As an agency owner, delivering high-quality, informative reports is crucial to maintaining client satisfaction and driving growth. But you already knew that if you read our article on why white label reporting is important. And while white label social media reports offer a valuable tool for showcasing your agency's expertise and demonstrating the impact of your social media strategies, clear and transparent reports are not always easy to come by in the white label space.
In this blog, we'll delve into the essential data points that should be included in all white label social media reports, focusing on both paid and organic social media. Beyond that, we’ll also explore the different types of reports that could be provided to ensure your agency doesn’t just have the data, but has analysis behind it.
Types of White Label Social Media Reports
There’s basically two types of social media reports you can and should be receiving from a white label provider as an agency, or delivering to the agency as a white label provider. Those are:
Dashboards
Recaps and Analyses
White Label Social Media Dashboards
Think of the dashboard like a live view into the campaign that’s being run on each social media channel. This includes all of the high level metrics and key data points we’ll get into shortly and is typically represented by connecting the platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc. to a reporting tool like Agency Analytics or DashThis. Or if you’re really good, you can make your own in Looker Studio (spoiler alert, that’s what we did). Read our blog on what is a white label social media dashboard for more details and why dashboards are so important.
In the end, the dashboard doesn’t provide any actual analysis of the campaign that’s actually running, it’s all just data represented in one view. That’s where a monthly recap or analysis can come in handy.
Recaps and Analyses
Providing a recap and analysis is an essential part of white label social media reporting. Where the dashboard can and should provide key metrics, the analysis provides key insights. For the best output, a social media report, whether it be organic media or paid, should always include the 3 following items.
Performance Towards the Goal:
Every campaign needs a goal. Whether it’s a specific ROAS, a cost-per-lead number that ensures profitability for the client, a media/marketing efficiency ratio, or something else that’s quantifiable, there must be a goal. And with that goal, the social media report should always include how its channels are aiding in relation to that goal, whether it has been performing well or not.
What’s Happening:
Think of this section as a deeper dive into what’s actually going on in the campaign. This is where the white label report should include an analysis of why the campaign may or may not be achieving the goals set out. Beyond that, it is the job of the white label provider to not only say what changes they’ve been making to the campaign to improve its performance, but the reasons behind the changes so the agency can have a greater understanding of what’s going on before they present it to the client.
Next Steps:
This seems like a simple one, but it’s often forgotten. Including next steps not only sets expectations, but it shows proactivity and planning. The added benefit is that the white label provider should be following up on their next steps the next time you talk.
Key Data Points for White Label Paid Social Media Reports
Now that we’ve gotten through the basics, it’s time to get specific. Whether the following insights and metrics appear in the dashboard, the recap, or both, they’re imperative to include in a white label social media report.
Primary Goal (CPA [cost-per-action, like leads or purchases], ROAS, etc.):
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before but the primary goal of the campaign should be front and center of the dashboard and the first thing talked about in the recap. After all, this is what the client is measuring the campaign against, and it’s likely the only thing they care about. This requires accurate tracking set up and if you’re showing this in the dashboard as well (which you should be), a connection to the client’s Analytics account, CRM, or wherever the goal is being tracked.
Channel Performance Metrics:
Channel-specific metrics give context to how the campaign is performing from a paid standpoint. If the campaign is surpassing the client’s goal and making them money, they’re unlikely to care about metrics like their click-through rate, but they can provide insight or additional context into how effective certain messages are, what audiences are engaging, etc. Some channel-specific metrics to include as support are:
Spend: Perhaps the most obvious one, the spend simply reflects the dollars that were actually spent within the platform on media. It’s important to maintain transparency with the client how much of their budget is actually going to media.
Reach and Impressions: Measures the number of unique users exposed to the ads and the total number of times your ads were seen. This can be important to provide frequency numbers, particularly as it relates to prospecting and remarketing campaigns.
Cost per Click (CPC): The cost-per-click evaluates the efficiency of the ad spend and is one of the most important supporting metrics (along with conversion rate) in determining how you can drive the lowest CPA possible.
Clicks and Click-Through Rate (CTR): Tracks the number of clicks on the ads and the percentage of impressions that resulted in clicks. This can be particularly useful when assessing ad performance.
Cost per 1,000 Impressions (CPM): Tracks how much you’re being charged for 1,000 impressions.
Conversion Rate: CR measures the percentage of clicks that led to conversions (e.g., purchases, sign-ups), which can be great to determine not only audience quality, but landing page effectiveness.
Platform/Placement Breakdown: With so many different ad placement options in social media, particularly on Facebook and Instagram, analyzing where the ads are serving can help advertisers create future ads to maximize their effectiveness.
Audience Insights:
Audience insights can also be great supporting metrics that help determine if you’re reaching the right users. Some metrics to include are as follows:
Demographics: Analysis of age, gender, and interests can help determine where the budget is best spent.
Device Usage: Determining the percentage of impressions and clicks that occurred on different devices (e.g., mobile, desktop, tablet) can help the dev team determining which devices they should focus on when building out a landing page, although ensuring every landing page is responsive and optimized for all devices should always be a priority.
Key Data Points for White Label Organic Social Media Reports
Measuring the impact of an organic social media campaign can often be a difficult task, but it’s not all that different from paid media in terms of the reporting style.
First and foremost, just like paid, always include the primary goal as your number one focus. For most clients, this is an increase in followers on the organic social media accounts, but regardless of what the goal is, or how effectively the white label provider is managing social media, reporting on the primary goal is paramount.
Beyond that, if you’re already outsourcing to a white label provider for organic social media, chances are key metrics and other social media activities are being tracked in their scheduling platform of choice. Platforms like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Cloud Campaign already have API integrations and can paint a picture of what’s going on in the world of your client’s social media. Regardless, it’s important to touch on the following key data points:
Follower Growth: We just touched on this one, but good organic social media content breeds followers, and this should be one of the top data points reported on, even if it’s not the primary goal.
Engagement: Much like follower growth, a good organic strategy facilitates engagement. The percentage of users sharing, liking, and commenting on your client’s content has a massive impact on the reach of the content.
Reach: Reaching as many relevant users as possible is essential to create awareness for a brand, so reporting on this is a no brainer.
Content Performance: Using the three metrics above, identifying the types of content that resonate most with the client’s audience infers future decisions about what a good and bad post looks like.
Audience Insights: Reporting on the audience the social posts are reaching not only helps determine if you’re reaching the right user, but a strong performing post can also uncover demographics your client’s brand hadn’t considered as the type to be interested in their brand.
Benefits of Comprehensive White Label Social Media Reports
It’s probably pretty obvious by now, but a comprehensive white label social media report comes with a lot of benefits.
Enhanced Client Satisfaction: Delivering insightful and visually appealing reports helps build trust and loyalty with your clients.
Improved Decision-Making: Provide your clients with the data they need to make informed decisions about their social media strategy.
Demonstrated Expertise: Showcase your agency's knowledge and skills in social media marketing.
Increased Revenue: By demonstrating the value of your services, you can increase your agency's revenue and secure long-term partnerships.
Putting it All Together
By providing your clients with both a dashboard and recap with the data points mentioned, you can create valuable resources that help your clients understand the impact of your social media efforts. This demonstrates expertise on your part, leads to enhanced client satisfaction, and likely increased revenue from your now secured long-term partnership.
If you’re interested in working with an elite white label provider with reports just like these, feel free to contact us and schedule your discovery call.
