The ultimate guide to digital marketing reporting

As a marketer, you are under a lot of pressure. You make decisions that can directly impact the company you work for. So, why would you cruise through the decision-making process blind?

You wouldn’t. 

Enter marketing reporting — a way to make better data-driven decisions while proving the value of your team. Win-win!

Marketing reporting is a key part of a modern marketer’s role. It doesn't matter if you work in an agency, as a marketing data analyst, or are the CMO of an in-house marketing team. At some point, those looking to you for results (clients, managers, stakeholders) will want to know how it is going. And so, digital marketing reporting should remain a top priority. 

Luckily, there are advanced performance dashboards you can invest in alongside the support of evolving technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).

This guide covers all you need to know about digital marketing reporting so that you can overcome common reporting challenges. Having a firm grip on how your efforts lead to measurable results is something the top dogs will love when they come knocking. 

An introduction to digital marketing reporting

In the world of marketing everything you do can be measured — right? 

That is the promise of digital marketing, and you’ve likely heard it all too often. While the results of traditional mass media marketing campaigns were hard to measure, the idea of digital marketing is that, through extensive tracking, we can understand exactly what we yield.

But is that really the case? 

Perhaps not. Multi-touch attribution modeling, for instance, is still a challenge for most companies. While this model is the holy grail, it is not without its barriers — which is why many marketing professionals with access to advanced data teams are exploring the possibilities of marketing mix modeling (MMM).

Regardless of your current tactic or analysis technique, one thing is certain: You must organize data meaningfully, focusing on what matters most. By creating insightful marketing reports, you can then make data-driven, informed decisions about how to proceed. Digital marketing reporting can inform future marketing plans and strategies.

This process helps connect the dots, allowing you to examine performance data across your marketing activities. That complex data can be transformed into an easy-to-understand progress report, giving you the bird's-eye view needed to make better decisions. As you learn from past campaigns, you can improve future strategies. You can also better showcase the impact of your efforts on the company’s bottom line, which is music to stakeholders’ ears.

What is marketing reporting?

Marketing reporting is gathering and analyzing marketing data to create a clear report. The goal is to inform future marketing decisions, strategies and performance. Great digital marketing reports uncover meaningful, actionable insights and inspire action.

Sounds simple enough, but you know that’s not always the case. That said, marketing reporting can be a heck of a lot easier and much more effective when you have access to a reporting tool that yields a comprehensive analysis via real-time data visualization.

Who needs to create marketing reports?

Any marketer will benefit from marketing reports based on their ability to act as a more strategic guiding light. With access to data that highlights key marketing metrics, you’ll make better decisions that benefit all. 

Who you create reports for outside your team will depend on your role and dynamic and on who is most interested in your marketing results. You want your data to be presented in a way that’s easy to understand, showcasing major results upfront, aided with visuals and section headers. Crafting a storytelling narrative from your marketing report is also a great strategy. 

Data from Gartner shows nearly 50% of CMOs say their marketing efforts are viewed as an expense rather than a strategic investment. Illustrating marketing ROI is not always overly black-and-white, especially if you’re navigating an incomplete data infrastructure. Again, this is why methods like MMM and incrementality shine.

Related: Justifying spend: why 'marketing ROI' isn’t enough

• Digital marketing agencies often send periodic marketing reports to their clients to help them understand how their advertising campaigns perform. This communication helps build a trusting, transparent partnership — which is how you become a more reputable marketing agency.
• Internal marketing professionals create marketing reports to share with stakeholders and sometimes with C-level executives. The goal often is to protect the team’s marketing budget. CMOs have to demonstrate that their efforts matter, even if the ROI of those efforts is not overly clear.
• Freelance marketers create digital marketing reports to share with their clients weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or ad hoc, depending on how they and their clients like to work.

Types of marketing reports for different channels

Your reporting strategy will alter based on the channels you or your clients target. 

Digital marketing reports

These reports summarize digital campaigns, focusing on performance and progress based on metrics and goals. These metrics include website traffic, social media engagement, PPC performance and more. 

Leaning on tools like Google Analytics and SEMrush can assist with this process. 

