Third-Party Digital Analytics Detailed Reporting

We’ve all looked at an analytics report and thought, What the heck does this mean? They can be complex and confusing — the kind of thing that makes advertisers roll their eyes and stop seeing the value of campaigns. On the other hand, clear, easy-to-understand third-party digital analytics can find a competitive advantage.

When reports define performance and deliver insights, you can use them as a discussion starter for prospective and existing customers. So, what makes these analytics a powerful sales tool?

Transparency and Completeness of Reporting Leave Nothing to Question

Transparency and completeness are vital to conveying performance. In some platforms, these key components may be unclear or even hidden. Ideally, you want impressions, clicks, site names, locations, video completions and other campaign performance indicators to be apparent and concise. For metrics to have meaning, reports should provide deeper insights relating to them. Some examples are:

Pacing of campaigns: View these reports during a campaign to see viewed impressions against ordered impressions.
Creative performance: Learn about the delivery and performance by creative.
Geofencing: Find out details on specific geofences regarding delivery and performance.
Location: Get the specifics on cities and ZIP codes for a campaign.
Websites and apps: Monitor the details of websites and apps associated with a campaign.

These types of reports enable you to answer campaign objectives.

Reporting Should Answer Campaign Objectives

In looking at the examples of reports, you can use the data they deliver to help answer the essential performance questions your advertisers have, including:

What was the daily campaign performance in terms of impressions, clicks and click-through rate (CTR)?
Which city or ZIP code had the highest number of clicks? Showing this in a map format can be a good visual aid.
What creative performed the best? If you find one creative that isn’t resonating, you can eliminate it from the campaign for better results.
How are people viewing the ads by device (e.g., mobile, tablet or PC)? Knowing this can support better targeting and improve messaging to users by the technology they use.
Which campaigns are overdelivering or underperforming? Answering this can help you make in-campaign adjustments.
What apps and websites have the best CTR? This is excellent intelligence for future campaigns to ensure they have appeal.
What type of impressions did a campaign have? Those could include audience-targeted and retargeting. It’s more insight that can drive future advertising strategies.

These are all foundational, but what about when you want to dig further? Customization lets you do so.

Customizable Reporting Is a Must

Some systems only provide a basic set of reports. Often, they don’t reveal everything you need to know. When you can customize reports in your third-party digital platform, you have more options to present an analytics story that’s meaningful to your advertiser. Be sure this is a feature in your solution.

A bonus to customization is the ability to save these reports and schedule them to run at specific intervals.

Third-Party Digital Analytics: Simple and Understandable

Access to robust third-party digital analytics is an advantage for local media sellers. If you can deliver easy-to-comprehend reports, your advertisers will appreciate the simplicity. It levels the playing field if you’re competing against large agencies with endless resources. It comes down to being able to have a conversation about results, with reports stating the data. You shouldn’t need to be a data scientist to understand analytics!

When you can provide this valuable information, you’ll win more business and retain your current advertisers.