Google Looker Studio is a great reporting tool, that can be a really nice introduction to this facet of marketing. There are sure enough more powerful tools but Google Looker Studio (GLS) is a great way to get started. We’d like to show you our setup, so that you can get ideas.
This blog post (as well as the previous one) deals with the importance of reporting and without going over it again, it’s fair to say reporting has to add value. As a result we always build our reporting on GLS and we share it with the customers, so that they can monitor their activity in real time.
Make sure to check our video on the topic right here!
Word list
This is where we define the concepts of the report, so that our customers can always refer to them whenever in doubt. Remember, you’re used to the jargon, but your customer may not be.
Traffic tendency
Here we’ll add different metrics that give more insight about the traffic evolution throughout a period of time. We normally start by adding some highlights that indicate at first glance how things are. We also make sure to compare the information displayed with that of a previous period.
We finally add a box where we make comments, which tends to be the most valued part and we can’t recommend enough.
Website data
This section is a bit more specific about website traffic as the information reflects, since we+ll add a graph displaying the traffic evolution on the site compared to the same period the previous year, as well as page sources and most visited pages.
Once again, comments are recommended and highly valued.
Demographics
This section is pretty self explanatory. We include demographic data from the users who visit the site: Age, gender, location and which platform they use to access the website.
We also include the sources and the most visited pages for extra measure.
Organic traffic
This section is also pretty important, as it reflects the traffic you are getting organically and which queries generate it. We add a graph with the clicks and impressions as well as a list of the search words that generate that traffic. This is great insight for your SEO.
Google Ads
When we run Google ads campaigns, we add a slide to reflect that. We normally start with some highlights of the most relevant metrics (clicks, impressions, CTR and CPC), as well as a graph of the impressions and clicks (to see the evolution)
We also include the campaign and search words, in order to monitor how the campaigns have done.
Social media
GLS is a very useful tool, but unfortunately not all the platforms you use are supported natively and for free. As a result, if you want to add information about your social media campaigns, you need to go through a connector. There are tons of them and they will fulfill different needs, so your mileage may vary. For us, Supermetrics is a great tool, as it allows us to add relevant information at a decent price.
With this connector we can link the Facebook ad account we need and display the most relevant metrics (instead of showing ads manager or exporting a spreadsheet). Not only that, but we can show the best performing ads in a visual way and have all the functionalities GDS allows with the Facebook/Instagram metrics.
However, Supermetrics is not perfect and as we do more and more advertising on Snapchat, we see its limitations. There is no official support for it as far as we are aware, so we end up having to work around it, by uploading a csv file once the campaign is done. When you want to report in real time, one can see that is not an optimal solution. However, as platforms become more popular, so do all the tools related, so it is not crazy to think that Supermetrics (or any other tool) will allow Snapchat campaigns to be displayed properly in GLS.
To sum up
These are the metrics we use and the basis upon which we build our dashboards. However, there is no right or wrong answer and only by testing can you come up with the solution that fits you the best.
In the meantime, we are more than happy to address any questions you may have, so feel free to reach out!
Thanks for reading!