12 Metrics Your Client Reports Should Always Include
Focus on KPIs that demonstrate real business impact.
Beyond Vanity Metrics
Clients don't care about impressions for impressions' sake. They want to know if your work is driving business results. Every metric in your report should connect to revenue, efficiency, or growth. Start with business outcomes and work backward to the marketing metrics that explain them.
The Core 12
1. Revenue attributed to marketing. 2. Cost per acquisition (CPA). 3. Return on ad spend (ROAS). 4. Customer lifetime value (CLV). 5. Conversion rate by channel. 6. Pipeline value generated. 7. Organic traffic growth rate. 8. Top landing page performance. 9. Email engagement rates. 10. Social engagement to conversion ratio. 11. Bounce rate by traffic source. 12. Month-over-month trend analysis.
Context is Everything
A metric without context is meaningless. Always include period-over-period comparisons, benchmark data, and brief explanations of significant changes. AI can help here — anomaly detection flags unusual changes and generates natural language explanations automatically.
Presentation Matters
Use clear visualizations. Bar charts for comparisons, line charts for trends, and tables for detailed breakdowns. Avoid pie charts when you have more than 4 segments. Lead with the executive summary and put detailed data in appendices.