Knowing what metrics to include in a marketing report is one of the most practical decisions a marketing agency makes. The right metrics tell a clear story - they show clients what is working, what needs attention, and where budget should go next. The wrong ones create noise that erodes trust and wastes everyone's time.
A strong marketing report does not simply dump data onto a page. It connects platform activity to business outcomes, presents numbers in context, and makes the next step obvious. Whether you are reporting on paid search, social media, email campaigns, or organic traffic, every metric you include should earn its place.
This guide walks through the essential metrics for each major channel, explains why each one matters, and shows how ReportsMate's automated reporting features help agencies build reports that clients actually read.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for Digital Marketing Reports
KPIs are the foundation of any credible marketing report. They translate campaign activity into language that business owners and marketing directors care about: growth, efficiency, and return.
The three KPIs that belong in almost every digital marketing report are:
Conversion rate - the percentage of visitors or leads who complete a desired action. This metric matters because it connects traffic volume to actual business value. A campaign driving 10,000 clicks at a 0.5% conversion rate is performing very differently from one driving 3,000 clicks at a 4% conversion rate, even if the click numbers look less impressive.
Click-through rate (CTR) - the ratio of clicks to impressions. CTR is a reliable signal of message relevance. Low CTR on a paid ad suggests the creative or copy is not resonating with the audience being targeted. Low CTR on an email suggests the subject line or sender name needs work.
Return on investment (ROI) - the net return from a campaign divided by its cost. ROI is the metric clients most often ask about and the one most agencies find hardest to calculate consistently. It requires accurate cost data, reliable conversion tracking, and an agreed definition of "return" - which varies by client.
Collecting these KPIs manually across multiple platforms is time-consuming and error-prone. ReportsMate automates the collection of conversion, CTR, and ROI data by pulling directly from connected ad platforms and analytics tools. Unlike AgencyAnalytics, which can require manual data entry for certain integrations, ReportsMate's data pipeline runs on a schedule you set - so figures are always current when a client opens their report.
To understand how ReportsMate works from data connection through to delivered report, the platform walkthrough covers the full process in plain terms.
Social Media Metrics to Track in Your Reports
Social media reporting is where many agencies lose client confidence. The temptation is to lead with follower counts and likes - numbers that look impressive but rarely connect to business outcomes. A more useful approach is to report on metrics that reflect genuine audience behaviour.
The social media metrics worth including in a client report are:
Engagement rate - total engagements (likes, comments, shares, saves) divided by reach or follower count. Engagement rate is more meaningful than raw engagement numbers because it accounts for audience size. A post reaching 500 people with 75 engagements is performing better than a post reaching 5,000 people with 100 engagements.
Reach and impressions - reach measures unique accounts who saw a piece of content; impressions measure total views including repeat views. Both matter, but for different reasons. Reach tells you how many people were exposed to the brand. Impressions tell you how often content was seen, which is relevant for brand awareness campaigns.
Follower growth rate - the percentage change in followers over a reporting period. Absolute follower numbers are less useful than the rate of change. A page with 2,000 followers growing at 8% per month is in a healthier position than one with 20,000 followers growing at 0.1%.
Video completion rate - for video-heavy strategies, the percentage of viewers who watch to the end is a strong signal of content quality and audience fit.
Pulling this data from Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X into a single report used to mean logging into each platform separately and copying figures manually. ReportsMate's multi-platform integration connects all major social channels in one place, so the data flows into your report template automatically. DashThis offers some social integrations, but agencies managing clients across five or more platforms often find its connector library limited compared to what ReportsMate supports out of the box.
Email Marketing Metrics: What to Include
Email remains one of the highest-return channels in digital marketing, which makes accurate email reporting particularly valuable for agencies managing newsletter or nurture campaigns.
The core email metrics to include are:
Open rate - the percentage of delivered emails that were opened. Open rate is a useful benchmark for subject line performance and list health, though it should be interpreted carefully given the impact of Apple Mail Privacy Protection on tracked opens since 2021. Treat open rate as a directional indicator rather than a precise figure.
Click-to-open rate (CTOR) - clicks divided by opens, rather than clicks divided by total sends. CTOR isolates the performance of the email body and calls to action, separate from subject line performance. It is a more precise measure of content relevance than raw click rate.
Unsubscribe rate - the percentage of recipients who opt out after receiving an email. A spike in unsubscribes is a clear signal that something in the send - frequency, relevance, or content quality - has shifted. Monitoring this metric over time helps agencies catch problems before they affect deliverability.
Deliverability rate - the percentage of emails that reach the inbox rather than bouncing or going to spam. Agencies sometimes overlook this metric in favour of engagement numbers, but a declining deliverability rate can undermine an entire email programme.
ReportsMate's automated email reports feature connects directly to major email service providers and pulls these metrics into your report on the schedule you configure. Swydo supports email reporting, but its automation options for scheduling and white-labelled delivery are more limited than what ReportsMate provides - particularly for agencies sending reports to multiple clients on different cadences.
Ready to enhance your marketing reporting? Log in to ReportsMate and explore how our features can streamline your reporting process.
SEO Metrics for Comprehensive Reporting
SEO reporting is often the section clients find hardest to interpret. Organic results take time to move, and the relationship between activity and outcome is not always linear. The job of a good SEO report is to show progress in a way that builds client confidence even when rankings have not yet shifted.
The SEO metrics that belong in a comprehensive report are:
Organic traffic - sessions or users arriving from unpaid search results. This is the headline number for most SEO campaigns. Track it over a consistent period (month-on-month and year-on-year) to account for seasonal variation.
Keyword rankings - the positions a site holds for its target search terms. Rankings are a leading indicator: they tend to move before organic traffic does, which makes them useful for demonstrating early progress. Report on a tracked set of keywords agreed with the client at the start of the engagement, rather than cherry-picking winners.
