Creating a solid marketing report can be difficult. Do you know the ways to make your reports look professional and accessible?

Well, check out our latest post on creating marketing reports here and make your reports stand out.

Creating a marketing report doesn’t need to be complex and long winded. Instead of dreading your next reporting session, you can easily breeze through it while creating a fantastic result that is sure to impress.

Check out our blog post on ways to effortlessly create more professional and accessible marketing reports.

What is a marketing report?

Starting off with the most basic question. Well, a marketing report offers key stakeholders and the marketing department an insight into the business’s current position and its future.

When you create a marketing report, it can answer important questions like “Did last month’s campaign actually work?”, “Why did the campaign not do as expected?” or “How can I show to my client that my hard work is paying off?”.

Over 90% of marketers use content marketing, so the report can also cover your current content marketing strategy, any market research and any goals or objectives you may have.

In order to create a marketing report, you need to understand a few basic elements. Knowing the foundations is key to creating any type of report, but we will get into that later with some marketing report examples.

5 different types of marketing reports

There are a few different types of marketing reports that can be created. Below are a few different types of marketing report examples.

1.     Annual report

An annual marketing report shows your reader a sum up of the year’s longer-term marketing activities. In this type of report, you should include last year’s facts and figures, so that the reader can compare.

Remember that you should be describing these numbers; why are they high or low? Also explain how these numbers are contributing to the company’s overall goals and targets.

Annual reports usually have a section on the results of a previously set goal. Let’s say that in the 2019 annual marketing report, the company set a goal to reduce customer waiting time by 60%.

Well, in the 2020 annual report you would state how this went and whether the target was achieved or not. You could also provide case stories to further emphasise your point.

Adding a summary of the year at the end of your marketing report is always a good idea. If possible, you can display this in a simple and easy-to-read chart. This gives your reader context for your report and is a straightforward way to gain an overview of the year.

Remember that annual dates do not necessarily have to be from January to December. The period could be the end of the financial year or another important company date - just remember to check, before starting your report with the incorrect dates!

2.     Quarterly report

A quarterly marketing report is like an annual report, except it covers a quarter of the year. This is a great report if you want to go into more depth about marketing activities of performance.

When you create a marketing report, you can discuss each specific process that you have implemented over the past few months and explain the result.

Perhaps there was a specific set goal that was achieved or maybe it will be achieved in the next few weeks. Quarterly marketing reports are a great way to regularly update your colleagues on the progress and performance of the business.

Quarterly marketing reports are also useful in updating senior management on specific strategies. A few months is usually enough time to see a difference in any changes or investment. So, quarterly reports provide an easy way to keep them updated and reassure that their investment is being put to good use.

3.     Monthly report

Monthly marketing reports are good for updating colleagues on long-term campaigns or strategies that you may have running.

It is common for businesses to have month-long campaigns, for example a summer discount that is available only in July.

It’s a good idea to include website traffic when you create a marketing report that is monthly. This gives an indication of which channels are performing the best this month. You can also include a brief description of what should be changed to improve the metric.

Adding your goals is also a good idea when you create a marketing report that is monthly. Again, if the target is far from being achieved, then you can give a quick summary of what can be done to meet the goal.

Does the business operate seasonally? Well, create a marketing report for monthly marketing activity if this is the case, as this may be more insightful than an annual report.  

4.     Weekly report

Weekly marketing reports are an easy way to update your short to long-term marketing activities. For example, this type of report could gather the results on a newly published blog post or perhaps a recent email marketing campaign.

A weekly marketing report usually contains traffic information, whether it has changed, which channel brought the most visitors and if this was different for the previous week.

Weekly marketing reports give you an idea of the performance of your latest campaign and how much it is converting. This type of information is super useful at developing an action plan for the next coming weeks.

5.     Daily report

A daily marketing report is most commonly used for internal reasons, usually between departments in a business or in a marketing agency.

