Are you thinking about starting daily marketing reports, but not sure if you need them?
One common misconception about working with data is the idea that it’s “boring.” The thought of sifting through spreadsheets while burning the midnight oil is far from appealing.
But with so many report automation tools available, making data-driven decisions for your marketing team or clients doesn’t need to be dull.
All you need to know are which KPIs to include in your reports and, of course, when to send them.
It’s that last part that I see marketing managers and big agencies get wrong all the time.
So, today, we’re starting a 3 part series on marketing reports. We’re going to cover which KPIs to include for:
- Daily reports
- Weekly reports
- Monthly reports
Today’s post will be dedicated to KPIs for your daily marketing reports.
But first, let’s get clear on why having daily reports can be such a game-changer for your business.
Why Are Daily Marketing Reports Important?
In the digital world, things move quickly.
Your marketing campaign could blow up overnight, or it might crash and burn without a trace.
Your brand might gain some positive attention, leading to loads of new customers. Or one bad Tweet can cause a dip in sales.
It means that your data isn’t a static, boring spreadsheet. Instead, data is a living, breathing aspect of your business that can have a direct impact on your return on investment (ROI).
To keep a careful eye on these day-to-day changes, you need a daily report. These will generally be shorter than your weekly reports and will focus on the most vital KPIs, so you can see the status of your campaigns immediately.
This lets you solve small problems before they become BIG problems.
Daily marketing reports also keep your team up-to-speed. They let you quickly identify problems and move to rectify them before they become too costly. And they help you to plan your day’s activities by identifying which areas most need your attention.
You won’t usually share these reports with clients or other departments. They are for your own use as a planning and monitoring tool, rather than a way to report back to others.
That said, remember that the reports you need will completely depend on your unique situation. So when we say you “usually won’t share these reports with clients,” that’s not a rule.
It’s a generality that you may or may not be an exception to.
Keep this in mind as we go through the various KPIs to include in daily marketing reports. You may need all of them or just a handful.
As a quick rule of thumb, it’s best to start small and expand over time. As you select the KPIs that are right for you, make sure to limit the amount you use in your daily reports.
Then, with time, you can add more to the list as your business grows.
But I’m confident that after reading this article, you’ll have everything you need to make your daily marketing reports more efficient, strategic, and profitable.
Let’s dive in.
KPIs to Include in a Daily Marketing Report
Your daily report should be a quick snapshot of your digital marketing activities, so you don’t want to overwhelm yourself by including too many KPIs.
Choose the ones you include wisely to give yourself a complete overview of your marketing campaigns without being distracted by irrelevant data.
We’ll break down our list of KPIs into the following sections:
- Paid Ad Platforms
- Engagement on Social Media
- Website Traffic
- Conversion Rate
1) Paid Ad Platforms
When you’re putting money into your online marketing efforts, you want to keep a close eye on how well it’s working.
You’ll make the most of your budget if you’re continuously monitoring the performance of your paid ad platforms. This means you can easily identify underperforming ads and adjust them before they cost you too much money.
So, every daily report should include KPIs to help you monitor your ad spend.
You can get similar metrics for both Google Ads and social media advertising, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Just be aware that there are sometimes small differences in how the various platforms use these metrics.
Advertising KPIs to consider putting in your daily reports are:
- Ad reach
- Click-through-rate
- Cost-per-conversion
- Cost-per-click
- Spend budget
- Total Conversions
Out of all of those, however, the two most important ones are usually:
- Cost-per-click
- Cost-per-conversion
These are KPIs that will answer the basic question: are your paid ads costing you more than they’re bringing in.
Next, let’s take a look at which daily KPIs you need for social media marketing.
2) Engagement on Social Media
As well as your paid ads, your organic social media engagement is one to monitor regularly. Your engagement will tend to ebb and flow over time but tracking it in your daily marketing reports means you’ll be instantly alerted to any unusual activity.
Sudden peaks or dips in engagement can indicate changes in your brand’s online presence. You’ll want to catch these immediately so you can manage your response and adjust your storytelling accordingly.
Social media KPIs to feature in your daily marketing reports include:
- Reach
- Engagement rate
- Follower growth rate
- Click-through-rate
The specific KPIs you need to track daily will depend on how much social media marketing you do.
