Whether you’re reporting to an operations director, a vice president, or the CEO, your marketing campaign reports need to deliver useful and relevant information in a way that’s easy to understand. These tips and tools for creating marketing campaign reports will help you in organizing your information and presenting it in an interesting and attractive way.

Start with clear, agreed-upon parameters

Before you launch your marketing campaign, it’s vital to ensure that you and your team understand what matters to the owners and other stakeholders of the company. Your campaign should be set up to address these goals. Include a plan to track your ROI.

Tips for reporting on marketing campaigns

• Include an executive summary. You will actually write this section last, since the purpose of an executive summary is to present in a succinct way the information covered in the report. The reader of the executive summary should be able to get a clear picture of the kind of information they will find in the report.
• Make it relevant. Refer to the goals you set before the campaign was launched and focus on the KPIs you agreed on when developing the campaign. Highlight metrics that support any assumptions or previous experience that helped inform your campaign, as well as information that helps make the case for additional resources or further action.
• Report on the objectives. Focus on how your campaign helped to meet the objectives of your marketing strategy and achieved specific goals.
• Tell your story with data. Keep your readers engaged by presenting your data within the context of your objectives and goals. It may be helpful to use the 5 W's of journalism when presenting your data: Who, what, when, where, and why?
• Be brief. It’s not likely that your audience is interested in all the details of how the campaign went. Keep in mind that the business owner and stakeholders are mostly interested in results.
• Be organized. Start with the most important of your objectives and present the results in an organized way. Go through each objective and present the same type of information for each.
• Use pictures. Visual presentation of data is easier to understand and will add an interesting element to your report. Consider different types of charts — line chart, pie chart, scatter plot, distribution chart — and determine which type will best display your data. Ensure that your chart or graph answers a specific question or addresses a specific objective, such as an increased market share or a certain number of new customers.

Helpful tools to assist with marketing campaign reporting

There are a number of tools available for tracking analytics. Megalytic provides templates to help you easily import data from Google AdWords and Google Analytics, as well as Facebook. You can also download a CSV file and widgets to drop into your reports. For measuring the effectiveness of your website, there is Mixpanel, which tracks user behavior and allows you to know which campaign brought them to your website. Marketing Evolution allows small companies to use big data to understand which messages work best, on what platform, and optimize accordingly to increase ROI.

For creating graphs, Sushi Status is reasonably priced and allows you to drag and drop the elements of your report into the order you prefer. If you prefer something more free form, Zoho Reports allows you to import data and easily create a visual summary. It also allows collaboration so that more than one team member can be involved in the design. It’s free for two users. Measureful connects with Google Analytics and Google AdWords, as well as Facebook, to collect all your data in one place, along with analysis, which you can then customize to fit your needs.

Finally, work with your media partner to find out what kind of reporting they can provide you, on what schedule, and include this information when planning your campaign.

Your marketing reports are of no use if no one reads them, so it’s important to make them interesting and relevant. Don’t make the process harder than it needs to be. Plan ahead and take advantage of the tools available and the information others can provide so that your report is a valuable resource for your company’s stakeholders.