Proving Your Marketing Agency ROI With Client Reporting (+ Reports Examples)

Clients need to feel confident in their choice of working with you.

One way to differentiate your agency from the crowd is through high-value client reporting – showcasing the results of your work with reliable data and actionable next steps.

Especially, knowing the client/agency relationship has changed and clients now expect more transparency from agencies.

So is the “old way” over and is there a way to do it better?

That’s what we’ll answer in this article. We’ll also provide you with a clear 5-step roadmap to modern client reporting and share daily-use dashboard examples from other marketing agencies, which you can easily replicate for your clients.

So, let’s dive in! 👇

Why manual campaign reporting isn’t enough for agencies today?

Jennifer Marino, CMO at Marketri, a leading B2B marketing agency explains:

“Clients are definitely looking for more transparency today. They want to understand what’s working / what’s not, but also what they’re getting from the investment they’re making in their marketing activities. And how it all ties back to their overall business objectives, so they can confidently answer the ROI question.”

💡 This means, marketing agencies need to:

1. Proactively understand their client’s industry & processes
2. Deliver understandable, concise, and actionable client reports timely
3. Provide valuable insights to optimize marketing campaigns across channels when necessary

Yet, you know it too well – creating reports for clients isn’t always as straightforward as it seems, and it often becomes that one task you always delay on your to-do list until you can’t. Probably because you’re also facing challenges like these.

1. No efficient way to pull data from all your clients’ disparate sources

Your clients use multiple systems daily for their various marketing needs. This includes data from:

• CRM such as HubSpot or Salesforce
• SEO tools like Semrush
• Social media platforms including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or X
• Web analytics tools like GA4, Adobe Analytics, or Matomo
• But also advertising platforms like Google Ads, Bing Ads
• And more…

As an agency, you need to pull all this siloed data together to monitor performance, measure efforts, and make it speak.

Let’s say you’re looking to measure the impact of multi-channel campaigns on conversion rate, or simply track all your clients channels’ performance, without integrating all this data into a report, it becomes impossible.

But often, gathering data from all these different sources becomes a tedious process where you spend more time collecting data than having meaningful conversations to maximize the impact of your strategies.

📊 Did you know? On average, marketing agencies spend up to 3.5 hours per week on the manual process of gathering data and building reports for a client | Source: SEJ Report, 2022

Yes, you read that number right! 😳

Multiply that by the number of clients… For an agency with 30 clients, that’s 90 non-billable hours per week wasted and a huge revenue loss for your business. But that’s not all!

2. Difficulties In Turning Your Client Report Into a Compelling Story

The second challenge marketing agencies face with manual reporting is difficulties in presenting the data in a clear, digestible, and understandable way for clients.

For instance, there’s no easy way to show conversions across all channels in a single view and when clients don’t understand the report because of the lack of a consolidated view of the data and KPIs, it creates frustration on both ends.

Yes, we’ve all been there once!

But this also takes up valuable time agencies could otherwise spend optimizing campaigns and making data-driven decisions.

Ensuring that insights and stories are effectively communicated is key to maximizing the impact of your marketing efforts.

So, how to get past this “old” way of reporting and solve these challenges? Because yes, you have the power to change that!

Your roadmap to modern client reporting

Learn how to streamline your client reporting with these 5 steps:

1. Map your data & KPIs

Unrealistic client expectations are one of the leading causes of conflict between clients and agencies. The solution?

When onboarding a new client, start by gathering their data requirements during a session. This helps you understand what your clients want to monitor along with the purpose of the reporting.

You can initiate the conversation by asking questions like:

• What do you want to monitor?
• Which metrics do you want to measure?
• How many dashboards do you need?
• When do the dashboards need to be delivered?
• Are there existing dashboards already in use?

💡 That’s also a great moment to discuss brand guidelines and if there are any specifications you need to include when building dashboards.

Then, identify all the data sources you need to retrieve data from and get access to tools & platforms to get ready for the next step. This includes CRM, SEO tools, web analytics, social media channels, and more.

By mapping out your data and KPIs early in the process with your client, you create a clear foundation for your reporting.

This step ensures you know exactly what information to track and how it aligns with your client’s objectives, saving you time and maximizing changes of a higher dashboard adoption rate.

2. Create a report mockup

Before diving into the actual dashboard creation, design a mockup.

This preliminary design will help you visualize how the final report will look and function.

In this step, capture:

• Calculations to be made
• Filters to apply
• Widget type, title, and description
• Design items: color palette, canvas size…

That’s when you lay out the data, charts, graphs, and other visual elements to include. Share this mockup with your clients to gather feedback.