Some businesses will need all of the above, and others won’t need any. If I had to choose one for my own daily reports, though, it would be click-through-rate.
This is the most practical KPI for knowing if the calls-to-action in my social posts are as strong as they could be.
For more information, you might want to check out this helpful post: How to Build a Social Media Report to Boost Your ROI.
3) Website Traffic
Just as your social media engagement can alert you to unusual activity around your brand, monitoring your website traffic in your daily reports is crucial to recognizing any sudden changes.
Peaks in website traffic, especially new users, are a good indicator that your marketing efforts are going well. Sudden drops, on the other hand, suggest there is some negative buzz around your brand that needs to be carefully managed.
Here’s a quick tip, though: don’t obsess over your daily traffic. You really only include these KPIs to look for major changes.
Minor fluctuations (both positive and negative) in your site’s traffic will absolutely happen.
You’ll also want to know where these website visitors are coming from. If you see an increased amount from one channel, you’ll know that you’re doing something right and can work out how to replicate it for your other audiences.
KPIs that you should put in your daily reports to monitor website traffic and where it is coming from include:
- Unique users
- Total sessions
- New users
- Session source/medium
- Conversions by source/medium
Out of all these KPIs, I would recommend watching your unique users and your sessions source/medium.
These will give you the best snapshot of who’s coming to your site, and where they’re coming from.
4) Conversion Rate
Of course, it isn’t much good sending lots of people to your website if they aren’t interested in your products or services once they get there.
Your conversion rate is a great indicator of whether you are attracting the right people to your site or not.
So, you’ll want to include it in your daily reports.
When monitored alongside website traffic, your conversion rate can tell you some valuable things about the performance of your digital marketing. If it’s lower than you expect, you can adjust your landing pages, ad copy, or target audience accordingly.
You don’t want to wait until next week to have that information or you will miss out on valuable leads.
If you’re making changes to your digital marketing campaigns regularly, checking your conversion rate every day also helps you monitor the success of those modifications.
As well as your overall conversion rate, you might want to include conversion rates for different landing pages or by source/medium to help you identify which parts of your funnel are working well and which need modifying.
You may have several different conversion goals set up in Google Analytics. You can include the conversion rate for all of them in your daily reports or just concentrate on the most important.
Out of all the categories mentioned in this post, your conversion rates will be most unique to your current situation.
You’ll want to monitor any changes or dips in conversion rates for your most pressing marketing goals.
How to Build Automated Daily Marketing Reports
Once you’ve determined the right KPIs for your daily marketing reports, it’s time to build it. For that, I always recommend using a report-building tool.
And your best bet for daily marketing reports is Metrics Watch:
Metrics Watch is a report builder that lets you share your marketing reports with the least amount of friction.
It has a drag and drop builder to let you quickly and easily create custom reports for your team or clients.
You can also hook up Metrics Watch to your favorite marketing channels, such as:
- Google Analytics
- Google Search Console
- Facebook (both paid ads and organic posts)
- LinkedIn (both paid ads and organic posts)
- And more…
From there, you can select who needs this data and when.
But here’s the best part: Metrics Watch is one of the few marketing report builders that doesn’t require you to share reports in a PDF attachment or a 3rd-party user dashboard.
I’ve found that PDF attachments are annoying to organize for myself and my clients. Plus, it boosts the risks of attaching the wrong PDF to the wrong recipient.
Online reporting dashboards have a similar problem: your recipient needs to remember their long information (username/password) AND remember to use it.
It’s that last part that usually breaks down, especially for daily marketing reports.
Instead, Metrics Watch focuses on giving people the data they need in a format they already know.
Want to give it a shot? Click below to start your 100% risk-free Metrics Watch trial today (no credit card required):
Build Your Daily Marketing Reports Now!And that’s it!
We hope you found this article helpful. If so, stay tuned for Part 2 of our marketing report series. In the next segment, we talk about what KPIs you should include in your weekly reports.
For now, you might find the following resources helpful:
These articles will have everything you need to help you make smarter, data-driven decisions to generate more revenue and grow your business.