Marketing Headaches: Measurement and Reporting

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been excited about a new test for a client, thinking it was a fantastic idea until I started to write that idea out and realized I had to:

1. Determine what would qualify this new fancy idea as a success

2. Figure out how I was going to measure performance

3. Convey the two points above to the client on a regular basis

While strategy is great, the nitty gritty behind execution is just as important. I know first hand that aligning on measurement, and managing routine reporting, can be a headache for some marketers because there are no “correct” answers or standard playbooks.

That’s why I’ve spent time over the course of my career to develop a few frameworks that have helped me to navigate these situations. I’m sharing them here in the hope that they’ll help you too.

Determining Which KPI Makes Sense

If you were to scroll through LinkedIn, you’d undoubtedly see different perspectives on which marketing KPI is “best.” You’ll most likely see a myriad of different acronyms, with each touted as being superior than the others.

LTV:CAC, BPB, MER, the list could go on to fill up a few pages.

In my own experience, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach here. I might even be committing a cardinal sin by saying this, but sometimes I’ll monitor and optimize around more than one KPI.

For example, when evaluating campaign performance for one of my clients we’ll use cost per lead (CPL) to determine the effectiveness of a combination of ads and landing pages. However, at the same time we’ll be looking at the quality of those leads based on how many of them actually show up for the meetings that they book (show up rate). If ad A and landing page B have a strong CPL, but a weak show up rate, we’ll make adjustments accordingly.

I’ve found that digging into my clients’ business models helps me to better understand how their businesses determine success. Once I can better speak the language they use internally, I can choose more appropriate KPIs to report on when relaying campaign performance.

Aligning On A Measurement Model

Once you choose your selected KPI(s), now it’s time to figure out how you’re actually going to measure those data points. Easier said than done.

I’ve previously written about how measurement in marketing is changing due to the industry’s recent focus on privacy. With that said, there are still models we can use to paint a relatively clear picture of performance.

Similar to my points above, the first step to developing a measurement methodology is to understand the business model you’re working on. In addition to that, you’ll also need a good sense of that business’s marketing activity.

I’ll explain.

One B2C client I work with has a fairly straightforward business model. We run ads, users click on those ads to take advantage of a free offer, then the client team works on highlighting the value of their full package for the upsell. In addition to a simple business model, there isn’t much paid marketing going on outside of Meta. As a result, we rely on the CRM as our single source of truth for reporting.

Yes, I’ll still evaluate performance in Meta, and look at other sources to determine if we’re potentially misattributing performance, but this model has shown to be effective for the time being because it matches the complexity level of the business model and marketing program.

On the other hand, I work with a B2B client who naturally has a more complicated business model. As a result, we use a combination of ad platforms, GA4, and their CRM to triangulate measurement. By comparing the data across each of those three channels, we get a good sense of the user journey, and how different marketing activities contribute to driving leads.

Setting Up Reporting

Lastly, you’ll need to package up all of your data into a digestible report that can be sent to your team/client on a regular basis. The kicker is, no one likes spending hours pulling data and re-creating pivot tables in Excel.

A few things I’ve done to help me save time when building reports are:

• Using standardized campaign naming conventions to make segmentation and analysis easier

• Saving standard report templates in ad platforms to make data pulls quick

• Creating Looker Studio templates that allow me to quickly spin up reports to answer the questions clients care about most

By using these processes, I spend maybe 10 minutes a week total when creating a handful of different reports.

In the past, I’ve fully automated reporting so that it took 0 minutes a week, but that setup required a different infrastructure that carried a greater financial investment. There are always tradeoffs to increased automation, and sometimes a few hundred dollars isn’t worth 10 minutes.

Wrapping Up

While unfortunately a lot of these measurement and reporting conversations fall into the “it depends” category, I hope that the concepts I’ve shared here can help you develop your own methods.

In summary:

• I work with my clients to understand their business models so that I can report on KPIs that make sense for them

• I choose measurement methodologies that account for the complexity of the business model and marketing program

• I implement a few standard practices across all reports to help me save time every week

Leaning into each of these practices has helped to reduce some of these marketing headaches for me in my own work.

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).