How Four Marketing Experts Turned Their Data Woes Into Wins With Reports Library
Decisions, big or small, are easier for marketing experts to face when there’s data to help them make their choice. Whether they’re scrolling through software reviews as they consider what design tool would suit their needs or combing through click rates to pick the message that best resonates with their customers—it’s understanding the aggregated data that can help marketers confidently say, “Aha! That’s the one.” The difficulty is wrangling data together in a way that gives them the answers they’re looking for.
Four marketing pros share their love-hate relationships with data—how clearly it can paint a picture of their business’s performance and opportunities, yet how difficult it can be to work with.
Everyone has banged their heads against a wall at some point as they’ve tried to make sense of complicated Excel spreadsheets.
Take it from Krista Karpan, CEO and co-founder of the creative agency, Milked Media, who explains why analytics and reporting have historically been a struggle for her team.
It’s daunting. With all the data that’s available to us, it’s really difficult to sort through it and identify what metrics are most valuable to both us and our clients.
Krista Karpan, CEO and co-founder of Milked Media
Busy and fast-growing teams may feel like they don’t have time to thoroughly analyze their past performance. After all, they’re hustling to move forward—creating experiences that’ll engage their audiences and bring in sales.
But with data-backed insights, those same bustling teams can make smarter decisions that drive better outcomes. And with Klaviyo’s new Reports Library, reporting doesn’t have to siphon excessive time away from actually acting on their data.
Reporting has always been a challenge—but also a priority. Deciphering what all our data means and then using those insights to determine our next projects is central to making good decisions for our clients. But with the Reports Library, it’s easier than ever to dissect the data in ways that help us analyze it and present it to our clients.
Chormaic Sullivan, COO and co-founder of Beauchamp Sullivan & Co.
The uphill battle to manually collect data
Making efficient decisions isn’t always as easy as opening an app and reading through a collection of comments—especially when the data you need comes from a variety of sources, each with their own distinct format.
It’s tricky reconciling large amounts of data into a single source of truth, and Katherine Burlock from the email marketing agency, &BAM, would agree. She shared some of the complex processes her team had to trudge through to build valuable reports before using the Reports Library.
Everyone used to pull data from a handful of different places, so there wasn’t a lot of initial consistency in our numbers. Plus, it sometimes took several tries to figure out which combination of metrics would deliver an accurate picture of what was happening. This is what I needed to report on and share with our clients.
Katherine Burlock, Client Experience Director at &BAM
Even when they were past the trial-and-error phase of data collection and had a well-established process, it still proved tedious for marketers to find the results they needed. Chormaic Sullivan from the marketing agency, Beauchamp Sullivan & Co., outlined what it was like building their reports.
We exported all of our data—based on email automations or flows, campaigns, etc.—and then imported it into a Google sheet that ran reports for us based on custom developed formulas. They would spit out the results we eventually used to make our decisions. It was cumbersome, time-consuming, and prone to errors. For example, if we popped the data in the wrong cell, it would throw off the rest of our numbers.
Chormaic Sullivan, COO and Co-Founder of Beauchamp Sullivan & Co.
How Klaviyo’s pre-built reports changed the data game
For brands that have toiled with elaborate spreadsheets and mind-numbing formulas, the functionality of the Reports Library—including its stockpile of pre-built reports—proved to be a breath of fresh air.
The intuitive structure of the tool particularly impressed Krista Karpan from Milked Media.
The organization is incredible. Because of the categorized questions I can choose from in the beginning and the intuitive navigation, it’s easy to find the report I’m looking for without having to go on a wild goose chase.
Krista Karpan, CEO and Co-Founder of Milked Media
Katherine Burlock at &BAM seconded Krista’s experience and shared that because of the time she’s able to save during the week using Klaviyo’s pre-built reports, she can focus her attention on other business needs—and most importantly, her clients.
The ease of use of the tool is a big reason it stands out. The pre-populated reports make it simple to answer the questions we need to report on and you can truly create a report with one click. This means we have more time during the week to dedicate to our clients, instead of fussing around with data.
Katherine Burlock, Client Experience Director at &BAM
Not only does it free up time for marketing experts to create better experiences for their audience and zero in on the goals of their clients, but the Reports Library also improves the way agencies can communicate with their clients—and brands with their audience.
Because their data is now more accessible, it’s made it easier for both their internal teams and clients to digest the insights and have constructive conversations about the trends they see.
Our clients can look at the reports we share with them from the Reports Library and clearly understand the reasons behind why we’re focusing on certain things—like tweaking a particular message or designing new campaigns. Then when we need to use data to back up our plans, we have everything at the click of a button.
Chormaic Sullivan, COO and Co-Founder of Beauchamp Sullivan & Co.
Open the door to new possibilities with data from the Reports Library
Besides how easy it is to use the Reports Library to collect and comprehend data, experts also find the tool is helping them uncover previously unforeseen opportunities for improvement.
They lamented how much time they used to spend sorting through data instead of flexing their creative muscles. But because of the Reports Library, they’ve luckily been able to change their tune.
We’ve been able to shift the time we spent breaking down data and creating formulas to coming up with innovative and unique ways to reach the goals of our clients. We can see which messages performed the best, where drop offs are happening, and then compare and contrast what we need to do to be more successful—instantly.
Chormaic Sullivan, COO and Co-Founder of Beauchamp Sullivan & Co.
It’s now easy for Katherine Burlock and her team at &BAM to see where issues are cropping up or where there are quick ways to improve a flow or campaign for their clients. Plus, they can now think more strategically about how they approach planning a campaign.
Looking at sales by product name and category has reshaped how we plan out our clients’ campaigns. The Reports Library helps us narrow our focus on the campaigns and flows that need the most attention so we can feel assured we’re doing what we need to do to drive revenue.
Katherine Burlock, Client Experience director at &BAM
For Krista Karpan at Milked Media, the Reports Library helped her team reveal the different ways they could combine data to look at metrics from a new perspective—and their curiosity paid off.
It helped us think of topics in ways we hadn’t considered before. For example, we can look at deliverability through a new lens and expand on what we can learn from reviewing the behavior of people who received messages on desktop versus mobile, for example.
Krista Karpan, CEO and Co-Founder of Milked Media
Emily O’Brien, creative marketer from Woolery, summed up that the Reports Library essentially helps her team discover what they didn’t know previously:
We’re simply more aware of the complete picture of our account’s performance.
Emily O’Brien, Creative Marketer from Woolery