Since over 60% of marketers state that they make one piece of content each day, daily marketing reports are useful for quickly identifying changes or threats and reacting to these as soon as possible.

These types of reports also give some background information on the performance of the website or social media and if there is any immediate change. For instance, this could be a sudden increase in Twitter mentions or perhaps a sudden increase of website visitors.

To create a useful daily marketing report, you should include information on why certain metrics have changed and how you are going to act on them.

What to include in your marketing report?

When you create a marketing report, it is paramount to include the basic information. However, the exact basic information depends on what you are reporting on.

Define your goals

You should start off with the goals of the report. What is the purpose of the report and which questions is it answering?

Figuring out what your goals are before you create a marketing report will align your readers’ thoughts and give them some background context to the report.

Not only this, but it will help you understand the direction of the report and focus on what should be included or omitted.

Current strategy

Have a quick section on the strategy that is currently in place for the business. You can add details about the target customer, your main platforms used and any other strategies in place. Only 95% of users look at the first results page, so, you should include your SEO techniques and strategies too.

You can also add what has been accomplished so far and include any met targets or goals from this current strategy. You can also add a competitor analysis in this section if you find it to be useful.

This section should come after your goals, as it acts as a good introduction to your report. Discussing your current strategy eases the reader in, and also helps them make a comparison when discussing your future ideas.

Count your conversions

Conversions are probably the most important aspect when it comes to creating a marketing report.

This section should be the main part of your report and have graphs, charts and tables that provide back-up to your targets or to your performance.

To create a marketing report conversion section, it is a good idea to include:

• Paid vs organic search results
• Revenue
• Leads (broken down by each channel e.g. social media, email, paid etc.)
• Cost per conversion (CPC) for paid channels like Facebook Ads, Google Ads etc.

Since this is the main part of your report, it will take up the most space. Try to keep the section concise without being too vague. Try to keep your statistics neat and tidy, so that it makes it easier to read and less confusing.

Future goals

Once you have backed up all your statements and explained your figures, you can start planning for the future.

Here, you can include specific goals for the future to keep the business growing and improving. You can also revisit these goals to see your progress and keep you focused.

It makes sense to position this section at then end of your report. It is a good way to close the report and leave it on a high note.

If you have included a plan of action, it can help motivate the team and set them to reach a high goal.

How to make you marketing reports manageable

Generally speaking, to create a marketing report you should have a well laid-out design. In order to keep your reader’s attention, you should keep your layout simple.

Keep it simple

Try to avoid adding unnecessary details to your marketing report. This will make your report very confusing and lower the readability. If it has no use in the report, then remove it.

Explain yourself

There is no point in having figures hanging on their own. You need to explain your numbers. It doesn’t need to be a long, detailed paragraph, but enough to be able to get your point across.

State your points

To create a marketing report, you should state your main goals, objectives and main statements at the beginning of your report.

This helps keep your report manageable, by getting your most important points across when your reader’s engagement is at its highest. After this, you can then go into the details of the report.

Create a marketing report with Agency360

Want to create a marketing report? Well, with Agency360, reporting is simple and easy. Effortlessly access your data and insights and create a marketing report in an all-in-one platform.

Marketing reports made easy

Simply login to your client’s dashboard by clicking on the side menu and selecting your chosen client.

Next, you can easily create a marketing report by clicking generate report from the side bar.

You can also create automatic reports by clicking schedule reports.

Easily choose what type of report you would like at the top of the page, then scroll down.

This is where the magic happens!

Here, you can start to select your chosen metrics to create a marketing report.

Here, you can choose different metrics depending on what your report is about.

You can select from many different metrics such as web traffic, Facebook engagement or paid searches.

Time period is key

If you were to create a marketing report that is for last month’s campaign, then you can select your metrics and your time period.

This selection can be used to create marketing reports that are daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annually.

Next, click generate report and your report will quickly download automatically. Easy!