Above-the-line marketing reports

Above-the-line (ATL) marketing efforts refer to massive, untargeted campaigns delivered through public channels, most often to boost awareness. TV, radio and print advertising are all examples. 

Key metrics for ATL marketing reports may include reach, frequency and brand awareness. 

Integrating online and offline marketing reports

Using attribution models, marketing mix modeling and incrementality testing, you can create a unified marketing report that includes digital and traditional channels. 

Cross-channel consistency in marketing reporting remains crucial. The more touchpoints, the more complex this will become. 

Related reading:
🙅‍♀️ Using multi-channel attribution for cross-channel marketing
💃 How the triangulation tango reignites marketing measurement

Why is reporting important in digital marketing?

Reporting is an important part of marketing for multiple reasons:

1. Transforming data into compelling narratives
Reporting provides valuable insight into the marketing team’s or agency’s activities and performance. With clear data visualizations, marketers can craft narratives that resonate with clients and stakeholders.

2. Justifying marketing decisions with confidence
Effective reporting supports decisions to scale, pause, or pivot specific activities, such as targeted campaigns or platform strategies, ensuring resources are optimally allocated.

3. Setting the stage for future strategies
Well-prepared reports lay the groundwork for upcoming plans, making it easier to secure funding and align stakeholders with a clear, data-driven direction.

4. Demonstrating the value of your investment
Marketing reporting highlights the ROI and POAS of advertising efforts, combining multiple KPIs to tell a story that justifies the investment and showcases the impact.

5. Turning reports into powerful presentations
By using data storytelling techniques and impactful visuals, reporting can transform dry metrics into magical, persuasive presentations that captivate stakeholders.

You might think that the more money a company spends on marketing, the more important reporting becomes. However, this approach is all relative based on the company or client — marketing spend is relative to company size. 

A small business, like a local florist, might invest $500 per month on marketing and feel very anxious about it. 

They might say, "Is this a good investment? Are we seeing the results already?" 

While $500 over a month might not seem like a large amount of money to invest in marketing, for small businesses and emerging entrepreneurs, it can be a serious investment. In that case, marketing reporting is very important to ensure the client understands how their money is being spent, why it is spent in that way and what the results are — even if those results aren’t immediate. 

How to create effective marketing reports

The reporting process is not as simple as printing off automated documents and handing them out. Although there is plenty of technology that is accelerating this process, you must still take a hands-on approach. Consider the following. 

Set clear objectives and consider report recipients 

Start by aligning marketing reports with your marketing strategy and business goals, focusing on who you are actually writing for.

Try to answer these questions before starting the report itself:

• Who will read this marketing report?
• What is their role? 
• Will more than one person consume this report?
• How much knowledge do they have about digital marketing?
• What are the things (KPIs or metrics) they care about most?
• In what format would they like to receive the report?
• Do they prefer weekly, biweekly, or monthly marketing reports?

It is often wise to pick up the phone and simply ask your client these questions. They can tell you if they want to share the report and with whom. Ask if they prefer a text-based document or would rather see a presentation and how familiar they are with marketing jargon.

If they aren't very knowledgeable about digital marketing, you might want to briefly explain the words and phrases you are using. This prevents you from sharing the report and getting an email back with the question, “What are KPIs?”

As soon as you know what the reader of the report wants to see, you can start writing the digital marketing report. Once you get into the groove, you can automate this process and lean on free templates like those offered by Funnel. 

Knowing what to include in varying types of digital marketing reports can help guide this process, especially as objectives shift and trends evolve. For example, a search engine marketing (SEM) report will differ from a specific campaign report, like a Black Friday campaign report. 

Data collection and analysis

To create reports, you need to collect data. Use tools and techniques that simplify this process. Examples include Google Looker Studio, Microsoft Power BI and Tableau. Check out this guide on the marketing data tools you can’t live without. With Funnel, you can collect data from over 230 sales and marketing platforms to benefit from a single data hub. 

Visualization and presentation

Data visualization techniques matter. Color, size and position are three techniques to focus on, helping viewers make sense of the data you present. First, invest in a platform that presents consolidated data, showcasing it on a modern, clean dashboard. You can take that information and turn it into visually pleasing charts and graphs. 

