Marketers often invest significant time and energy into their content. You might spend hours brainstorming unique slogans and writing insightful blog posts. Or maybe you film social media content again and again until you’ve captured the right tone — and dance moves.
However, this hard work doesn’t always translate into clear results. You may wonder if your content has resonated with your target audience or missed the mark. Marketing reports allow you to assess your performance and better understand your audience. This guide explores eight types of marketing reports to measure your success and improve your campaigns.
What Are Marketing Reports?
A marketing report gathers and analyzes data about promotional activities. It typically includes key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure the impact of a marketing campaign. For example, a marketing report could evaluate web traffic before and after you buy social media ads.
These reports let you track your performance and identify areas of weakness. They also provide actionable insights you can use to improve decision-making and refine your marketing strategies.
Say you launched an email marketing campaign to promote a new product. A marketing report reveals that 50% of customers open your emails, but only 10% click the product page link. Based on this data, you may conclude that you need a stronger call to action to engage your readers and improve your click-through rate.
The Importance of Having Different Types of Marketing Reports
Most marketing teams use multiple channels and strategies to promote their brands. For example, a promotion strategy could mean you:
- Buy Facebook ads
- Publish a monthly blog
- Post TikTok videos
All of these strategies work to engage your target audience. However, each marketing tactic engages audiences in distinct ways and has specific KPIs.
You can gain a holistic understanding of your performance with a variety of digital marketing reports. These tools use different KPIs to analyze specific aspects of your marketing efforts. For instance, one report might assess social media engagement while another focuses on sales performance. Some key metrics may overlap, but each report evaluates these measurements differently to provide unique perspectives.
Different reports can also reveal unexpected connections or trends. Suppose a social media marketing report uncovers that your influencer collaborations have the highest conversion rates. When you consult your eCommerce report, you discover that most of your influencer-generated sales come from clients in the southern United States. You could then decide to partner with popular influencers who appeal to this audience to maximize your return on investment (ROI).
8 Essential Types of Reports for Your Marketing Activities
Digital marketing reporting is essential for content optimization and business growth. Here are eight types of reports that will help you elevate your marketing performance.
1. SEO and PPC Reports
Search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) reports assess how effectively your marketing drives organic traffic to your website.
An SEO report evaluates your blog or website’s engagement rate and visibility in search engine results. It typically includes these key information points:
- Backlinks: The number of reputable external websites that link to your content
- Domain authority: The likelihood that your website will appear near the top of search engine results pages (SERPs)
- Keyword rankings: How high your content ranks in the SERPs for specific keywords
You can track this data with Ahrefs, Google Analytics, and other SEO platforms. This information will help you improve your website’s performance so you attract more potential customers.
A PPC report measures the effectiveness of paid ads on Google, Meta, and other platforms. It should include:
- Clicks: The number of people who click your advertisement
- Cost-per-click: The amount you pay the platform every time a user clicks your ad
- Impressions: The number of times your ad appears on a user’s social media feed or screen
A PPC report lets you assess your paid ads’ performance and make adjustments to improve your results.
2. Content Marketing Reports
Content marketing reporting measures the impact of your blog posts, infographics, videos, and other content. Here are a few essential content marketing metrics:
- Customer acquisition cost: The amount you invest in your content for each client you gain
- Page views: The number of times that visitors view individual pages on your website
- Time on page: How long users spend on specific blog posts and web pages
These KPIs help you identify the types of content that engage customers and those that are ignored. A content marketing agency like Compose.ly can use this information to boost engagement and improve your content marketing ROI.
3. Digital Ads Reports
A digital ad report tracks the performance of advertisements across all online channels. It uses some of the same metrics as a PPC report but has a broader scope. You can use this tool to analyze the effectiveness of display, social media, and video advertising.
Add these essential figures to your digital ad reports:
- Bounce rates: The percentage of users who leave your website soon after they click your ad
- Conversion rates: The percentage of viewers who perform a specific action like subscribing to your newsletter
- Video views: The number of people who watch YouTube ads and other videos
Leverage this data for effective digital ad campaign optimization. For example, say you notice that your video ads have high bounce rates. To address this issue, you might create custom landing pages tailored toward different target audiences.
4. Social Media Marketing Reports
A social media marketing report explores how your content performs on Instagram, LinkedIn, and other platforms.
Compile these KPIs in your social media campaign reports to measure your success:
- Audience demographics: The age, gender, and race of users who engage with your content
- Engagement: The number of times users comment on, like, or share your posts
- New followers: The number of users who follow your accounts in a specific period
Most social media platforms automatically provide this data to business accounts, but third-party tools can give you additional, more in-depth insights.
5. Email Marketing Campaign Report
Track the impact of your digital messages with email marketing reporting. This type of report typically features:
- Delivery rate: The percentage of emails that land in subscriber inboxes instead of bouncing or getting labeled as spam
- Open rate: How many recipients open your emails
- Unsubscribe rate: The percentage of clients who leave your subscription list
These measurements provide insights into customer behavior and help you identify which types of emails perform best.
6. eCommerce Reports
An e-commerce report reveals how your marketing efforts influence your online business performance. It typically includes these measurements:
- Cart abandonment rate: The percentage of customers who start a purchase but don’t finish it
- Total revenue: The overall amount of sales generated during the report period
- Website traffic sources: The channels that lead customers to your website
Use this type of report to identify your most impactful marketing strategies so you can incorporate them in future campaigns.
7. Online and Offline Sales Performance Reports
Monitor how much revenue your company earns through all channels with online and offline sales performance reports. These reports include a broad range of marketing-related metrics, such as:
- Average deal size: The average revenue each sale generates
- Geographic region: The locations of customers who buy your products
- Sales by product category: How much revenue each sales category earns
This information allows marketing and sales teams to quantify the effectiveness and ROI of promotional initiatives. For example, you can look at geographic data to see if your localized paid social media ads are a good investment.
8. Time-Based Marketing Reports
A time-based marketing report gives a snapshot of your performance during a specific period. Here are a few types of reports that marketing departments often use:
- Daily marketing report: This report may include daily sales, the number of new social media followers, email open rates, and other short-term data.
- Weekly marketing report: This tool typically features weekly conversion rates, engagement metrics, and website traffic.
- Monthly marketing report: This report could include ROI for specific marketing campaigns, total monthly revenue, and unsubscribe rates.
Monthly reports draw on more data, so they typically provide more in-depth insights than weekly or daily reports.
Best Practices To Analyze Marketing Metrics and Reports
Even the most detailed marketing reports can’t help you if you don’t know how to use them. Follow these best practices to use these tools effectively.
Start small and focus on a few key metrics that align with your goals. For example, if you want to boost customer engagement, track open rates and social media follows. If you want to increase sales, monitor conversion rates.
You should also use data visualization software like Flourish or Tableau to transform your data into accessible graphics. These visual elements can help you interpret marketing data and spot trends.
Finally, use A/B testing and create multiple versions of your content to assess which ones engage customers most. For example, you can design emails with different calls to action and track conversion rates. When you identify effective strategies, use them for future campaigns.
The Bottom Line
Don’t waste time wondering if your marketing efforts are making a difference. Use different types of marketing reports to get concrete data that informs your decisions. These tools will help you measure your impact and identify your top strategies. They also allow you to make data-driven marketing decisions so you can expand your reach and get ahead of the competition.