How to Make a Marketing Report in Less Than 15 Minutes

Reporting Shouldn’t Steal Hours From Your Week

Ask any marketing professional what they didn’t sign up for, and “manually building digital marketing reports” will be near the top of the list.

But here we are. Screenshots, spreadsheets, chasing down last-minute metrics from Google Ads or social media platforms… then stitching it all together with a silent prayer that nothing breaks in the process. And the kicker? It starts all over again next week or next month.

You’re not alone. Many agencies spend an average of 1.5 to 4 hours per client just to create a marketing report. Multiply that by 20+ clients, and suddenly your team’s best minds are stuck copy-pasting instead of campaign-optimizing.

And when reporting eats up that much time, it pulls focus from strategy, slows down delivery, and makes it harder to grow.

On average, it took 60-90 minutes to prepare and send client reports. When you multiply this out by 10-15 clients per SEO Executive, this would mean that anywhere from 10-22.5 hours were spent on reporting by each staff member, every month.

Brad Russell, Founder, Digital Hitmen

Here’s the good news: you can create a complete, client-ready marketing report in under 15 minutes—without compromising on quality, insights, or branding.

This article walks you through:

• What actually goes into a good marketing report

• A step-by-step system to build one in minutes (not hours)

• How automation frees your team for higher-value work

• Real-world proof from agencies that’ve already made the switch

Whether you’re a solo operator juggling a handful of clients or managing a 10+ person marketing team, saving time on reporting means gaining time for everything else that matters.

Why Speed Matters: The Cost of Manual Reporting

Time isn’t a bonus for marketing professionals—it’s a budget.

Digital agencies sell time, and if a client buys 5 hours of your time, and you waste the first 20% on a report each month, you have less time to scale the client. 

Mikael Sørensen, Head of Marketing, Adtention

Every hour spent cobbling together a digital marketing report is an hour taken from campaign optimization, client strategy, or new business. That cost adds up fast. Especially when reporting isn’t just happening once—it’s weekly, monthly, quarterly. Across dozens of clients. Across every marketing channel.

And manual reporting is rarely just about dropping numbers into a doc. It’s:

• Digging through disconnected data sources

• Rechecking metrics to avoid sending the wrong numbers

• Formatting charts to make them “client-ready”

• Writing out insights, goals, and what’s next

That’s why reporting becomes a bottleneck. And when reporting slows you down, so does everything else—like decision-making, campaign pivots, or proving the ROI of your marketing efforts.

The team used to spend about 1 hour creating reports for each client. So, that would mean each team member was spending about 20 hours every reporting session just to create the reports, let alone present them.

Now, with AgencyAnalytics, it's really a matter of minutes. We created our own custom report templates, and once they're copied into an account, we create a shared link for the date range we want to report.

Brendan Chard, Owner, The Modern Firm, LLC

Manual reporting eats up time—and it introduces risk. The more touchpoints involved, the more chances there are for:

• Broken links, Excel formulas, or mismatched metrics

• Data inconsistencies across platforms

• Errors that quietly erode client trust

And if the final report isn’t clear, accurate, and visually intuitive? It doesn’t matter how many hours went into it—your client still feels in the dark.

What Makes a Good Marketing Report (Fast or Not)

Fast is great—but not if the report leaves clients confused or unimpressed.

Whether you’re creating weekly marketing reports or a monthly breakdown of marketing performance, a strong report has to do more than display data. It should tell a story your clients understand. Quickly.

That means including:

• The key marketing metrics that show what’s working (and what’s not)

• A breakdown of channel-specific performance—SEO, PPC, email, social, and beyond

• Website traffic metrics, like organic vs. referral traffic

• Clear comparisons (month-over-month, year-over-year, etc.)

• Simple data visualizations so trends stand out at a glance

• Space for context: what happened, why it matters, and what’s next

The best digital marketing reports don’t overwhelm with “all the data”—they prioritize what’s relevant to the client’s goals. They highlight wins, flag red flags, and show how your team is actively improving results.

If a report can’t help your client answer questions like:

• “Are we growing?”

• “What did we spend?”

• “What’s the ROI?”

 …then it’s just numbers on a page.

And if your client doesn’t trust the data—or doesn’t read the report at all—it’s not helping your agency stand out.

I highly recommend AgencyAnalytics to any marketing agency looking for a reliable and effective reporting solution. It has helped us become more efficient, transparent, and trustworthy with our clients, which has been invaluable to our business growth.

Calum Maxwell / Managing Director

The 15-Minute Digital Marketing Report Workflow

Once your reporting system is dialed in with data sources and white label branding, creating a polished, professional marketing report becomes the easiest part of your week.

