A Complete Guide to Web Analytics Reports (+ Free Template)

Imagine a situation where one of your many tasks is to compile monthly analytics reports for your client, plus make sure the data is always accurate and relevant.

Of course, you can always export a few PDF reports from Google Analytics 4 and call it a day. But here's the challenge…

• Are the clients going to understand GA4 reports?
• What do your clients actually want to see in these reports?
• Which metrics should you report on?

We asked 7 digital marketers:

Carradean Farley, Co-Founder @ Periscope Media

Ameet Khabra, CEO @ Hop Skip Media

Sebastian Ellis, CEO @ Ellis Digital

Ben Duffy, Client Development Manager @ Quirky Digital

Joshua Wood, CEO @ CJ Digital

Ryan Andreson, President @ Markiserv

Peter Lewis, SEO Executive @ PIXUS

… these questions and compiled their valuable insights in this article.

We’ll go through everything you need to know about web analytics reports and how to create them.

We’ll also share two resources: a free Google Sheets template for web analytics reports and four Whatagraph report templates.

How to Create a Web Analytics Report - Step-by-Step Guide

You can create a web analytics report in two ways:

1. Make a copy of this FREE Google Sheet – this is free but you won't get comprehensive cross-channel insights and you'll need to spend a lot of time copying and pasting data points.
2. Follow the steps below to use Whatagraph – this is easy and fast since you don't need to do any manual work. Whatagraph collects, cleans, and visualizes your data automatically.

So, let's begin.

Step 1: Connect all Your Data

Start by connecting the data from all the web analytics tools and platforms you’re using for a specific client.

With Whatagraph, you don't need to stitch any spreadsheets. Instead, you can connect all your data in just a few clicks.

Whatagraph has fully managed integrations with popular marketing tools.

• Google Analytics 4
• Google Search Console
• Ahrefs
• Semrush
• Facebook Ads
• LinkedIn Ads
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Mailchimp
• CallRail
• Salesforce
• HubSpot

And many others.

These direct integrations are much more reliable than third-party connectors that many other marketing reporting tools use. Third-party connectors can slow down your online report or give you inaccurate data as they can refresh at different rates from one another.

With Whatagraph, you can pull data from scattered sources right into your reports without missing a beat.

The integrations are developed and maintained by our dedicated team of engineers, so once you connect your accounts, there’s nothing to update or re-connect on your part.

How to do it:

• Open Whatagraph, go to Data Sources, and select the marketing platforms you need.
• Follow the on-screen instructions to provide the necessary credentials and connect each source.
• Once connected, Whatagraph will automatically pull in the latest data and update it automatically.

This way you get:

• A centralized view of all your marketing campaign metrics across platforms and tools.
• Accurate and relevant data in every campaign report you send.

Step 2: Choose a Report Template or Start From Scratch

You can create your website analytics report from scratch and structure it just as you want.

Still, having a template to start with saves a lot of time, especially if you need to report to several clients or stakeholders regularly.

Whatagraph offers pre-made digital marketing report templates that you can customize for each client.

The template is your starting point. From there, you can pick the metrics and add sections that best present your campaign’s results.

How to do it:

• Go to the Templates section in Whatagraph.
• Choose one of the web analytics or traffic templates.
• Alternatively, select Create New Report to build a report from scratch, choosing only the widgets and metrics that you need.

The result:

• Faster report building for multiple campaigns and stakeholders.
• You can tailor each report for a specific campaign by highlighting the most relevant data.

Step 3: Customize the Report for a Specific Client

On Whatagraph, you can quickly customize any report or dashboard template to a client's specifications. Once you find a template that is the closest match to your needs, you can start tailoring it.

Let's recap quickly:

✅ Connect the data sources: You can load a template with just one source connected, but now you need to add other sources that hold your campaign data.

✅ Customize metrics and widgets: Check out the metrics already included in the template and decide if you need to remove some of them so the clients can really focus just on the important ones.

✅ Choose the appropriate visuals: Whatagraph has different chart options, such as line charts, bar graphs, funnels, and pie charts. If your client prefers a bar chart to a pie chart for a specific metric — a piece of cake. Pick the bar chart widget and select the metrics and dimensions you want to see.

You can also create custom charts and save them as template widgets.