This step is crucial for ensuring everyone is on the same page and that the final report will meet the client’s needs and expectations.

3. Transform and validate data

Once you have your data sources and KPIs mapped out, and a mockup approved, it’s time to transform and validate your data.

This involves cleaning the data, ensuring it’s accurate, and transforming it into a format that’s ready for analysis.

You can use data integration tools, like ClicData to automate and streamline this process. We help marketing agencies like you make this step easier with 300+ native connectors to most marketing apps including your CRM, web analytics, social media, and more.

Validate the consistency and accuracy of the data with your clients and business users.

4. Build clients reports and dashboards

Moving on to the next step: building your clients’ reports!

You don’t need to start from scratch, templates are here to make your life easier. Browse from a library of +50 marketing dashboard templates you can use and customize with your client’s needs and branding, like this one:

Ensure that the dashboards are user-friendly and visually appealing.

Include features that allow clients to drill down into specific metrics or view high-level summaries. Don’t forget to automate your dashboards, so your clients consistently have fresh and up-to-date reports.

Wrap up with a recap of results, and by listing what are the next steps you aim to achieve by the end of the next period.

5. Get sign-off

The final step is to get sign-off from your clients.

Present the completed dashboards and walk them through the data, highlighting key insights and how to navigate the reports.

Address any questions or concerns they may have and make any necessary adjustments based on their feedback.

Obtaining client approval ensures that they are satisfied with the reporting and that it meets their needs.

This collaborative step solidifies your role as a trusted partner in their marketing efforts and sets the stage for ongoing collaboration. That’s how you foster long-term trust between your clients and agency.

Client reports examples you can use to foster trust with your agency

One way to differentiate your agency from the crowd is through high-value client reporting. If your reports are consistently clear, well-organized, and visually appealing while proving that your efforts drive success, you strengthen your agency’s competitive edge.

Good client reporting not only helps set your agency apart but also, educates your clients and fosters trust in your agency. Let’s now see some examples:

Understand The Impact of Your Paid Campaigns

This client report provides a comprehensive view of key metrics such as impressions, clicks, conversions, and ROI across all paid channels to showcase the impact of your advertising efforts.

Optimize content strategies & grow social accounts

Go beyond build-in reporting of social platforms and create custom indicators to monitor your client’s performance.

With this TikTok dashboard example, track your client’s top videos, likes, and comments, over time. Go a step further by building custom metrics such as the engagement rate by video duration, traffic-to-website, or revenue generated by TikTok.

Now you can track what’s working and what’s not to focus your efforts on what matters: creating engaging content, on the right channel, for your clients’ audience!

Gain a Deeper Understanding of Funnel Trends

Get an accurate and real-time view of your client sales pipeline to supercharge revenue generation. Quickly identify how many opportunities you have, how you’ve acquired them, how valuable they are, and at what stage they sit within your sales funnel – to easily forecast revenue.

The impact of streamlined client reporting

Streamlined client reporting not only meets modern expectations for transparency and efficiency but also sets your agency apart as a leader in the industry. But what does it mean really?

For your clients

Streamlined reporting often translates to greater transparency and understanding of their marketing performance. They get clear, concise, and visually appealing reports that make it easy to grasp trends and track progress toward their marketing goals. This not only builds trust but also empowers clients to make informed decisions based on real-time insights.

With streamlined reporting, clients can quickly identify what’s working and what needs adjustment, leading to more effective and agile marketing strategies. Plus, with the time saved on manual reporting, your clients can expect more frequent updates with proactive recommendations from their marketing agency, enhancing the overall value of the partnership.

For you and your agency

While client reporting matters, it shouldn’t take you all day.

To free yourself time, automate data gathering and report creation as much as possible, empowering your teams to focus on more strategic tasks such as optimizing campaigns and developing creative strategies for clients.

By integrating automated reporting tools like ClicData, agencies ensure accuracy and consistency in their reports for enhanced professionalism and credibility. But it also help foster greater communication and collaboration, as everyone has access to up-to-date, and comprehensive data at their fingertips.

This leads to improved efficiency, higher productivity, and a stronger ability to demonstrate the value of your services to clients – resulting in repeat business.

Ready to prove your marketing ROI to clients?

Remember, in today’s competitive landscape of increased transparency and higher expectations, client management is what can move the needle.

By implementing a clear, data-driven approach, you can showcase the tangible results of your efforts and provide clients with actionable insights.

Use client reporting to celebrate successes, identify areas of improvement, educate them about the added value of your work, and engage in meaningful conversations to maximize the impact of your strategies!