er Studio: 6 Do’s and Don’ts for Search Marketers //

You may have used Looker Studio to create reports for clients or stakeholders.

Recently, I was able to see SearchLab’s Greg Gifford speak on “Freddy Krueger’s Guide to Scary Good Reporting”. He talked about how to make your Looker Studio reports more useful to clients.

Here are some key takeaways from Gifford’s session, in the form do’s and dont’s as well as examples of data visualisations that search marketers would find most useful.

1. Do not manually enter data in a textbox

Work smarter and not harder. Create a data source that the platform can instantly access.

You can link it directly to your Google Ads account, and you will be able to report metrics from that location.

Looker Studio offers a wide range of connectors.

If you’d like to connect another platform not included in this list, then you can use a third party data integrator, such as Funnel.io or Supermetrics.

You can export the data into a Google Sheet, and then import it in Looker Studio.

2. Include metrics but not comparison

You are paid to tell a story and not just spout numbers.

• Why did clicks drop compared to the previous month?
• Why did conversion rates drop by a percentage? Last month, there were 40 leads.
• What is the difference between this month and last month?

Show them the trends that you see in a way they can understand.

Here is an example.

This chart shows the change in a specific metric from one month to another.

Clicking on the metric and navigating to the Configuration section will allow you to add a date range for comparison.

Looker Studio calculates the percentage change automatically and turns it green or a red color based on positive or negative trends.

This graph shows the evolution of sales by month.

It is easy to see the changes from month to month (MoM) or year over year (YoY). Use a chart similar to this one for your report.

3. Do not give them metrics which do not tell the full story

Reports often include the time spent on a website. It is generally assumed that the longer a website user stays on it, the better.

Gifford challenged that mindset. Spending more time on your site could mean that you are not able to provide what people really want?

It’s a good thing if they visit your website, locate your contact form, and fill out their information within 45 seconds.

You should be satisfied as long as they convert (and the quicker they convert the better).

Choose metrics that give you a better picture of the situation.

Now you know how to not. We’ll talk about what you should be doing with your Looker Studio report.

4. Provide an executive summary and a list of completed work, as well as a list of next steps

It is the most important section of the report.

This can be used as a tear-off sheet for the client to easily reference the most significant insights from the past month.

The rest of the report provides additional information to support the trends and insights that you have provided in your executive summaries.

Ask yourself “What is the purpose of my executive summary?”

• What if my client had 40 leads in a month?
• What does it matter that traffic was up by 25% in a month?

Use the executive summary as a way to tell a client’s story, and explain the why.

Tell them that traffic is up by 25% from month to month because the non-brand campaign, which you restructured, has performed well and generated 80% of all leads for the month.

You will also restructure a second campaign in order to improve performance.

Boom!

You’ve told your client what happened, what caused it and what you intend to do as a consequence.

Below is an example of a executive summary.

5. Give a visual representation to your progress towards your key performance indicators.

Before creating a report, it’s important to align KPIs and your client.

How can you demonstrate your value to clients if you do not have a goal?

Consider this:

Consider the perspective of your client. Which one sounds better?

We generated 40 leads during July.

You can also find out more about

We generated double the number of leads we had set for July.

Put all of this into your Looker Studio Report.

Don’t just tell your client you have exceeded their KPIs. Show them.

Here is an example on how to visualize KPI progress.

The blue bar indicates the number of clicks in a certain time period.

The graph shows the KPI clicks for the specified time period.

Now, the client can easily see if you have exceeded your target.

6. Gather data to answer client questions

Gifford recommended that you format each chart as though it was answering a question from a client.

What actions have people taken on our website?

Tell them how many phonecalls, form submissions, tours, etc. they received from your marketing efforts. Show them data on how many phone calls, contact form submissions, tour schedules, etc. they received as a result of your marketing efforts.

Here is an example of how you can break down the conversions for a customer by type:

What does it mean to my business that you generated 30 leads?

Reporting can be powerful when it includes the connection between lead data and sales.

You can include additional metrics, like ROI, in your reporting by using actual revenue (through CRM imports) or estimated revenue based on average order values.

You can start answering their question by telling them what percentage of these leads converted into sales, the total revenue and ROI for that month.

Looker Studio: Create useful client reports

Looker Studio reduces the time you spend manually entering metrics.

You can create powerful data visualisations that help you tell your story of digital marketing.

You now have a list to get you started on the path to better client reporting.

The article Looker Studios reporting: 6 Do’s and Don’ts for Search Marketers first appeared on Search Engineland.