✅ Arrange the widgets for easy interpretation: Always put the most critical key performance indicators, like Cost per Lead or Campaign Budget, at the top of your report, right next to the goals widget.

Step 4. Organize Data for Actionable Insights

Let’s quickly sum up what we have done so far:

• Connect scattered sources - Done ✅
• Pick a template - Done ✅
• Tweak it for your campaign - Done ✅

The problem is that actionable insights are still hidden under a heap of data.

With Whatagraph, you can quickly sift through that data heap and pinpoint the reasons for high or low points in your campaign.

Our Organize feature helps you make sense out of scattered data by creating:

• Custom metrics: Unify and change the names of different metrics permanently in your report or create a new metric using a simple formula.
• Custom dimensions: Unify names of different cross-channel dimensions and group data points from different sources.
• Data blending: Great for combining different sources together into one unified data source for getting quicker insights and keeping your dashboard neat.

All these features are 100% code-free and can help you cut through the clutter and uncover hidden actionable insights.

Thanks to recently launched Performance Monitoring, you can get actionable insights from your data even faster.

You can create:

• Source groups: Group 100s of scattered data sources into a unified group in seconds.
• Custom tags: Add custom tags to your data and filter it by client, business type, location, Account Manager, etc.
• Overview: Visualize your key metrics in one view and easily spot performance trends.

Step 5. White-Label the Report with Client Branding

Whatagraph has everything you need to deliver a professional experience with every website analytics report you share with your clients.

You can:

• Upload your logo or your client’s logo.
• Create custom color schemes.
• Add footer and header texts.
• Create custom domains to host and share your reports.
• Change the icons and colors of your widgets.

You can create a global theme for your agency or create multiple themes on the report and even at the widget level.

You can also share your white-label reports on a custom domain and hide any ties to Whatagraph as the software provider. The client will probably think you built the whole thing yourself.

Step 6. Automate How You Share Your Report

The last step is to share your web analysis reports with your clients or stakeholders.

You can do this on Whatagraph in three main ways:

• Share password-protected links to a live report.
• Send reports as automated emails on a regular timetable (e.g. every week, month, …)
• Export as Excel or CSV files.

What 7 Agency Experts Say About Building Web Analytics Reports

We asked professionals from successful digital marketing agencies to share their best practices in building web analytics reports for their clients. These are the insights.

1. Different Clients — Different Needs

When it comes to reporting to clients, one cap definitely doesn’t fit all.

For example, e-commerce clients care about metrics like conversion rates and revenue, while service-based businesses want to see leads and form submissions.

Carradean Farley, Co-Founder of Periscope Media, shares his view:

Most of our clients are in the local services like plumbers, HVAC, cleaners, painters so they don't need very in depth analytics they just want their phone to ring and people to fill out the form on their website.

Things are much different for clients in online businesses. Farley explains:

This is in stark contrast to our e-commerce clients who get into the weeds about click through rates, conversion rates, cost per conversion, cost per mille, return on ad spend, time on page, page path, and other specific stats.

This is why it makes little sense to follow a rigid report template, but create custom website analytics reports that fit clients' needs.

For example, Ameet Khabra, founder of Hop Skip Media, customizes the presentation and analysis to match each client's unique business model and goals.

Currently, we’re working on moving towards building custom dashboards collaboratively with each client. We’ve learned that what’s meaningful to one client is not meaningful to the next (i.e. ecomm vs lead gen).

What’s more clients often don’t have the technical or even marketing background to interpret complex web analytics data or metrics. This is why you need to tweak each report to different client group or even individual client.

Sebastian Ellis, CEO of Ellis Digital, has an interesting approach.

In his agency, they segment and tailor reports into three categories based on not only the specific information that clients need but also their knowledge:

The three core areas we put our clients in are: 1. Those with no knowledge, likely the older demographic, 2. Business owners that are keen to understand the data around each area of the funnels such as traffic, checkouts and total revenue, 3. Semi-pro digital marketers, those clients with in-depth knowledge around metrics, performance and raw data.

2. Keep the Presentation Clear and Digestible

Another way to make reports more understandable is to use visuals whenever possible.

Tables are useful for a closer inspection of how the numbers have changed over time, but simplified visuals like pie charts, line graphs, and trend comparisons are much more engaging.

