team and role while protecting client confidentiality. You can also set up client self-service safely without compromising data integrity. Lastly, comprehensive audit logging tracks all system activities and user actions, supporting compliance requirements and maintaining clear records.
While we've focused on solving common agency challenges, we've intentionally kept things simple. Our no-code approach helps agencies work efficiently, though more advanced users like data scientists might find the features somewhat limited. This is by design — we've optimized for marketing workflows rather than trying to be everything to everyone.
6 other automated client reporting tools
While Funnel focuses on marketing-specific needs, other reporting tools take a more technical approach. These platforms often provide deep customization of data models and direct query access to underlying structures. Many offer robust API tools and custom integration options.
- Agency Analytics: Offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface with extensive report customization, though it struggles with data storage and relies heavily on external APIs.
- Adverity: Has AI-powered code generation and a comprehensive connector library but can become unstable when processing multiple data sources.
- DashThis: Specializes in dashboard solutions with major analytics platform integration, though it requires significant manual integrations and has a complex learning process.
- Tableau: An advanced data visualization tool with flexible role-based access but limited standalone functionality. It requires additional data tools.
- Geckoboard: Offers real-time metrics with flexible dashboard customization, though it lacks marketing-specific features due to its broad platform focus.
- NinjaCat Features AI-driven automation and strong CRM call data integration. However, it has low account capacity limits and does not provide report error notifications.
The technical flexibility these tools offer often creates real challenges for marketing agencies. Most platforms have steep learning curves that require dedicated expertise. The ongoing maintenance and troubleshooting can also take up valuable time. Additionally, they typically lack marketing-specific templates and prebuilt reports.
How to implement automated reporting tools with clients
Once you've chosen your reporting software, implementation becomes the next challenge. The foundation of any successful rollout starts with data centralization: connecting your tool to the right data sources and standardizing client reporting processes wherever possible.
1. Assess your agency's reporting needs
The first step is to examine your reporting requirements closely. Many accounts require reporting that spans multiple departments per client, and each audience has distinct needs.
Senior leadership typically wants quick, high-level overviews, while individual contributors examine channel and campaign performance metrics in depth.
Your reports should match your audience's needs.
You'll also need to tackle governance requirements and data restrictions head-on. Some clients operate under strict legal requirements about data storage and protection.
Take time to map out which client stakeholders are responsible for specific data. By the end of this assessment, you should have a clear picture of governance requirements, regular dashboard needs and stakeholder distribution lists.
2. Consider how to organize your data
Most truly valuable insights now require pulling data from multiple sources — channels, CRMs and marketing automation platforms — to paint the complete picture. The real work starts with data transformation.
Smart teams begin by identifying which transformations will be needed across all clients, like standardizing budget currencies or aligning impression definitions between ad platforms.
The next step is planning how clients will interact with their data. Data visualization expert Nick Desbarats makes a compelling case for connected dashboard ecosystems. This approach lets clients drill down into detailed metrics or zoom out for higher-level views without cramming everything onto one screen.
3. Build effective dashboards
Building dashboards enables you to balance high-level insights with detailed data analysis. While your dashboards might need to appeal to different audiences, each graph should serve a clear purpose or target audience.
Keep the design clean and focused. Avoid distracting colors or unnecessary elements that might muddy the core message.
Focus on telling one clear story per dashboard instead of cramming in every metric you can measure.
Look beyond client-facing dashboards to spot internal opportunities. You might want to aggregate data across clients to build industry benchmarks or set up automated performance alerts that flag declining metrics before clients notice them.
4. Communicate new reporting to clients
Rolling out new dashboards requires thoughtful client education. Focus on explaining your measurement approach. Walk them through how to use the tools and dashboards you've built. Be upfront about any limitations, but frame them within the context of what the dashboard accomplishes. For instance, if a client wants to compare a single campaign's performance against channel metrics on an ROI dashboard, explain why this might skew the analysis and suggest better alternatives.
Make metric definitions easily accessible, especially as clients familiarize themselves with new reporting tools. This will help prevent confusion and build confidence in the data they see.
5. Scaling your reporting process
Once you've got a solid system working with your early-adopting clients, it's time to standardize those templates for a broader rollout. No-code, modular graphs and templates are particularly helpful here. They make duplicating successful report formats across different data sets simple.
As you onboard more clients, data management becomes more complex. Build internal knowledge-sharing systems so account managers can learn from each other's most effective techniques.
You should also maintain flexibility in your reporting structure. Client needs evolve and your reporting system should be able to adapt.
Measure the success of your reporting efforts
Measuring your impact is essential for determining whether your reporting automation efforts are paying off.
Track what matters — fewer errors, better insights and time saved.
Like any other marketing initiative, you need to choose the right metrics before implementation and track both quantitative and qualitative measures to demonstrate the full impact of your work.
Key performance metrics
Data integration metrics form the foundation of your reporting efforts. Start by tracking the number of unique data sources you've successfully connected per client and monitor the accuracy of these connections through error rates. You'll want to look for faster error detection compared to manual reporting methods and monitor data transformation success rates across accounts.
