As a marketing manager, you may sometimes feel like you are running interference between your boss and your marketing agency. The reality is, your agency should be there supporting you when it comes time to report out on your campaigns. After all, marketing doesn’t end once the your ads go live.

Proper analysis plays a huge role in your success and helps to make your case the next time you are vying for some extra marketing dollars. If you’ve partnered with the right agency, you should be receiving regular, transparent reports, but are you getting actionable data that will help guide your C-Suite in their decision making?

What a C-Suite expects

When it comes to the C-Suite, or the decisions makers at any company, they are looking for short digestible reports with actionable data. Most of the reports management needs are relatively easy to create and will be centered around four topics: Revenue/ Profits by Channel, Areas of Growth, Areas of Opportunity, Special Projects and Initiatives.

By building context around your marketing results and KPIs, you can help your supervisors visualize how your work is impacting the goals of the company. A lot of how you build that context comes down to how your partners are breaking down your data.

Gathering your data

Your marketing team’s strategy consists of a number of simultaneously moving parts and tactics, and it’s critical you receive comprehensive reports on how each channel is performing.

Though each major platform (Google Ads, Bing, Facebook) has individual reporting centers for agencies to gather data, there is a more efficient way to streamline and present your data. If you’re agency is using proper UTM parameters, they can pull a simple channel report for you directly from Google Analytics.

For all reporting, proper UTM tags are essential as they allow Google Analytics and other analytics platforms to correctly categorize all of your website data. Here are a few reports from Google Analytics that your agency can create to help show your marketing department’s effect on the business:

  • All Traffic Channel Report

    • Explains where the traffic on your website is coming from

  • Content Efficiency Report

    • Confirms which content on your website is driving engagement and retaining website visitors

  • Keyword Analysis Report

    • Shows which keywords users are searching for on and off your website

  • Landing Pages Report

    • Details a user’s first interaction with the website and how they behave

  • Mobile Overview Report

    • Lets your C-Suite prepare for a shift in mobile demand and any future optimization needs

  • Conversion Goal Overview Report

    • Provides you with an understanding of which actions users are taking on the website that are of value to the business

Ultimately organizations have different needs and wants when it comes to reporting. When asking your agency for reports remember who the reports are meant for and what they are looking for. All your reports should have relevant data and be easily digestible, and highlight the metrics that matter. Your agency should be giving you real numbers that impact the success of your business not vanity metrics.

Reporting is just data telling a story, so remember to create the narrative for the C-Suite to understand the value and worth of your marketing team’s efforts.