See how this B2B agency cut manual reporting in half, centralized ad data from Google and LinkedIn, and gave clients real-time insights they could actually use.
Matthew Engelson is the Digital Marketing Director at Sagefrog, a B2B marketing agency. With over nine years at the company, Matthew leads all paid digital programs. He helps clients across industries make sense of their marketing performance by simplifying complex data into actionable insights.
Matthew and his team were manually gathering data from multiple platforms: Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, GA4, and Search Console, and assembling it into spreadsheets for clients. This not only consumed valuable billable hours but also left clients dependent on Sagefrog for data interpretation.
“Our clients aren’t savvy enough to understand what’s in GA4 or Search Console. They need it simplified, and Databox does that really well,” Matthew shared.
On top of that, the manual reporting process slowed down internal workflows and diluted the perceived value Sagefrog provided to clients. Clients struggled to understand what marketing efforts were driving results, which undermined Sagefrog’s impact.
As Sagefrog’s client base grew and digital advertising efforts expanded, the need for a centralized reporting solution became urgent. Fortunately, their CEO met Databox’s CEO at a HubSpot Inbound conference, which sparked their discovery of the tool.
What appealed to Matthew was the ability to give clients 24/7 access to their data in a format they could actually understand. There would be no more bouncing between platforms or spoon-feeding metrics.
Initially, onboarding felt overwhelming due to the team’s size and the number of clients. But with help from Databox’s onboarding team, especially Roberta from Brazil, the process became manageable. Matthew invested dedicated time to set up client data, centralize analytics, and create looping dashboards tailored to each client.
He also customized the dashboards using brand colors and logos to make them visually appealing and easy to use. Once Sagefrog built its first ten dashboards, the internal onboarding process became much smoother.
“Over 90% of our clients love it. Once we started using Databox in weekly status calls, we could just drop a permanent dashboard link into the agenda. It became a game-changer,” said Matthew.
With Databox, Sagefrog has cut reporting time in half. They eliminated manual processes like updating Excel spreadsheets and empowered their clients with always-available, digestible dashboards.
Even more importantly, Databox has helped bridge the gap between marketing and sales.
“In small B2B teams, marketing and sales are often totally misaligned, like they don’t even work at the same company. Databox helps marketing prove its impact with clear data. Now, sales sees that marketing is working,” Matthew emphasized.
The tool’s custom and calculated metrics also allow Sagefrog to deliver precisely what clients ask for; this includes combined ad spend across platforms or segmented data by region or channel.
“Give it a try. Definitely pay the extra for the onboarding help, it’s worth it. Use the public templates, and make your dashboards colorful. It helps clients stay engaged. There’s not going to be a better way to visualize the data.”