Every advertiser you work with wants transparency. They want clarity around how digital ads deploy and perform. If you can’t highlight this in digital advertising reporting, you run the risk of being unable to tell the campaign’s story. If clients don’t know the details, they won’t connect the dots on ROAS (return on ad spend), which could impact renewals.
While every third-party digital platform offers reporting, they aren’t all equal. Ideally, it should be simple, accessible and accurate. When it doesn’t deliver on these things, you’re stuck with disconnected data that’s overly complex. Avoid these problems by seeking out a solution with these reporting module features.
5 Digital Advertising Reporting Features That Ensure Transparency
What should you be able to do with your reporting functionality? Several elements set your sellers up to explain and review performance, instilling credibility and trust.
Performance Metrics with Context
Standard performance metrics are part of any solution and include:
- Impressions
- Clicks
- Site names
- Locations
- Video completions
- Click-through rates (CTRs)
Those are just the basics. You’ll need more context for them to really mean something to your client. To enhance these numbers, you’ll want these features:
- Campaign pacing: It shows viewed impressions versus ordered ones.
- Creative performance: Know which creative performed the best.
- Geofencing reports: Determine the delivery and performance of each geofence.
- Location insights: Learn which cities or ZIP codes were the leaders.
- Devices: Discover what consumer devices saw the ad.
- Websites and apps: Show advertisers what websites and apps were associated with a campaign.
Exporting Charts and Data for a More Transparent Story
How you deliver information to clients matters as much as the metrics. Your client’s digital advertising literacy varies, and you want to provide something digestible for any level. Visuals like charts are an excellent way to do this. They can include a variety of metrics that showcase the campaign’s performance over time.
Once you know what’s most important to the client, you should be able to easily create, export and send those reports without manipulating data and building graphs in Excel.
Business Insights Are Easier to Capture with a Report Builder
Having a report builder as part of your third-party digital advertising platform is a usual option, but they aren’t all user-friendly or truly customizable. Having freedom here matters, so consider the usability of the report builder itself and what limitations it might present. For this functionality to support transparency, you should be able to select the metrics you want to highlight along with any visualizations.
Reporting Capabilities for Specialized Digital Advertising
Beyond display, video and OTT/CTV ads, you may also sell SEM (search engine marketing) and social media advertising. Their reporting frameworks are a little different, and your system may not deliver these in a way that’s clear on performance. For these tactics, you want a robust digital advertising reporting option that reviews all the metrics along with other performance insights. If your current solution can’t provide this, it’s something to consider if you decide to replace your existing software.
Integrated Digital and Linear Reporting
Like most media sellers, you offer campaigns for digital and linear tactics. Some third-party digital platforms integrate with your traffic system, so you can propose, order and report all components in one place.
Consolidating digital and linear reporting lets advertisers glimpse how they work together to provide more lift and engagement. Being able to highlight this to advertisers means they’ll want to continue with digital plus linear campaigns.
Transparent Digital Advertising Reporting Is a Competitive Advantage
When you have access to transparent reporting for digital campaigns, you can confidently share metrics with customers. Plus, you don’t want to spend hours cleaning the data up. Easy, accessible reports also foster trust because there’s nothing to hide. Reviewing these with advertisers after every campaign continues to build this and makes renewals much more likely. You can learn how this worked for Radio Mankato by reading their case study.
