How You Share Your Results Is Just As Important As the Results Themselves
Guest Contributor:
Matt Bartlett, Account Manager
A couple of years ago, I was tasked with presenting campaign results to a few C-Suite level contacts by one of my clients. I was extremely excited and wanted to give the best and most detailed presentation they’d ever seen. I included every number I could find. I included every detail offered by the tracking solutions we were using. And then, about halfway through my presentation, everyone in the room was reading email on their phones. I was crushed. How could they not care? What I’ve learned is that I wasted a lot of my time and theirs with that presentation…
We’ve written before about the importance of reporting and analytics when it comes to your marketing tactics. You won’t find many successful marketers arguing that results aren’t important. But the fact is, if you can’t communicate results effectively, you are wasting everyone’s time and money—particularly in the building industry, which has high expectations for ROI.
Your Client Is Not Your Only Audience
There are two audiences to consider when communicating marketing results. The first is obvious: the client (or, if you’re a marketer who works on the corporate side, it may be another department or a member of the executive team).
The second, and one that is often overlooked, is your internal team—the people that actually did the work. It’s just as important for them to regularly hear results (even throughout the campaign) so they know what works and what doesn’t for future projects, or so they can course correct in real-time if performance isn’t meeting expectations.
When Delivering Results, Speak Their Language
Below are some of my tips to make sure both audiences actually understand the results you prepare for them:
1. Include a Summary: And make sure to use common language when you do it. Remember that not everyone is a marketing geek like the rest of us, so dumb down the language and minimize the jargon. Raw stats are great and should be included, but don’t forget to provide a high-level summary for easy, at-a-glance consumption.
2. Focus on the Right Metrics: Does bounce rate matter? What about click-to-open-rate (CTOR)? Does your client care about impressions? Since GA4 replaced Universal Analytics, prioritize engagement rate and engaged sessions for on-site behavior. GA4 bounce rate now reflects unengaged sessions, so compare apples to apples across time. Flag any modeled conversions or metrics so context is clear. All metrics are important in one way or another, but decide early on in the process which metrics tie directly back to the stated goals and only report on those. The rest will only confuse and distract from the point.
3. Define Your Metrics: Not only do you need to worry about which metrics to present, but you also need to make sure that your audience understands what they are. Consider utilizing a standard block of definitions for each of the words that you include in the summary. Make sure the definitions explain not only how the metrics work, but why they matter. Bonus points if you can alter each definition slightly to make it hyper-relevant to the goals of the project. Add current terms to your glossary, including engagement rate and engaged sessions in GA4. Define data-driven attribution, view-through conversions, CTR, CTOR, conversion rate, and conversion value, and note how each is calculated.
4. Make It Visual: Different people consume information differently. In addition to the summary and actual stats, consider how you can convert the data into easily digestible graphics. Use high contrast and do not rely on color alone for meaning. Label data points and axes directly, and keep scales consistent across slides. Add brief notes for launches, seasonality, or methodology changes so trends make sense. Maybe it’s as simple as creating a bar or line graph, but maybe some information could best be communicated as an infographic. In the case of the latter, you might involve your design team in creating a simple graphic to lend greater clarity to results. Could go a long way in helping all audiences understand.
5. Tie It to the Bottom Line: This can be difficult based on what financial information the client is willing to share, but the best performance reports include ROI and show how the marketing activity in question impacted the client’s bottom line. Call out the attribution model in use, like last click or data-driven, and note any cross-channel rules. State the lookback window and include time-to-conversion or lag views so long B2B cycles are reflected, with clear date ranges and filters. Reconcile costs and revenue sources, dedupe conversions against a single source of truth such as your CRM, and note currency and tax assumptions for comparable ROI and ROAS. Understand your client’s overall business, not just their marketing. Your job doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
6. Share It Internally: All departments have skin in the game here. Employees often don’t understand marketing or how it impacts what they do. Make it matter by sharing performance.
7. Time Is of the Essence: In today’s world, waiting two months to report on metrics is pointless. Share performance during and immediately after the campaign. Better yet: if possible, give the client access to real-time metrics so they can monitor progress on their own time. Share live dashboards for easy access. Google Looker Studio can provide role-based views and scheduled email sends. Label each view with data sources, last refreshed time, and typical latency like intraday or daily.
ROI is only good if everyone involved understands it—your team, your client(s), and the people your client reports to. All too often, you see marketers download a last-minute Excel spreadsheet or print out a screenshot from Google Analytics. But “lost in translation” is unacceptable when it comes to results. As marketers, the core of our work is about clarifying products and services through smart, focused, creative work; why wouldn’t we get just as creative to simplify and clarify those results so we can do even better work in the future?
