Today, marketers have access to more than 8000 marketing technology tools, including more than 1500 digital marketing reporting solutions. The incredible variety of reporting software in marketing indicates its importance and ties it to the success of the marketing functions in any organization.
From marketing agencies to eCommerce professionals, marketing reporting dashboards are used to navigate various communication channels, track return on investment (ROI), and ultimately determine and measure key performance indicators (KPIs).
What is digital marketing reporting?
Digital marketing reporting refers to collecting and interpreting various metrics and dimensions on which the marketing function bases its decisions and forecasts performance and results. Digital marketing reporting provides access to insights that help marketers analyze data to drive business decisions and meet goals.
In a digital marketing report, data from various marketing channels are brought together for better clarity and understanding of any marketing activity.
Why reports are essential and how to get started
Digital marketing reports are crucial for any organization that bases its decisions on data. Marketing reports will underline the marketing efforts and elaborate on the ROI, helping decision-makers identify trends, sales, and growth measures. Equally important is the ability to find data that will highlight underperforming campaigns or changes in marketing that must be addressed on time. Therefore, any change will be made visible by data-driven marketing and influence the next moves in the overall strategy.
Benefits of using digital marketing reporting for your Shopify store
Developments emerging in the past decade have transformed the eCommerce industry, making it data-driven and highly relying on a variety of marketing software. Especially Shopify stores can be optimized and enhanced with more than 6000 apps in the Shopify App Store. This provides a multitude of options to create various engagement points and boost the power of paid and organic channels, including adding new ones during the customer journey.
Digital marketing reporting in such cases proves the value of all marketing efforts and helps decide on the winning channels, activities, and much more.
Marketing reports also touch on budgets and help marketers plan and understand budget allocation. Another benefit is tracking the same KPIs and comparing data on historical levels measuring progress over time.
Digital marketing reporting pitfalls
As digital reporting capabilities have evolved and a simple dashboard includes more complex data than ten years ago, one of the most common pitfalls is to include too much data. More metrics added to a report will not necessarily improve marketing performance but will disperse attention and add difficulty in navigating numbers.
Among the common pitfchannalls that affect collecting and visualizing accurate data is not using naming conventions for campaigns and the incorrect setup of tracking pixels for each used platform.
Another pitfall is adding metrics to digital marketing reports without context or interpretation making data obsolete. Tracking surface-level metrics such as clicks or impressions and lacking an in-depth understanding of such data is detrimental.
Best marketing reporting software for Shopify
Shopify-based stores can use the data provided in the Shopify native dashboard to grasp a macro overview of their business. Unfortunately, the data supplied by Shopify will not be analyzed at all. Also, Shopify's dashboard lacks integration with third-party data sets, so advertising spent and any other sales or product-related info will be unavailable. This is where the vast realm of Shopify analytics and marketing reporting software steps in. Marketers can choose from more than 1500 apps but should consider some vital features when selecting the best marketing reporting software for Shopify.
Ideally, the marketing reporting and analytics software will be easy to use. Offering a great user experience seems trivial, but sometimes, analytical tools that handle complex data are hard to set up and especially, to use.
Digital marketing reporting and analytics tools should also integrate with the channels a store uses. Ideally, if running a campaign on paid and organic channels like Criteo, TikTok, Google, or Meta, your go-to marketing reporting tool should be able to aggregate data from these sources.
Also, the most advanced software in the industry offers the possibility of collecting data from digital campaigns with various influencers or even tracking conversions from email campaigns. Other specific traits of digital reporting apps should relate to the collaborative aspect: marketers never work alone, and sharing data with other business functions is crucial. Therefore, a sharing capability and planned reports are other must-have features that generate competitive advantage.
Marketing reporting best practices: metrics and dimensions to include in your digital marketing reporting efforts
Not all available metrics and dimensions should be included in a digital marketing report. Ideally, reports are adapted for the audience they are presented to. Nontechnical stakeholders can be easily overwhelmed and lose focus if presented with more data than needed. Depending on the KPIs and specific goals of the marketing efforts, the most important metrics will demonstrate the ROI and highlight successful activities such as ads or influencer campaigns.
Typically, marketing reporting includes the following metrics and dimensions:
Best performing channels
Customer journey analytics
Best-performing paid ads, including copy and graphics
Cross-channel comparison based on various attribution models
Conversions
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Sales
Cost per Order (CPO)
Return on ad spent (ROAS)
Revenue
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
Cost per acquisition (CPA)
Direct to consumer (DTC) brands will want to include the most compelling data for their e-commerce specifics in a marketing report dashboard. But, metrics and dimensions will not secure a clear understanding unless the below applies.
5 digital marketing reporting best practices any marketer should implement
1. Consistency: compare the same metrics.
2. Data analysis: transform numbers into knowledge.
3. CLTV, ROAS, and CAC are a must.
4. Simplified reports are superior.
5. Adapt reports to the audience.
How to create a digital marketing dashboard with Admetrics Data Studio for Shopify
As shown above, choosing the proper marketing reporting and analytics tool will deeply depend on the set KPIs and goals and the needed depth of data.
Creating a digital marketing dashboard using Admetrics Data Studio is easy and intuitive.
Users will find a series of universal KPIs in a preloaded dashboard that is customizable and allows choosing between four attribution models, the time frame, and the desired dimensions and metrics to be included. The standard view offers a clear understanding of any Shopify Store's key metrics to track: orders, revenue(net sales), ROAS, CPO, repurchase rate, and new customers. Depending on the chosen omni-channel attribution model, the dashboard will also show traffic sources, the attributed revenue, the most profitable campaigns, and the performance of paid and unpaid traffic sources.
Admetrics Data Studio goes far beyond a simple reporting tool. The product deeply integrates the Bayesian statistics engine named Quantify, a product of the Admetrics family. The proprietary statistics engine quantifies how much better or worse a campaign, channel, or ad performs compared to the fair average of all running challengers.
This tutorial explains how to leverage the Bayesian statistics engine and run experiments for faster decision-making. Instead of the average, with Quantify, users will be able to see the most probable value and its accuracy.
In the performance view, Admetrics Data Studio will allow users to drill down into the performance data of any online store and filter results based on the desired dimensions or metrics. An example shown below is a performance view where the selected dimension is switched from the default traffic channel to the campaign - this becomes the first level reporting dimension. The selection below indicates the performance of all campaign ads that have a spend of over 100EUR.
Admetrics users can choose to invite other team members to join a certain dashboard, customize it and schedule the reporting.
The combination of transactional e-commerce data, performance marketing data, and tracked customer journeys allows for incredible reporting opportunities. Here re a couple of examples, but the possibilities are limitless:
For each channel, campaign, ad, or influencer you can mix and match the following metrics dimensions (small excerpt):
- Average order value (AOV)
- Revenue per customer (RPC / CLV)
- Repeat and new customers acquired
- Repurchase rates
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- Customer retention cost (CRC)
And even drill down on dimensions like:
- Sold products and variants
- Countries shipped to
- Discount codes
- And many more
To understand how to make use of more than 20 metrics and dimensions, you can check this series of short tutorials. After installing Admetrics, you get an assisted onboarding session with our customer service specialists who will explain how to leverage the product's capabilities and scale your business confidently.
Also, stores installing the app qualify for a free data audit. Install now.
