What Is An Analytical Report

What is an analytical study

Belittling reports are information analysis reports companies use to identify and act upon particular problems and opportunities in their business processes.

As well the charts and graphics, analytical reports often contain written text that explains the interaction between the various metrics, and proposes solutions to meliorate them.

In most cases, an analytical report ordinarily focuses on a few fundamental figures that are relevant to a certain section.

For instance, a company'southward back up team volition likely focus on:

Tickets received.
Tickets solved.
Ticket satisfaction rate.
Time per ticket.

Even so, an online marketing team will instead concentrate on metrics such as:

Total cost of ads.
Cost per lead.
Revenue per lead.
Full acquirement.

Analytical reports are sometimes compared to information reports. These are periodic (weekly, monthly etc.) business organisation reports that just measure the performance of certain key KPI's (cardinal performance indicators), without proposing whatsoever actions or proposals.

To put it merely, an information report says that something happened. An analytical report explains why something happened.

How to write an analytical study

Avoid vanity metrics, and focus on the KPI's that matter

When working with data, there'southward a temptation to focus on "vanity metrics". These are information measurements that take almost 0 touch on on a company's business concern health.

Example of vanity metrics:

Company A has a blog with 10,000 monthly readers, that does not generate any leads, customers or email subscribers. In this instance, having x,000 monthly readers is a vanity metric, because it doesn't help abound the company in whatever way. On the opposite, the web log eats up valuable resource that could exist spent elsewhere.

By comparison, Company B has a web log with i,000 monthly readers, merely that this one brings in 1-2 new clients per month. For company B, having 1,000 monthly readers is not a vanity metric, because these can straight help grow the business.

Unfortunately, vanity metrics will be effectually for a long time just considering they're easy. Information technology doesn't take much endeavour to generate thou extra Facebook likes, or 10,000 extra blog visitors. Generating some other x sales per month nevertheless? That's a far harder claiming.

The important, actionable metrics to focus on:

When doing information analysis, the metrics to focus on are those that direct assist a visitor's bottom line.

This can mean:

Monthly revenue.
Conversion rate % of leads into customers.
Number of quote requests per month.
Customer acquisition toll.
Etc.

That existence said, there are some metrics that indirectly help a company, by improving production quality and customer experience:

% of support tickets resolved (good indicator of customer satisfaction).
Number of v star reviews (great for social proofing).
Etc.

Actionable metrics are the ones that truly affair to a business, but they are also the ones that hardest to improve. Lifting up an actionable metric requires constant effort, true skill, a audio strategy and a lot of time and patience – something many businesses are running short on.

Employ different chart types to prove data

Source

When building a report, consider experimenting with different chart types. Some charts are amend than others at expressing a particular piece of data.

The all-time instance of this is the Funnel Chart, which elegantly shows client journey, from when they are mere visitors to bodily buyers.

Displaying the information with simple, clean and attractive charts tin be just as of import as the data itself. This is because analytical reports are often used past executives and other determination makers to make up one's mind where to allocate budget resource, worker focus etc.

In many cases, overwhelmed executives simply ignore reports that are too convoluted and don't transmit the data clearly. This is truthful fifty-fifty if the underlying data is sound and correctly identifies an opportunity or problem.

Focus on key KPI's, and so add together secondary KPI's that support it

Analytical reports are congenital effectually a key KPI, that shows the main problem (or opportunity). This KPI is then paired with secondary KPI'south that give it context and meaning.

Study built with Dashthis

This is a sample taken from an online Pay-Per-Click advertising campaign.

The key KPI in the written report to a higher place is the Total Ad Cost. The secondary KPI'due south provide context and show that the advertising entrada is not assisting in the long run, with costs exceeding revenue.

Reports that combine cardinal and secondary KPI'south are able to tell a story and can explain a business organisation problem / opportunity all by themselves.

By organizing the data in such a way, yous will make the written report like shooting fish in a barrel to sympathise for readers (such as executives, or clients) and convinces the reader to take activeness.

Combine information from multiple reports

Companies often apply multiple online tools to run their business. For case, they might use Instagram, LinkedIn Ads, Google Analytics, Assistance Spotter (back up ticketing), Facebook Ads, Google My Concern etc.

Creating a high quality and detailed belittling written report may require combining data from all these tools, into a single report.