For Ben Duffy, Client Development Manager at Quirky Digital, it’s important to highlight whether the site’s performance is improving, staying consistent, or experiencing any fluctuations:

We structure our web analytics reports to make the data as clear and digestible as possible. One key element is the use of line graphs, which allow clients to easily track trends over time. We also provide comparisons both year on year (YoY) and period over period (e.g., month over month or quarter over quarter).

By breaking down data into visual elements and clear comparisons, they help clients quickly grasp their website’s performance.

Joshua Wood, CEO of CJ Digital, goes one step further and sends a written summary with every report:

We pop this PDF report in an email and also jot down (within the email) the key takeaways from the results and what we're going to focus on in the coming month. This way if they don't want to read the full report they get the cliff notes.

On the other hand, Ryan Andreson, President of Markiserv, believes it’s important for clients to see the impact of the agency’s work right at the beginning:

Specifically on the website front, if we are doing a redesign we get connected to our clients GA4 and their CMS. We then structure a before and after report to gauge the performance of a redesign.

In his agency, they custom-visualize client reports in Adobe Illustrator, so it’s easier for them to understand the changes.

We leave acronym definitions on the bottom of every report (CTR - Click through rate for example) while stating what each means, adds Anderson.

This is especially important when presenting to senior executives in organizations that have no understanding of marketing terms on the web.

In Whatagraph reports, however, there’s no need to explain each acronym at the bottom. You can easily change every metric name to a more understandable wording.

Khabra shares another interesting strategy that keeps clients in the loop without overwhelming them with data:

We follow a two-tiered approach when it comes to our reporting: an automated bi-weekly report that gives clients a quick glance at their account performance, followed by a comprehensive monthly report where our analysts provide detailed insights and work summaries.

This way, their clients stay informed on the high points all the time while also receiving a detailed analysis.

3. Focus on Metrics That Matter

Clients care most about KPIs that align with their business goals, such as revenue, conversions, and traffic growth.

Peter Lewis, SEO Executive at PIXUS, makes a good point when he says that top metrics vary between client groups.

Most of our clients are e-commerce businesses in the fashion industry and so revenue is the most important, likewise for accounts where we are doing lead generation, it is the number of conversions that are typically the most important.

Farley highlights that e-commerce clients are more interested in granular metrics such as ROAS and Cost per Conversion because they typically run ad campaigns in the tens or hundreds of thousands per month:

If they get a 1 or 2% increase in conversion rate they will see way more revenue and the tweak could have been rather small to implement like changing the color of a call to action, changing the heading of a page, or adding trust icons to a product page.

Wood, on the other hand, notices that hospitality clients in his agency mostly care about traffic growth:

We report on total unique traffic, organic traffic (because we do SEO for our clients), DA score i.e domain authority, bounce rates and time spent on specific web pages mainly.

4. Build Trust Through Transparency

Ok, you're an agency with plenty of experience. You’ve been specializing for different types of clients and at this point, you must already know what to put in the reports.

However, it’s also important to keep clients part of the decision-making process.

Why?

Because then they feel valued. They trust you more and start seeing your relationship as less transactional and more of a partnership with a common goal.

For Joshua Wood, CEO of CJ Digital, it all starts with clear expectations on both sides.

As part of our onboarding with each client we clearly explain what we're going to report on each month and we try and keep it as simple as possible so they can understand it.

In his agency, at the start of each month, they reflect on the previous month's results and create a PDF report using Google Slides to clearly present the results clients care about.

We also use data and screenshots from Google Analytics. From feedback we have received, clients like this because it's come from a platform that can't be fudged, so they trust the results we're reporting on, explains Wood.

Best Practices to Structure a Web Analytics Report

Here are the 7 sections of a web analytics report that no marketing professional will skip.

1. Design an Engaging Cover Page

This is where you can upload a custom image that matches your agency’s brand.

The cover page sets the context for the following in-depth analysis and introduces your agency’s expertise, which gives credibility and nurtures a positive client relationship.

In Whatagraph, you can save this page as a template and use it for future reports.

2. Start with a Monthly Summary

Give your client a monthly summary of what is happening on their website. This is where you discuss goals, deliverables, and results in the most simple way.

Say what you did during the past month and how it impacts the overall strategy. Show real-world data and examples.

3. Show Where Your Website Traffic is Coming From

This section displays all the metrics related to different traffic sources, like organic search, direct traffic, referral traffic, and social media. At this point, the report can get overwhelming for some viewers, so make sure to give an explanation of what is presented.