With templates in place and data flowing in from every connected platform, what used to take hours now takes minutes. No tab overload, no screenshots, no formatting fire drills.

Here’s what a typical reporting cadence looks like for agencies using AgencyAnalytics:

🕒 1. Set the Reporting Period

Choose the date range—weekly, monthly, or custom—and your report automatically pulls in the most recent performance data across every channel.

🧩 2. Review Pre-Built Sections

From SEO and website traffic to social media metrics and PPC campaigns, the report is already organized with the key performance indicators your clients care about. All that’s left is a quick scan. Need to add something for a specific client? It’s easy with the drag-and-drop report editor. 

✏️ 3. Add Your Expertise

Use commentary blocks to add quick context, insights, or next steps. Whether you’re highlighting a jump in organic traffic or explaining a dip in ad spend ROI, your analysis is what makes the data meaningful.

⚡️ Use AI to Surface Instant Insights from Marketing Data

If you want to save even more time—or help junior team members ramp up—AI-generated insights offer a fast way to highlight performance shifts across channels.

The platform automatically flags anomalies, trends, and outliers, giving you a smarter starting point for your analysis.

It’s like a second set of eyes on your marketing data, helping you spot what matters most before your client even asks.

🔁 4. Hit Send (or Let Automation Do It)

Schedule reports to go out automatically, or generate a live link to share in client meetings. Either way, you’re sending accurate, up-to-date information without lifting a finger.

And if you want one last look before anything goes out, the report approval feature—available on select plans—lets you review and sign off on every report. It’s your chance to double-check the data, add personalized insights, and make sure each report tells the right story before it hits your client’s inbox.

✅ 5. Move On With Your Day

That’s it. Create a marketing report that looks great, reads clearly, and reinforces your value—in 15 minutes or less.

I can confidently say that AgencyAnalytics has transformed the way we approach client reporting and analytics. From the moment we made the switch, we experienced a profound positive impact on our agency's efficiency, client communication, and overall performance.

Jessica Crist, Production Manager, High Five Media

Impress clients and save hours with custom, automated reporting.

Join 7,000+ agencies that create reports in minutes instead of hours. Get started for free. No credit card required.

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Why Automation Powers Smarter, Scalable Marketing

Creating reports in 15 minutes or less saves time and gives your team the space to think, plan, and act like a high-performing agency.

Our old client reporting process was a headache, to say the least. We would spend hours gathering data from various sources, such as Google Analytics, social media platforms, and PPC campaigns. Then, we had to manually compile the information using screenshots, spreadsheets, and charts. The process was manual, error-prone, and not at all scalable. And don't even get us started on the stress levels at reporting time.

The AgencyAnalytics reporting platform has transformed the way we approach reporting and has helped us deliver better results for our clients. It's no wonder we never looked back after making the switch!

Adam Binder, Founder + CEO, Creative Click Media

When your reporting is automated, your entire marketing strategy becomes more focused. You’re not scrambling for screenshots. You’re reviewing performance metrics and turning them into next steps before the client even asks.

And because your reports update automatically with live marketing data, you’re always operating with a clear view of what’s working across every campaign.

That means:

• Spotting shifts in website traffic before they become problems

• Tying ad spend directly to customer acquisition cost

• Comparing how email marketing stacks up against paid ads

• Seeing whether your SEO efforts are actually moving the needle

This is where reporting shifts from obligation to advantage. You're showing results in a way that improves performance, aligns with your client’s business goals, and drives data-driven decisions.

Yes, this is critical for marketing agencies. But it also empowers an in-house marketing team to do more, without burning out. You’re not scaling admin work—you’re scaling strategy.

What Success Looks Like

When agencies switch to automated client reporting, they’re not just saving hours—they’re leveling up how they deliver insights, prove value, and scale.

For many, that shift comes down to one thing: repeatability. With the right marketing report templates, data flows in from every platform, your branding is already applied, and the insights are ready to go. That consistency builds confidence—not just in your reporting, but in your agency as a whole.

Switching to AgencyAnalytics has transformed the way we handle reporting, allowing us to reinvest that saved time into high-value work that directly benefits our clients and our agency’s growth.

Lily Zimmel / Agency Director

Real-time visibility also means fewer surprises. You’re able to identify what’s driving marketing success—and what’s holding it back—faster.

By customizing dashboards, we can highlight and prioritize the client KPIs that are most relevant to them, ensuring that we’re delivering data that’s both actionable and meaningful to them.