The difficult way to do this is to create the report manually, through Excel or other tools. This tin be very tedious and time consuming. It's as well very hard to create at scale, significant you have to create multiple reports every week.

The easy style is to utilise a data dashboarding tool that has integrations with the software you lot utilize and can connect their data into a unmarried screen automatically.

Below is an example of a written report built with a data dashboarding tool, that mixes data from Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn or YouTube.

A data dashboarding tool can build a report in 1/ten^thursday of the time it takes for manual methods. It likewise offers many other useful features such as automatically updating information, scheduling email sharing, using dissimilar nautical chart types, directly access to the report through a link and many more.

Suggest a course of action

Once y'all've established through charts and data that a problem exists, you volition have to propose a i or more than solutions to the identified problem or business organization opportunity.

This doesn't take to be in-depth, or very well detailed. 2-3 sentences that are clear and to the signal can be sufficient to outline a basic form of activeness and become the gears turning within your organization.

Don't jump to conclusions; empathize the real-world situation

A major adventure when doing data analysis is misreading a set of swinging KPI's, non knowing why they fluctuate, and and so proposing the incorrect solutions to them. This can very quickly make a bad situation worse.

The but fashion to foreclose mistakes when interpreting data is to connect it to the real-world situation, and effort to see what changes or situations might take acquired the numbers to fluctuate.

Here are a couple of examples:

Example A: A company that sells subscription software changes its 2 week Free Trial policy. Customers now demand to submit their credit card numbers, whereas before they didn't. This has an immediate negative impact on conversion and sign-up rates since many people are reluctant to requite up their CC info.

Source.

Example B: You're a data analyst for a small chain of 15-twenty pizzerias. Lately, y'all've seen that 3-4 of the locations accept been outperforming both their historical averages, too as the other locations. You attempt looking at the information, simply can't figure out why they're performing so well. That is until you physically go to 1 of these locations and see that they've installed ordering kiosks. This increases average order value, and with it, profitability.

Many, many companies communicate changes to business processes very poorly to their own employees. This is especially prevalent in bigger businesses that have many moving parts.

Information technology is completely possible that a subtle change to a company's processes can impact important KPI'south and go out the data analysts scratching their heads trying to sympathize what'southward happening.

Brand the information hands shareable and attainable

Finally, an analytical report should be easy to share and view. This means the report should be capable of being viewed in a live link, can scheduled for a periodic written report, shared through e-mail etc.

Another major aspect is that the best analytical reports are interactive. This ways executives, decision makers and other team members can play around with the report, change the time frames, dive deeper into key segments, cross-reference with other metrics.

This is peculiarly of import for execs who are themselves more skeptical and data oriented. These are people who put their ain opinion first and foremost, and are wary of others telling them how "things should be done".

Analytical report examples

Tracking website landing folio conversions

Higher up is an analytical report built using Databox, with data coming in from HubSpot.

Landing pages are pages on a website specifically designed to convert a website visitor into a "atomic number 82" (email subscriber, telephone callers etc), or even a paying customer.

The belittling report above breaks down the performance of a website's landing pages, at all stages of the "pipeline".

In the example to a higher place, the headline figure is the 9.74% conversion charge per unit.Having a good conversion rate is the first stride in generating a profitable marketing channel. At least in this regard, the report seems promising.

Side by side in the pipeline is the Subscription to Contact conversion rate, at 57%. Contacts are bodily people that a sales department will make it touch with, either by mail or phone telephone call. The number in this item marketing pipeline is very good and promising.

Where information technology all falters however is in the final, and well-nigh of import metric: obtaining bodily customers.

Out of 79 contacts, not one became a customer. This communicates either one or multiple points below:

The sales section doesn't know how to pitch a product (ouch).
The product itself may not be good enough for customers.
The production is as well expensive for what information technology offers.
The product doesn't actually take a marketplace, and doesn't answer people'southward needs.

Depending on the product or service that's beingness pitched, at that place are multiple possible solutions:

Change the pricing structure.
Switch upwardly the audience, mayhap the marketing squad was focused on the demographic.
Add new features.
Ditch the product.

Finally, the three lesser columns show which were the all-time landing pages for converting visitors to subscribers, and ultimately subscribers to customers. This particular nautical chart is important to figure which approach is more successful, and best to focus resources on.