Backlink profile - the number and quality of external sites linking to the client's domain. A growing backlink profile from relevant, authoritative sources is one of the strongest signals of long-term SEO health. Report on new links acquired during the period, not just the total count.
Core Web Vitals - Google's page experience metrics, including Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS), and Interaction to Next Paint (INP). These are increasingly relevant to search performance and give technical SEO work a concrete, reportable output.
Click-through rate from search - the percentage of users who click a result after seeing it in search. Improving CTR from search without changing rankings is a legitimate optimisation strategy, and it is worth tracking separately.
ReportsMate integrates directly with Google Search Console to surface organic traffic, keyword position data, and CTR from search in real time. Whatagraph also offers Search Console integration, but ReportsMate's template system allows agencies to combine Search Console data with Analytics, paid search, and social data in a single unified report - rather than managing separate views.
Using ReportsMate to Automate Your Marketing Reports
Understanding what metrics to include in a marketing report is only half the challenge. The other half is building a reporting process that is consistent, efficient, and does not consume hours of agency time every month.
ReportsMate is built around two core ideas: automation and clarity. Agencies connect their clients' platforms once, configure a report template, and then let the system handle data collection, formatting, and delivery on a recurring schedule.
Custom templates allow agencies to build report layouts that match their brand and their clients' priorities. Rather than starting from a blank document each month, account managers work from a template that already knows which metrics to pull and where to place them. This consistency matters - clients who receive the same structured report each month find it easier to track progress over time.
Automated email delivery means reports land in client inboxes without anyone on the agency side having to remember to send them. Delivery schedules can be set to weekly, fortnightly, or monthly, and each report is generated fresh from live data at the time of send.
One agency using ReportsMate reported cutting their monthly reporting time from roughly twelve hours to under two hours after switching from a manual spreadsheet process. The time saved went back into client strategy work rather than data wrangling - a shift that improved both client outcomes and account manager job satisfaction.
For agencies considering the move to automated reporting, ReportsMate's pricing is transparent and scales with the number of clients managed. There is no per-report charge, which makes the cost predictable as an agency grows its client base.
FAQ
How do I choose the right metrics for my marketing report?
Start by identifying the client's primary business goal for the reporting period - whether that is lead generation, brand awareness, or direct sales. Every metric in the report should connect back to that goal. ReportsMate's template system helps agencies build goal-aligned report structures that can be reused and adapted across clients.
Choosing metrics without a clear goal in mind leads to reports full of numbers that do not tell a story. A useful filter is to ask, for each metric: "If this number changed significantly, would the client know what to do?" If the answer is no, the metric probably does not belong in the executive summary. Agencies managing multiple clients benefit from creating a small set of standard metric sets - one for lead generation clients, one for e-commerce clients, one for brand awareness campaigns - and then customising from there. ReportsMate's template library makes this kind of structured approach practical at scale.
Which tool is best for generating marketing reports?
ReportsMate is well suited to marketing agencies that need automated, white-labelled reports across multiple clients and platforms. Its combination of multi-platform integration, automated email delivery, and custom templates addresses the main pain points agencies face with reporting tools. Compared to AgencyAnalytics, DashThis, and Swydo, ReportsMate offers stronger automation for recurring report delivery.
AgencyAnalytics is a capable tool with a broad integration library, but its pricing scales per client, which can become expensive for larger agencies. DashThis is strong for dashboard-style reporting but less suited to agencies who need scheduled email delivery of formatted reports. Swydo covers the basics but has fewer customisation options for white-labelling. ReportsMate is designed specifically for the agency workflow: connect once, automate delivery, and spend less time on administration.
Is it worth investing in automated marketing reporting tools?
For agencies managing more than three or four clients, the time savings from automated reporting typically outweigh the subscription cost within the first month. Manual reporting across multiple platforms and clients can consume ten or more hours per month - time that is better spent on strategy, creative, or client communication.
The cost objection is understandable, particularly for smaller agencies watching their software spend. The useful comparison is not "what does the tool cost?" but "what does the alternative cost?" If an account manager spends eight hours per month building reports manually at an hourly rate of $80, that is $640 per month in labour - before accounting for the risk of errors in manually copied data. ReportsMate's pricing starts well below that figure for most agency sizes, and the 14-day free trial allows agencies to test the workflow before committing.
How do I track social media performance in reports?
The key social media metrics to track are engagement rate, reach, follower growth rate, and (for video content) completion rate. These metrics give a more accurate picture of audience behaviour than vanity metrics like total likes or follower counts. ReportsMate's multi-platform integration pulls data from all major social channels into a single report automatically.
Setting up social reporting manually means logging into each platform, exporting data, and reconciling figures across different date ranges and definitions - a process that introduces both errors and delays. ReportsMate connects to Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok, and X through direct integrations, so the data is consistent and current. Agencies can configure which metrics appear in each client's report based on the channels they are active on, rather than showing every available data point regardless of relevance.
Which metrics should I include for email marketing?
The essential email marketing metrics for a client report are open rate, click-to-open rate, unsubscribe rate, and deliverability rate. Together, these four metrics cover audience interest, content relevance, list health, and technical performance. ReportsMate's automated email reports feature connects to major email service providers and pulls these figures into your report template without manual exports.
Reporting on email performance without context can mislead clients. An open rate of 22% looks different depending on the industry benchmark, the list size, and whether Apple Mail Privacy Protection is inflating tracked opens. Including a brief note on how each metric should be interpreted - and what a meaningful change looks like - helps clients engage with the data rather than fixating on a single number. ReportsMate's template system allows agencies to add commentary fields alongside automated metric blocks, so context is built into the report structure rather than added as an afterthought.
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