4. Give the Location Insights

This part of the report gives your client a look into the geography of the website visitors. You can also show how often people from different locations visit the website and how many of them convert.

5. Share Organic Search Goals and Performance

This is where you present the metrics related to organic traffic, such as which keywords perform the best in terms of conversion. This section can also set grounds for an SEO strategy you drive with your client.

One of the best ways to prove the value of your SEO services is to show them direct conversions from organic traffic.

6. Break Down the Paid Search Performance

The PPC section gives your client a deeper understanding of your PPC campaign's performance. Show how much traffic each campaign drives and how each campaign impacts the conversion and other goals.

7. Include the eCommerce Overview

Present all the relevant metrics for your client’s online store. Tell which products are selling the best and what kind of revenue your client earns from each product. This can be a starting point for discussions about focusing on specific products for future ad campaigns.

4 Web Analytics Report Examples

You can save plenty of time by starting from one of our report templates. These website analytics report examples come pre-filled with channel-specific widgets, and you can just connect your data sources to complete the report in a matter of minutes rather than hours.

Here are some of the most helpful web analytics report templates to try out.

1. Web Traffic Report

The web analytics report pulls information from any site and provides easy access to its traffic data. Connect your client’s Google Analytics 4 account and see how many people land on their website or get insights into website user experience.

You can either track organic or paid traffic. The best thing about Whatagraph's reports is that you can easily compare these two metrics. This is necessary if you want to show:

• Which device performs better with which traffic (paid or from organic search),
• What countries bring in which traffic (paid or organic), and where to double the focus,
• How paid and organic traffic work and complement each other.

Tracking the user behavior of website visitors allows you to gain insight into how they interact with your site. You can learn how to make a website or hire a professional, but either way, you'd still need to do some tracking.

Also, there are other key metrics that you can track and evaluate with this report, such as:

• Traffic acquisition,
• Page views,
• Number of visitors
• Unique visitors,
• Total visitors,
• Returning and new visitors,
• Average time on page,
• Average session duration,
• Number of pages per session,
• Conversion rates.

And many others.

2. SEO Report

The SEO report is probably the most comprehensive web analytics report template on the list. This is what SEO specialists and marketers create when they want to look at the overall website's performance on search engines. This report shows:

• Bounce rate,
• Conversions,
• Keyword rankings,
• Goal completions successes (exclusively on Whatagraph),
• CTR.

In addition to Google Analytics, the channels you want to track here are your client’s Google Search Console, Ahrefs, or Semrush accounts.

3. eCommerce Report

This type of report is a bit more specific than the other two mentioned, as it focuses on the sales part and paid and organic advertising performance. You create an eCommerce report to get all the necessary data about:

• Shopping carts,
• New users,
• Best selling products,
• Average sale price,
• Conversion rate,
• Checkout process.

Connect Shopify (or BigCommerce, WooCommerce), Google Ads, social media channels, and/or Google Analytics accounts and other sources and track web analytics metrics and KPIs such as:

• Bounce rate,
• Pages per session,
• Goal conversions,
• AOV (Average order value),
• CLV (Customer lifetime value),
• Total revenue.

4. PPC Campaigns Report

The fourth report to always have close at hand is the PPC campaigns report. It readily displays paid search and paid traffic on one page, although they come from different data sources. Connect Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Facebook Ads, Linkedin Ads, or any other preferred source, and track key PPC KPIs such as:

• Conversion rate,
• Clicks,
• Impressions,
• ROAS,
• CPA,
• Spent on ads,
• Overall campaign costs.

PPC is all about spending money in the hopes of generating leads, sales, or impressions, so you must ensure that you:

• Don't overspend,
• Spend enough money to acquire a single customer,
• Establish your own benchmark, allowing you to identify the lowest CPA (cost per acquisition).

With this report, you can easily optimize your PPC campaigns, as you always have fresh and accurate data.

Having a quick and easy way to scale up web analytics reporting with relevant and accurate website data means your reaction time improves. You can get insights before the decision-makers much sooner and re-align your marketing strategy accordingly.

Whatagraph gives you a way to consolidate data coming from multiple web analytics platforms and track the metrics that make the most impact.

Want to learn more? Book a call and tell us exactly how we can help you.