What should a digital marketing report include?

This section is brief because we have already created a guide on this topic. Find it here or read the summary below.

In general, a good digital marketing report should contain the following elements:

1. A summary of the marketing activities you have done
2. Information about the results of those marketing activities (data)
3. An explanation of what those results mean (insights)
4. A summary of the next steps you are planning to take

Always remember the recipient for whom you create the report. If they don't have much marketing knowledge, make sure to include a list of jargon and its meanings. This will ensure your audience understands the vocabulary used in the report.

Another way to cater to your audience is to add or remove details. The CEO or CMO will probably have specific questions about the marketing campaigns of the past quarter. And those will not be the same as the questions your direct colleagues have.

Combining reports 

You don't need to create different marketing reports for all your marketing strategies. For instance, see if you can combine your SEO report with a report about your PPC campaigns. If your contact person is a general digital marketing manager, he will want to know how both campaigns are performing anyway.

However, if you have different contact persons or stakeholders for SEO and paid channels, creating separate, custom reports about the two topics is wise.

Marketing metrics to report

What marketing metrics should your report cover?

It depends a lot on the scope of your work and the agreements you have made beforehand. If you focus on email marketing, it is of course, not necessary to include social media metrics in your report — unless your campaigns evolve. So, be sure that both you and the recipient of the marketing report have a clear understanding of the goals of your project.

A good way to think about marketing efforts (and metrics) is to tie them to overall company goals. This can be done by creating a KPI tree. It might look like this:

In the above example, you can see specific campaign metrics in yellow. But by creating the KPI tree, it becomes clear how the campaign ties into the business's core marketing strategy. Having this in place might help people with less marketing knowledge understand how your marketing work impacts the rest of the company.

Goals vs. KPIs

Key performance indicators (or KPIs) are the metrics you decide are important for you. Not all marketing metrics are key metrics. Ideally, all primary marketing channels work with 3-5 KPIs. 

For instance, a paid search campaign could have these KPIs:

1. Profit on ad spend (POAS)
2. Marketing efficiency ratio (MER)
3. Engagements or clicks
4. Average click-through rate (CTR)
5. Average cost per click (CPC)
6. Ad spend

If this is the case, it just means that those metrics will be closely monitored by the marketers working on the campaign. It does not yet say anything about your goals. However, the goals will be based on these KPIs. 

Let's look at an example of goals for these KPIs:

• For POAS, aim for of a profit target from 120% to 150%
• Generate 700 clicks to the website per week
• Keep average CTR above 1%
• Keep the average CPC between 
• Don't spend more than the budget

Tip: Don't use too many KPIs for your campaigns. Does your client really need to know the bounce rate of each landing page? Perhaps not. There are many instances when less is more. Focus on what’s most important so that data doesn’t become lost in all the noise. 

Marketing attribution

If you want to report on the success of your campaigns, you need a way to determine which campaigns lead to which results. This objective is where attribution comes in — but it's not overly simple. 

Because it's an important and complex topic, we wrote a separate blog post about it. You can read that here: The digital marketing attribution problem.

Benchmarks and seasonality

Now that you have read about the recipient of your report, the KPIs and goals to report on and how that relates to the overall business, it is time to start creating your report. Take monthly reports as an example.

Say you work at an agency and have a B2B company as a client. Your company does both SEO and paid search. In your report, you will want to report on these marketing channels and KPIs:

Search engine optimization

• Number of sessions (organic search) per month
• Number of leads from organic traffic
• Total website traffic

Paid search

• Average cost per lead
• Number of leads from paid search

If you just share the numbers for the past month, your client will have difficulty understanding the true nature of the campaign’s performance. Are the digital marketing efforts performing as expected, or not? 

It is hard to answer that question without data to compare the numbers with. Another way to say this is that data without context is just numbers. We need context to get value and insights from the data.

3 ways to compare key metrics

The best way to present the data is to compare it with benchmarks. A typical marketing report compares the marketing results with at least one of these benchmarks:

1. The previous period (month-on-month or week-on-week). This is valuable if you often change the tactics of the campaigns.
2. The same period, a year earlier (year-on-year). Use the YoY comparison if seasonality plays a big role in your business.
3. The goal or target set for the period. For KPIs with a clear goal, always compare performance with that goal.

