As a marketing agency, it’s your job to help your clients understand the value of marketing spend and how that money translates to ROI. That’s why they hired you — you’re the experts!

28% of small business owners report they have no visibility into how their chosen marketing agency uses their budgeted spend. When over half of those owners don’t have enough time in their day to complete all of their job responsibilities, the last thing they want to do is chase down reporting across multiple tools and channels and try and make sense of it themselves.

In a time when budgets are strapped and marketing channels are multiplying, the biggest value you can provide to your clients as an agency is transparent and actionable reporting. In this article, we’ll walk through the top pain points small business owners experience and how you can provide the right reporting to enhance trust and retain more clients — especially if you’re a certified CallRail Partner.

Problem #1: They lack insight into their most effective marketing campaigns and have difficulty budgeting for the next year.

A typical marketing strategy involves placements across multiple channels — digital ads, organic and paid search, marketplace listings, offline outreach, and so on. Multiply that by the number of campaigns an average business runs in a year, and you can see why reporting can get out of hand, fast.

Even from an agency perspective, if you or your client lack the right management tools to automatically gather this data in one place, you have to spend time meshing reports from several different platforms in order to put together a cohesive data story. This lack of insight makes it very difficult to properly plan next year’s campaigns based on the successful campaigns of this year.

The Solution: Build a report like CallRail’s Multi-touch Cost Per Lead Report. This report ties your inbound call, text, live chat, and form submission data to ad spend data and directly attributes leads to online and offline marketing efforts. You’ll then be able to determine which of your client’s campaigns earned the most revenue during the year and help them decide whether to replicate those campaigns in the future.

Problem #2: They don’t know where their inbound phone calls are coming from and cannot attribute back to the right marketing campaigns.

Before digital, researching and reporting on where leads were coming from was a ton of work and, frankly, a huge time suck. Especially when you consider sales reps might make between 50 and 100 calls a day, it’s easy to see why information might get lost in the process if your client is relying on their reps to ask “How did you hear about us?”

In order to understand marketing campaign effectiveness, you need to know where those inbound leads are coming from, whether it was your client’s Instagram ad, email outreach, bus wrap, or any combination of tactics. A full description of the lead’s journey can prove to be incredibly helpful, not only for understanding campaign success, but improving the lead experience, too — and hopefully turning more of them into customers.

The Solution: Build a report that provides insight into the sources and interactions that drive traffic and generate inbound calls, texts, and chats. With something like the Call Attribution Report in CallRail, this process is a breeze. You’ll be able to share the entire customer journey, which campaigns are most successful when it comes to generating new customers and revenue, and which campaigns could use some work in the new year.

Problem #3: They aren’t able to identify which keywords are the most successful for their marketing program.

In the age of big data and digital transformation, having a clearer understanding of ROI is crucial for marketers in any size organization. Looking at call tracking and analytics can help your clients figure out which marketing campaigns and top keywords are driving valuable leads and closed-won business.

This can be hard though — not only for your clients, but for you and other agencies as well. You often won’t have the access or visibility you need into your client’s interactions with their customers and may not have the ability to fully understand common language for that business or industry. This makes reporting on certain keywords and phrases particularly difficult.

The Solution: CallRail’s Key Terms Spotted Report provides a full breakdown of the targeted key terms and phrases used most often during your client’s business calls. You’ll be able to provide a list of how many calls featuring their key terms were then marked as qualified leads.

Key takeaways to remember when building standout reports for your clients

1. Use the right tools and grow with your client and their needs over time. As your client grows revenue and expands marketing efforts, their needs will change — so your reporting should, too.
2. Set the right goals from the beginning and establish a baseline. Setting predefined KPIs will help you and your clients track success, identify bottlenecks, and determine campaigns with room for improvement. Plus, by establishing a baseline, it’s easier for you to show growth and prove your agency’s value to their business.
3. Tell a story with your client’s data — and don’t forget to make it actionable. Numbers (especially those that move up and to the right) are great to look at, but don’t forget to tell a story behind those numbers. How does all of the data interact? Why does any of it matter? Set the stage by defining those KPIs, what they mean, and how your reporting shows progress on those goals so your client can take that knowledge into their next campaign.

Support your clients and grow your revenue as a member of the CallRail Partner Program today.

As a CallRail Partner, you’ll help your clients succeed with all of the reports and insights we’ve discussed with the bonus of support from the CallRail team and a dedicated account manager. If you’re interested in providing actionable and thorough reporting for your clients with transparent data and tracking, our Partner Program is for you.

Earn a 20% monthly revenue share, become eligible for quarterly cash bonuses, and grow your business — and your clients’ businesses — by becoming a CallRail Partner today.