Over our years on the client side, we have seen dozens of “reports”, and only a handful actually helped us make decisions.
What is wrong?
Agencies often serve up metrics that are convenient to report, such as:
- CTR has increased
- Clicks are cheap
- Reach is through the roof
What about applications? What about results? Well… that is outside our remit.
Want to look like a “great” contractor? Report on clicks. Run ads in a mobile game where it is impossible not to tap the banner, and you have thousands of clicks, massive reach and exceeded KPIs. But zero applications. And no understanding of what went wrong, either.
Make an effort to get reporting right. Discuss it with your contractor before work starts, and highlight the metrics you need to track.
So what should a report be like?
Transparent
Is the goal applications? Then show:
- spend;
- number of applications;
- cost per application.
Adapted to your needs
Provide breakdowns by:
- city — spend, applications and cost per application;
- device — how many from desktop, how many from mobile devices;
- demographics — how many young men, how many older men. And women, too.
Diagnostic
A report should do more than record what happened. It should highlight:
- what worked well;
- what worked poorly;
- what should change.
A report is an important tool that should tell you whether you are doing things right. To understand that, you need to know which metrics to look at. Take the time to write down the indicators you want to analyse and tell your agency. Then much more will become clear.