5 Tips To Help Clients Understand Their Reports

Agency owners and freelancers wear a lot of hats. They're creative one moment, technical the next. Some days they're handling administrative tasks and the next they're doing client-facing work. 

And some days, you even have to translate your hard-earned results for clients, and that’s a whole other thing.

• What’s SEO again? 
• Why am I not on Google’s first page already?
• And the Facebook thingy, how did it go?
• What’s PPC? Play Per Cost?

Hear that? That’s the sound of a confused client. 

Fortunately, we’re here to help you out with some quick and easy techniques for you to help clients understand what's happening in their reports. 

Here are some of the best practices to make sure your confused client becomes… well, not as confused anymore.

1. Define terms as you go 

When you’re talking about campaign results and see that your client is suddenly silent, looking discombobulated, it might be time to take a quick break and explain a little more. 

For non-marketers, it's easy to get overwhelmed by all our crazy jargon and acronyms, so make sure that each time you introduce a new term, or change sections of the report, you explain in detail what you’re talking about. 

For example: “And now for the PPC campaign; the Pay-Per-Click ads we introduced last year on Google.“

If you just say: “And now for the PPC ads, it’s doing great, steady” and change the topic, your clients might not have the time to assimilate what you just said, and really understand it. 

Eventually, your clients will know the terms almost as well as you, and you won’t have to worry about explaining everything anymore, but in the meantime let’s assume that most clients need a little explaining.

2. Don’t swap terms

You know that PPC means Pay Per Click, it’s easy. 

When you’re talking about Google Ads, AdWords, Paid Ads, Search Ads, PPC, CPC, SEM, you know it’s all basically the same. 

But how are your clients supposed to not know that?

If you’ve always talked about Google Ads, and suddenly say: Your PPC campaign is doing great! They might not know what you’re talking about. They might even pretend that they do and nod, but come back later asking: so how’s our Google Ads campaign doing? 

Making sure you always use the same terms and don’t swap with synonyms when talking about KPIs/metrics will really help your clients understand what you’re talking about and will avoid unnecessary repetition, frustration, and misunderstandings. 

Remember, clients aren’t marketers: find one term and stick to it.

3. Keep it concise 

All these tips can be quite time-consuming, explaining everything and anything. But don’t worry, you don’t have to explain every single KPI or metric, just explain the most interesting insight for the period. 

Don’t waste your time explaining vanity metrics, or concepts that aren’t really relevant to your clients. Plan what you'll discuss beforehand. Keep your explanations concise and to the point, and talk about the metrics that are really important for their business.

Why talk about impressions, clicks, and sessions that remained stable this month, instead of jumping on the opportunity to talk about the 50% increase in conversion rate this month! 

That's what they want to hear, and that’s how you'll keep them interested!

4. Forget phone calls, use video conference

A call is great, but a video call is way better!

This will make it easier for you to gauge the client’s reaction to points in your report. Are they confused, excited, upset? 

On a phone call you would probably just get a confusing silence, maybe a Hmm mm, or OK if you’re lucky. And you would have to guess if your client either isn’t interested, is mad, or didn’t understand. 

A video call makes these reactions obvious so you know exactly how to continue the conversation.

5. Ask them if they have questions

Even if your clients look like they understand, make sure to ask them if they have any questions about their KPIs, metrics, results, or graphs.

Your clients are just like me and you, they don’t want to look stupid, so they probably won’t ask any questions if you don’t specifically give them the occasion to do so. Most of them will probably act as if they understand everything, even if they really don’t. 

Before switching to a new topic, make sure they fully understood the previous important metric by asking specific, open questions on the matter. You’ll quickly see if your client needs a little more explanation. 

With all those quick and easy tips, your clients will not only understand your reports, but they’ll also understand what an amazing job you’re doing, and the relationship between you will only grow from there! 

I hope you like our tips and if you try them out, let us know how it went!