Measuring a projection's progress

Built using Databox, with data coming in from Asana.

This report measures the progress beingness made for diverse projects, as tracked with Asana.

As with the previous written report, the headline figure and most important one is Total Overdue Tasks. The calendar month-over-month comparing shows the number is in a steep 37% increment.

The other most important metric is Tasks Completed. This 1 is in an even worse situation than Full Overdue Tasks, with but thirteen tasks completed per calendar month – a 55% decrease.

These two data points combined point to multiple potential issues, each with its ain solution:

The company is taking on too many projects, and it can't handle these in efficient time. Solution: decrease the number of initiatives and accept realistic expectations of what can be achieved.
The company doesn't have sufficient employees to process all outstanding tasks. Solution: Hiring more could overcome the imbalance of excessive work per employee.

Medical appointments study

Built using DashThis, with data coming in from Google My Business and Google Analytics.

The report in a higher place is a year long overview of the operation of a dentist cabinet, measuring the total number of appointments and which aqueduct has generated the nearly.

The report is built on a month-over-month and year-over-yr comparing.

The initial tabular array compares 2019 vs 2018, and shows that overall the two periods are comparable in terms of appointments.

The charts just below that show just how wide-spread a mobile web browsing has become. Many people still have an instinct to prioritize a desktop feel vs a mobile one. That notwithstanding is a mistake, just because well-nigh people now scan the Internet on their phones.

The headline chart shows the number of appointments is roughly the same year-on-year. This withal hides deeper changes within the chiffonier'southward marketing efforts.

On one manus, Google Ads come with a reduced cost, but an increased number of appointments.

The next chart shows the importance of having practiced SEO. The number of sessions isn't peculiarly impressive, but what stands out is the high conversion rate. This indicates that SEO is a viable business organization strategy to learn customers, and is a valid marketing channel to spend resources for.

Tracking the number of incoming and missed calls

Above is an analytical report congenital using Databox, with data coming in from CallRail.

Many companies rely on customers calling in to ask about their services, or ask for quotes. Prime number examples are pest control companies, house cleaning services etc.

For these types of businesses, incoming telephone calls is practically their lifeblood. Without calls, there are no clients, and without clients at that place is no money.

This analytical report reflects that past placing Total Monthly Calls in the most prominent spot, with a month-over-month comparison.

In this item case, the 18% decrease in calls tin be caused by multiple causes that should be further expanded upon in the report:

Seasonal adjustments.
Marketing channels are unpleasing. Every bit the largest source of calls, Google Search is the prime culprit.
Stopping paid ads to focus organic search, which would explain the -18% decrease in calls.

The other important metric is Missed Calls. Past keeping an heart on this metric, a business can keep an center on any potential "water leaks" they might accept and quickly fill it in.

In the context of this business concern, they could potentially meet an 11% increase in acquirement just by reducing the "Missed Calls" metric to 0.

Tracking billable and non-billable hours

Above is an analytical study built using Databox, with data coming in from Harvest fourth dimension tracking.

On this occasion, the report tracks the number of hours worked by a marketing agency for various clients.

The problems highlighted in this report is that the agency is getting caught up doing non-billable work that doesn't have direct results for clients, and thus doesn't generate revenue.

To a caste, this is normal. Every bureau has to invest non-billable work hours into administrative tasks such as acquiring supplies, negotiating with new potential customers, organizing conferences, etc.

The solution to this is to review the activities they have spent excessive amounts of time on, and then proceed to eliminate these from their business procedure and instead refocus on their customers.

All-time analytical reporting tools

Databox

Databox is a freemium reporting tool, that displays information from multiple sources into a single dashboard.

It comes with a forever free option, but it doesn't quite provide access to all of their integrations. Nevertheless, it's great for a test drive and tin can potentially solve the reporting needs for a small-scale business concern or section.

Endeavour Databox

DashThis

DashThis is another reporting tool, with a focus on marketing reports.

It doesn't take a free option, but information technology does come up with a ii calendar week free trial during which you lot accept admission to all its features.

Try DashThis

Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is the Large'south Own reporting tool.

Unlike the other 2 on the list, this one is free. Still, Data Studio provides native integrations only with other Google tools, such as Analytics, Search Console etc.

To get admission to other integrations, you'll have to purchase them through their partner integrations.

Become Google Information Studio