How to create and present a marketing report

Creating compelling marketing reports doesn't have to be a chore.

With the right approach, your reports can become powerful tools that demonstrate value, drive decision-making, and strengthen your marketing team's position within the business.

Let's dive into how you can craft reports that actually get read and acted upon.

Why Reports Matter & What They Should Achieve

Marketing has evolved far beyond creative campaigns and brand awareness. Today, it's a core business unit that needs to justify its existence just like any other commercial activity.

Your marketing team must show that its value is inherent, has measurable accountability, and directly contributes to the overall success of the business.

A solid marketing report accomplishes something quite powerful for your organisation. It demonstrates the results of commercially aligned and strategic activities that enhance your brand's reputation and values amongst the public.

More importantly, it shows how effectively marketed products and services translate into real business outcomes.

Think of your marketing report as your team's moment to shine - a chance to connect the dots between creative efforts and commercial success.

Preparation: Getting Your Foundations Right

Set Your Framework

Before you write a single word, you need to establish your reporting rhythm. Will you be producing reports weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly? The frequency should align with your campaign cycles and stakeholder needs.

Monthly reports tend to strike the right balance for most businesses, providing enough data to spot trends without overwhelming your audience. Sometimes you'll need to produce a combination. 

Next, consider your format. Are you creating a presentation deck for board meetings, or a detailed Word document for a specific client? Your format choice should match how your stakeholders prefer to consume information and needs to remain consistent. 

Then you'll need to determine how to structure your report around your actual activities - whether that's campaigns, channels, or strategic initiatives. This keeps everything relevant and makes it easier for readers to follow your narrative.

Finally, you'll want to know how to efficiently source the data needed. Connecting and understanding your data sources is absolutely essential.

You'll need complete transparency about where your data comes from, the timeframes you're analysing, and any limitations that might affect interpretation.

This honesty builds trust and prevents misunderstandings down the line.

Establish Your Benchmarks

Money talks, so start by referencing your budgets and spend. You need to determine what return on investment (ROI) actually looks like for your activities.

Remember, some marketing efforts can't be easily measured for ROI - and that's perfectly fine. Brand awareness campaigns, for instance, often have longer-term impacts that don't show immediate returns.

Once you've determined what a suitable ROI looks like you can start setting KPIs and performance benchmarks. This is crucial for focusing results around measurements your business can actually understand.

Move beyond vanity metrics like impressions and likes. These are fine to include but they're not a valid business metric.

Instead, concentrate on metrics that matter: cost per click (CPC), acquisitions/conversions, cost per acquisition (CPA), return on ad spend (ROAS), or customer lifetime value (LTV).

Work with your colleagues in Sales and Finance to support this effort. 

Your benchmarks can also draw from a combination of your own historical data and industry-specific standards. This dual approach gives you both internal progress tracking and external context for performance.

Writing Your Report

Structure and Content

Before starting a huge manual effort, see if you can save yourself time (and your readers' attention spans) by using automation wherever possible.

Start strong with an executive summary that genuinely hooks your readers. Include the report's objective, the date period you're analysing, a snapshot of key KPI performance, and your most important learnings and recommendations.

This section should give busy stakeholders everything they need in under a minute of reading.

Present Your Data Clearly

Create meaningful data tables that highlight your KPIs clearly, showing increases and decreases in performance alongside whether you've met your benchmarks. Use colour coding or visual indicators to make trends immediately obvious.

Build on the rest of the report using the data as tables, charts, and graphs. However, it's better to embed dashboard links and templates that allow readers to explore data independently rather than cramming every chart and graph into your main report.

Keep your report focused whilst providing access to deeper insights for those who want them.

Make your content visual and engaging with strategic use of screenshots and video recordings. A well-placed screenshot of a successful campaign or a brief video can transform a dry report into something genuinely interesting.

Your content should be bullet points and clear highlights to summarise each section. Your stakeholders are busy people, so make it easy for them to scan and absorb key information quickly.

Here's where it gets challenging: marketers are always testing, learning, and modifying their approach.

You need to balance positive results, negative outcomes, and ROI insights honestly. Not every campaign will be successful, and some activities like A/B tests often produce inconclusive results.

Call these out explicitly and explain why they occurred. This transparency actually strengthens your credibility.

Don't forget to include a glossary of terms. Not every stakeholder will understand your marketing jargon, and different platforms often use different measurement definitions. A simple glossary prevents confusion and keeps everyone on the same page.

Presenting Like a Pro

Delivery Techniques

So you have a complete report, but what about presenting it?

If you're presenting your report rather than just distributing it, practice makes perfect. Develop your narrative using speaker notes that help you tell a compelling story with your data.

Your presentation should flow logically from objectives to strategy to results to learnings and recommendations. 

Use tools like PowerPoint's Speaker Coach, which helps you prepare in private to give more effective presentations.

Speaker Coach evaluates your pacing, pitch, your use of filler words, informal speech, euphemisms, and culturally sensitive terms, and it detects when you're being overly wordy or are simply reading the text on a slide.

After each rehearsal, you get a report that includes statistics and suggestions for improvements.

Consider recording your presentation, especially if stakeholders are in different time zones or have conflicting schedules.

A recorded walkthrough ensures your insights don't get lost in email chains or second-hand summaries from others.

Always finish by asking for questions and feedback. This isn't just politeness - it's an opportunity to address concerns, clarify misunderstandings, and gather input that can improve future reports and campaigns.

Key Takeaways

Effective marketing reporting comes down to preparation, clarity, and honesty.

Set clear frameworks and benchmarks before you start writing. Focus on metrics that matter to your business, not just impressive-looking numbers.

Present your data visually and structure your content for busy readers.

Most importantly, embrace both successes and failures in your reporting. Your stakeholders don't expect perfection—they expect transparency, insight, and a clear path forward.

When you deliver that consistently, your marketing reports become valuable business tools rather than necessary evils.

Remember, a great marketing report doesn't just show what happened - it explains why it happened and what you're going to do about it. That's the difference between reporting and true marketing.

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