Watch for improvements in data accuracy as you connect more channels, and score your system's ability to handle the complexity. Good error detection becomes particularly valuable as you scale. You'll want to track how quickly issues are flagged before they impact clients.
A healthy reporting program shows few errors and high adoption, both internally and amongst clients. Look for opportunities to create reusable report templates and maintain consistent data transformations between accounts. This standardization helps reporting stay reliable while reducing the time your team spends on troubleshooting.
Client satisfaction indicators
On the client side, engagement metrics tell you whether your automated reporting is making an impact. Monitor how frequently different stakeholders access their dashboards and reference them during meetings. Pay attention to the depth of their data exploration in interactive reports — surface-level scanning might indicate that your reports aren't hitting the mark.
The real win comes when you see a shift from basic data questions to more strategic discussions. Watch for improved client confidence in interpreting metrics and their ability to act on insights.
Growing trust often manifests as clients' willingness to share additional data access. Track how reporting relationships evolve and expand in scope.
Time and resource savings
The basics are important, too. Track the hours you save manually processing data and creating reports. Monitor how quickly your team can update reports and fix errors. The most telling metric is often the increase in accounts managed per team member.
Look for signs that your team is spending less time on technical support and more on strategic analysis. A well-functioning automated system should reduce overtime hours for reporting and nearly eliminate rush reporting requests.
3 automated reporting agency success stories
Let's dig into how three major agencies transformed their operations through automated reporting. The common thread running through these stories highlights what most of us already suspect — automation delivers consistent benefits in time savings, improved accuracy and better strategy.
Automation transforms reporting from a burden into a strategic edge for leading agencies.
1. Publicis Sweden
Publicis Sweden's story shows how the right tools can turn a task their team would dread into a competitive edge. The team was drowning in data from over 3,000 sources — all of which required manual processing.
Funnel helped them manage more than 25 unique API connections and create a reporting framework with over 800 custom dimensions and metrics. They saw dramatic improvements. For selected clients, report preparation time dropped by 90%, and standard media dashboards that once took hours now take about 30 minutes to complete.
This freed up their team’s time to focus on analysis and strategic recommendations. Their new system can easily change to meet client needs while processing complex data across their worldwide operations.
2. Mediaschneider
Mediaschneider's transformation started with a familiar problem: teams spending thousands of hours creating manual reports. Their initial attempt at a custom-built system kept breaking down due to API changes, so they sought a standardized, automated reporting solution across all clients.
After implementing Funnel, they recovered 7,500 annual professional hours previously lost to troubleshooting broken reports. This newfound bandwidth allows them to redirect resources toward predictive modeling and advanced analytics.
Their clients now have direct dashboard access, which makes them feel that their agency is transparent. These dashboards also help the team maintain consistent reporting quality across all accounts.
3. Social Lab Group
Social Lab Group tackled a different challenge. Their campaign managers spent 40% of their time on basic reporting tasks while juggling reports across multiple markets and platforms. They needed a centralized data architecture that could integrate with their Amazon-hosted database.
After implementing Funnel with Looker Studio integration, campaign managers recovered 30 to 40% of their time, dramatically improving their ability to serve multi-market clients.
The automated data handling allowed them to offer more complex campaign management and better benchmarking across their global network. This shift helped them build stronger client relationships and showcase their data capabilities in new business pitches.
The future of agency reporting
The marketing analytics landscape is shifting dramatically and agencies are at a critical inflection point. AI and automation are rapidly replacing basic performance reporting and last-click attribution, which have long been the bread and butter of agency work.
While this might sound threatening, it actually opens up a massive opportunity for agencies to elevate their analytics capabilities and become even more valuable to their clients. Only 26% of marketers currently use advanced methods like marketing mix modeling, and less than one-third of companies have clear plans for adapting to the cookieless future.
Agencies are uniquely positioned to guide clients through a transition into more advanced reporting. Most companies lack the expertise to navigate a world of advanced analytics alone. The cost saving of outsourced specialized talent makes the agency model particularly attractive.
In-house marketers struggle to justify full-time advanced analytics staff, but agencies can distribute these costs across multiple clients while building deeper expertise. Since only 12% of marketers have expert-level understanding, this creates a significant opportunity for agencies to become strategic measurement partners.
The future belongs to agencies that can guide their clients through this transition. The alternative is watching their value proposition disappear as basic reporting becomes automated.
The window of opportunity for agencies to establish analytics leadership is narrow
The shift to advanced analytics isn't just about staying competitive — it's about seizing a pivotal moment in marketing history. Privacy changes and AI are reshaping the industry, and agencies have a brief opportunity to position themselves at the forefront of the evolution of reporting.
Those who move quickly to implement automated reporting tools won't just survive the transition. They'll help write the rules of marketing reporting and measurement for the next decade. Waiting until clients demand these services means falling behind more proactive competitors already building expertise using tomorrow's approaches.
Get started with Funnel for free to see how automated reporting can transform your agency's analytics capabilities.