B2B ad reporting strategy

[Intro]

 This is the B2B Performance Marketing Podcast by WebMarketer. Here to help you make the right moves with your B2B advertising. No spin, no smoke and mirrors, just honest insights from the advertising frontline.

Script:

🟩 MAELIEN:

Welcome back to the Podcast.

I’m Maelien

 🔷 LOUIS:

And I’m Louis

Today we’re going to be talking about getting the most out of your ad reports.

Okay, picture this…

You’ve got a report in front of you.
It’s got all the charts – clicks, impressions, conversions – a few green arrows going up.
It looks good.
But there’s a part of you thinking… what does this actually tell me?

(example image)

🟩 MAELIEN:
If this sounds familiar, don’t worry you’re not alone.

Every marketer has already got more than enough on their plate. 

And reporting isn’t something they want bulking this up.
In fact, reporting is almost a universal sticking point when it comes to ads.

The fact that so many prospective clients ask what our reports look like before working with us backs this up.

If a report needs more than a quick tweak or two, the idea of working with your agency or team to fix it can feel a bit overwhelming.

The truth is that reports need to be comprehensive enough to give you what you need, and simple enough for you to get answers quickly. 

 🔷 LOUIS:
So this episode we’re going to cover how you get there..

We’ll break down how to get reports you actually want to read, spot what really needs attention, and use data to make better decisions faster.

This one’s for any B2B marketer who’s had to smile their way through a 20-slide performance presentation and still come away feeling a little lost at sea.

🔍 Segment 1: The Problem with Most Reports

🟩 MAELIEN
In our experience, most reports fall into one of two categories.

You’ve either got the spreadsheet dump – so tables of raw data, with zero context.

Or you’ve got information diarrhoea – pages of narrative full of words that somehow don’t manage to tell you anything.

Part of the problem here is that the team managing your ads understand that: 

• Insights aren’t just content
• Reporting isn’t just a pointless admin task
• And data isn’t for decoration

 🔷 LOUIS

If you’re wearing lots of hats and spinning lots of plates – your reports have to do a job for you.

They need to be the interface between the mechanics of what’s being done in the ad channels and how that relates to the bigger performance picture of your marketing.

And, more importantly, they need to help YOU. And they need to do that in t wo ways.

Firstly, they need to give you the confidence that everything is under control

And secondly, they need to equip you with the performance story – so that if someone higher up the food chain asks how it’s going, you know exactly what to say.

🛠 Segment 2: The 3 Jobs of Data

🟩 MAELIEN
On that note, let’s talk about the key things your reports HAVE  to tell you.

Now this is a bit of a working theory. When you think about it – you should be able to bucket every point into one of three categories:

1. Diagnose
2. Decide
3. Demonstrate.

(graphic- The 3 jobs of data – as above)

Every point needs to earn its place in the report. So if it’s not helping you spot a problem, make a decision, or prove something is working, then it’s just adding noise 

– or if we’re being brutally honest, it’s wasting your time.

If these three categories are used with intention it will help transform junk data into useful insights.

Let’s run through a few scenarios to give this some context, starting with diagnose.

Rather than just “the cost per lead has increased this month”. 

Looking at this through the ‘diagnose’ lens we might get “the cost per lead has increased this month, since the promotion we were running last month has ended.”.

Or “the experiment we are running this month has pushed the cost per lead up, but we’re keeping a close eye on it and will review in 2 weeks”.

It’s not just stating an outcome, it’s providing some context around what might have caused it.

 🔷 LOUIS:
Then you’ve got decide.

For example instead of “the clickthrough rate on LinkedIn is starting to drop”. 

It could be “the clickthrough rate on LinkedIn is starting to drop. This could mean that ads are starting to fatigue so we’ll need to introduce some new creative.”

This is data that helps you make a decision. So whereas the diagnose lens will make sure any insights are contextualised, decide will make sure it’s acted on.

🟩 MAELIEN

And finally, there’s demonstrate. 

For example, instead of: “Conversion rate on this campaign is only 1.2%, but it’s important that we keep it live.”

It could be: “While the conversion rate looks low at 1.2%, the leads it’s generating have a much higher average deal value and close rate. 