Michelle van Blerck / Communications Manager

The result? A more strategic agency, better equipped to manage marketing campaigns, report on campaign performance, and drive meaningful outcomes like lead generation, website analytics, and marketing qualified leads.

Winning back time allows the team to focus less on doing admin tasks, and focus on client campaigns. Saving this time has been massive for us, as no one is wasting all those hours on reporting anymore.

Joshua George / Founder

Whether you're leading a lean team or managing a growing agency with dozens of clients, automation delivers the reliable data and time-saving structure your team needs to stay focused on what matters most.

Impress clients and save hours with custom, automated reporting.

Join 7,000+ agencies that create reports in minutes instead of hours. Get started for free. No credit card required.

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First name

Last name

Email address

Sign Up

Why Some Agencies Stick With Manual Reporting (Even Though They Shouldn’t)

You know the process is clunky. You’ve seen how much time it takes. But even with a better option in front of them, many agencies still hesitate to automate.

And we get it. Change feels risky when your clients rely on you for accurate, on-time reporting.

But staying manual doesn’t just waste time—it limits growth. It keeps your digital marketing efforts buried in busywork instead of focused on strategy and results.

Here are some of the most common reasons agencies stay stuck—and why they don’t hold up once they switch to automated marketing reporting tools.

“It’ll be too technical to set up.”

This is probably the number one hesitation. But here’s the reality: AgencyAnalytics was built for marketers, not developers. No coding. No custom scripts. Just connect your platforms—whether you’re tracking social media efforts, email marketing, or search engine marketing—and start building reports in minutes.

Our library of marketing report templates makes it easy to launch, and customization means you can tailor each monthly marketing report to fit your agency’s unique needs, branding, and target audience.

“What if a data connection breaks?”

It’s a valid concern. Your clients expect accurate, reliable data—and we built the platform with that in mind. With 80+ direct integrations, including Google Data Studio, Facebook, GA4, and more, your key metrics are pulled directly from the source. No exports. No patchwork. 

Automated alerts also flag any sync issues before they impact your reports—so you're in control long before clients even notice.

“I need more flexibility than a template can offer.”

Templates are just a starting point. With fully customizable dashboards and reports, it’s easy to adapt your reporting to fit any client or campaign—from ad performance to sales qualified leads to website performance and user behavior.

Easily highlight the metrics that matter: marketing spend, campaign performance, traffic sources, and ROI. And if you're supporting teams with specific roles—like social media managers or SEO strategists—build views tailored to each service area.

Whether you're building a general marketing report or tracking detailed marketing activities, everything is configurable, reusable, and scalable.

“We’re used to doing it this way—and it works (kind of).”

Sure—it works. Until it doesn’t. Manual workflows might get the job done, but they also lead to missed opportunities, errors, and reports that fail to deliver actionable insights.

You might be sending a monthly report, but are you sending one that helps clients make informed decisions? Are your reports giving them visibility into how your work directly supports their marketing goals?

Using a robust reporting platform like AgencyAnalytics helps us stand out from our competitors by offering more advanced reporting and analytics capabilities. This can help us win new clients, retain existing ones, and position ourselves as a leading agency in our industry.

Daniel Dye, President, Native Rank

Automating reporting allows your team to spend less time assembling metrics and more time interpreting results, improving marketing analytics, and driving marketing results in real time.

It also frees up leadership. Instead of reviewing slides and checking formulas, your marketing leaders can focus on strategy, growth, and client relationships.

When agencies finally make the switch, they usually say the same thing: “We should have done this a long time ago.”

The only regret we have about switching to AgencyAnalytics is not doing it sooner. It has saved us an incredible amount of time and makes us look polished and professional.

Kim Walker / Founder

You Could Be Done With Reporting in 15 Minutes

If you’re still building reports the long way—copying and pasting from tools, formatting charts, writing up notes by hand—it’s worth asking: what’s that time really costing you?

Creating a digital marketing report doesn’t have to be a chore. It doesn’t have to eat into your evenings, your team’s focus, or your ability to scale. And it definitely doesn’t have to take hours.

With AgencyAnalytics, creating a digital marketing report takes less than 15 minutes. You get the clarity your clients expect, the efficiency your team needs, and the flexibility to adapt every report to the marketing strategy behind it.

From SEO to paid ads and everything in between, your team can surface the right marketing metrics—faster—and turn marketing data into decisions.

You’re not cutting corners—you’re clearing the path.

So whether you’re tracking performance across dozens of clients or managing campaigns across multiple channels, there’s a better way to show the value of your work. And once it’s set up, it runs like clockwork.

Ready to see it in action?

👉 Start your free trial and build your next marketing report in minutes—not hours.