When creating marketing reports, we suggest using one or more of these benchmarks to compare the results. This will help you and your client or stakeholders to understand current performance and go from data to actionable insights.

A good way to display this is by adding the percent change next to the value. It can look like this:

There are even more ways to add context to data than the three mentioned above. This blog post, Six Ways to Put Your Numbers in Context, is a good starting point. 

A note on seasonality

Seasonality in marketing and sales is the predictable effect of seasons or commercial holidays in a year. This is different for every business. For instance, an ice cream company will expect to sell more ice cream in the summer than during the winter months. At the same time, a B2B company might expect lower leads and sales during summer because its prospects will be out of the office for summer vacation.

Also read: What is performance marketing?

When you start working for a new company or onboard a new client, ask if there is any seasonality in their market. You can also look at all the data available in Google Analytics or their advertising platforms to see patterns in earlier years. This is especially important when creating forecasts or budget planning.

Types of marketing reports

There are many types of marketing reports, allowing you to highlight the most important metrics and results. From monthly marketing reports to specific social media marketing or SEO reports, you can read all about them there. But before you do, let's go into some other aspects of reporting that are important to discuss: formats and frequency.

Marketing reporting formats

When you know what your stakeholders want to see in their marketing report and have decided on the scope, you are almost ready to create one. There is only one thing to decide before you start: the report format. There are many options available. Let's take a look.

A dashboard

The easiest way might be to create a Google Data Studio dashboard. If you set it up correctly, it will automatically show the right numbers. Also, comparing data with a benchmark is pretty easy.

However, just sharing a link to the automated report might not be insightful enough for the recipients. Especially if their knowledge of marketing is below average, they might not be able to fully understand all the data. You must tackle this step on a case-to-case basis. 

Yes, AI will help crunch numbers and present them faster than ever before, but data fluency is still required to make sense of it all. 

A PDF

Another option is to use your dashboard to quickly collect the data and paste it into a text document or presentation. Then, you can write the conclusion or insights next to each screenshot. This is a great way to ensure that your marketing reports provide relevant insights without taking up too much of your time. (Remember to download your document as a PDF and share it with your client or stakeholder.)

An email

While a neat document in PDF format is the best option for some people, other situations might require a different approach.

Imagine you work for a client who wants to know only some key performance indicators and doesn't want to spend a lot of time reading the report. In this case, you might propose to email them only the most important conversion metrics once a week.

A meeting (and a presentation)

Lastly, a meeting. Your weekly update emails may be sufficient for a while, but once every quarter, you may also want to present the results and discuss them in person. This also allows you to propose new initiatives or ask for a higher marketing campaign budget if that seems appropriate.

How often should you report?

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the best course of action is to discuss timing with the people you create the report for. The CMO at a large company may want to receive a weekly update about the marketing department's performance, while the digital marketers hiring an agency to run Google Ads campaigns are happy with a monthly report.

When discussing report frequency with your client or stakeholders, make sure to share all the options with them. Also, include the possibility to combine several report types, and share them at different times. For instance, share an automated marketing report every week, and create a monthly report with more insights once per month.

Monthly marketing report example and templates

We created multiple dashboard templates to make things easy for you. Examples include a cross-channel marketing report, search engine optimization report template and performance marketing template. 

Marketing performance report template

We also created a Google Doc for you to follow. Find it here. To use it, copy the document and edit it as needed. One way to do this is by creating a Google Data Studio dashboard. Ensure this contains all the data you want to report on in a nice, visually appealing way. Then, screenshot the graphs and add them to the template. Repeat every month.

Want to learn more? Check out some of these successful reporting case studies to see how you can take advantage of Funnel and more streamlined reporting:

• Trivago went from 30% marketing reporting coverage to 100% with Funnel
• NP Digital achieves digital reporting harmony thanks to Funnel’s marketing data hub

• Social Lab Group frees up 40% of time spent on reporting

• Funnel enables Sparro’s team to generate an additional $150,000 in revenue 

Happy reporting!