So even though it looks like an underperformer on the surface – it’s actually one of the most profitable campaigns we’re running.”

So this goes beyond recommending an action, and builds a case for why that action is justified.

📊 Segment 3: Our Reporting Structure

 🔷 LOUIS

So rather than just living in theory land. To give all of this a bit more real-world context, we thought it might help to share how we do reporting at Web Marketer.

(graphics- highlighting each of the 4 examples below)

[Ignition]

As a quick aside – every new client runs through what we call an ignition phase which makes sure we’re aligned on strategy and targets / KPIs. Which then feeds through into their reports.

[Weekly Pulse Reports]

Once campaigns are live, we do weekly pulse reports for fast feedback. These aren’t deep dives. The goal here is performance control.

 Each one shows spend vs budget, progress vs target, and month elapsed vs month remaining. 

It’s quick, clear, and designed to flag issues early—so there are no surprises at the end of each month.

We also pride ourselves on transparency. So running weekly pulse reports, is our way of demonstrating that we’re not just running reports and looking through the campaigns once a month.

[Monthly Insights]

Then each month, we hold insight calls.

 These are deeper reviews where we look at performance by channel, MoM and YoY comparisons, ROI, and considerations for the next month.

This is where the decision-making happens—what we double down on, what we drop, and what we test next.

We also use that time to reflect on what the client’s seeing on the ground. We often say: we’re the media expert and the client is the domain expert — and the best solutions are in the grey area between the two, so it’s really important to get both perspectives on what the data is saying. 

[Client Cadence]

🟩 MAELIEN

And finally, there’s client cadence. This isn’t a report—it’s more like a layer of alignment. Every client is working to some kind of internal rhythm: seasonal peaks and troughs, quarterly demand gen pushes, annual targets just as a few examples. 

Our job is to make sure that rhythm is reflected in strategy, reporting, and planning. That way, the work is never just running ads for the sake of it, it’s tied to a bigger, more holistic view.

🚩 Segment 4: Cadence & Communication

 🔷 LOUIS

This brings us to the last piece: alignment and partnership.

In our experience, the strongest client relationships aren’t just built on great results.

They’re built on trust—and on knowing your agency or in-house team has your back.

Because when you’ve got that, you can lean on it.

You can say, “I’ve got a board meeting next week—can you send me a few bullet points on what we’ve done and what we’ve achieved?”

You can ask for the full, warts-and-all version of a report in an email—and a polished, board-ready version in the deck.

You can ask for any points that don’t make total sense to be expanded on.”

And ultimately, if your reports aren’t hitting the mark, you don’t need to have all the answers—you just need to say it’s not working for you. That should be enough to kickstart a conversation to tear down the insights and build them back into something that works for you.

Every business is different. But being clear about what you need goes a long way towards getting reports that do what they need to.

And a good team will make it happen, because your success is directly tied to theirs.

🟩 MAELIEN

Alright, great. Takeaway time.

Let’s summarise what we’ve talked about to wrap things up.

1. Use the “Diagnose, Decide, Demonstrate” lens to get useful insights
If you’re reading reports and the insights aren’t useful, you can use this framework to focus your questions and how you push back.

Ask yourself: Is this helping me spot a problem? Make a decision? Show progress clearly?
If not, that’s your cue to ask for clarification.

2. Make sure you’re getting the right information at the right time
In our process, weekly pulse reports give you quick control data so you know where you are at—things like spend vs budget and progress to target.

Then monthly insight calls go deeper covering things like channel performance, strategic actions, ROI, and what’s happening on the ground.

While this approach might not be perfect for you, hopefully it works as a solid place to start from.

3. Lean on your partners and communicate what you need

If you’re getting long-winded notes, unclear dashboards, or vague insights that create more work for you to untangle, know you’re not stuck with it.

Any agency or team worth their salt will work with you to sharpen things up.

Outro

 🔷 LOUIS
If you found this useful, please leave us a review. Our goal is to remove the smoke and mirrors from the B2B advertising world, and reviews will really help us towards this.

And if you’ve got a burning question or are facing a challenge that you’d like us to explore, just let us know.

You can head to webmarketeruk.com/topic and fill in the form.

We really wanna make every episode as useful as possible, and we read every single message. Catch you on the next episode.