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Kiera Abbamonte on February 17, 2021 (last modified on October 29, 2022) • 6 minute read
The thing about agencies is that every process involved in their work gets multiplied across each account. That means the inefficiencies and time-consuming aspects compound with each new client onboarded.
That was the challenge staring down Simple Machines Marketing, an agency that works with established B2B manufacturing, technology, and financial firms looking to take the next step with digital marketing. If they were going to grow the agency, they had to find a way to spend less time on reporting each month.
To learn more about that process and how Simple Machines uses Databox to save 4 days worth of reporting work each month, we talked with Benjamin Bullock, Director of Marketing Operations for the agency.
Prior to finding reporting software, Simple Machines was doing everything manuallyâworking from scratch each month. Theyâd pull data by hand from all the disparate platforms they used for clients and build a Powerpoint presentation complete with screenshots, tables, and graphsâall done manually.
Benjamin realized they couldnât grow the agency this way. It just wasnât scalable. They needed a solution that would automate the time-consuming aspects of their monthly reporting, pull the data together into one unified report, and give the hours they spent on reporting back to the team.
Here are the challenges Simple Machines Marketing faced:
âWe had a Powerpoint presentation and weâd marry together all the data sources we had through a completely manual processâscreenshots, tables, graphs,â Benjamin told us. âAt that stage, we realized as we were growing as a company, it wasnât scalable. A single person couldnât do this for 10 or 15 clients every month.â
âIt was becoming cumbersome to do all the customization we needed,â Benjamin said. âWe were returning to the old ways of spending more time on reporting than we felt was necessary.â
âWe realized we needed to change something because our reports were getting delayed and delayed,â Benjamin explained. âWe needed to quicken the pace at which we were collecting, analyzing, and reporting on this data.â
The team first tried another reporting solution that aligned more closely with their chosen reporting format: Powerpoint PDFs. But that lack of easy customization meant that the tool didnât actually solve the problem they were having with any satisfaction.
Thatâs when Benjamin and the team made the switch to dashboard-centered reporting via Databox.
They connected Google Ads, Twitter, Google Sheets, Instagram Business, LinkedIn Company Pages, SEMrush, HubSpot Marketing, and Google Analytics.
âI integrated all of our Goals that we had scheduled,â Benjamin said, âand we get Notifications throughout the month saying, âYouâre approaching this goal, you hit this goal, youâre gonna miss this goal.â We get notifications on how weâre trending for the monthâs goals.â
Here are the solutions Simple Machines Marketing found with Databox:
âUsing our own data, we created a report thatâs become our template for everyone else. We started with Simple Machines, all of our data plugged into Databox, and got to a point where we felt the template was good and covered 90% of use cases for our clients,â Benjamin said. âWe were able to share that template with all the other client accounts and make the customizations we needed to from that point.â
âI initially was creating my own templates,â Benjamin explained, âthen I scheduled some time with Databox to go through what weâd like to report on, all the pieces. That conversation was really helpful to see an example from someone who knows Databox. That was the moment we realized this does what we need it to do.â
âOur template encompasses data that we feel fits together. The first performance dashboard is our summary and KPIs and goals. The next digs into trafficâto the main website, blog traffic, looking at trends and goals over 12 months. Then we marry HubSpot data alongside the traffic data,â Benjamin told us.
According to Benjamin, Databox has made a huge difference in their reporting processâthe most important of which is the time Databox allows them to reinvest in creating results, instead of collating them.
âIt frees up more time for us,â Benjamin said. âWeâre a pretty lean and mean team. Weâre small, but we get a lot accomplished. This gives us a few more extra days to do work for clients.â
As the agency has grown, so have the time savings. Benjamin estimates that Databox reporting saves the Simple Machines team as much as 3 or 4 days each month.
Here are the results Simple Machines Marketing saw using Databox:
Without Databox, Benjamin said, âweâd still be banging our heads against the wall. There was a huge investment at the beginning of every month to put all these reports together, review and approve them, and then send them to clients.â
âThe biggest benefit of Databox, besides being able to quickly put a report together and get them out to our dozens of clients, is the amount of time it frees up for us to do other things,â Benjamin told us. âWe have work we need to do for clients, and that work allows us to report on what weâre doing and how itâs impacting their bottom line.â
âDatabox ended up being really good,â Benjamin said. âThereâs no processing we have to do in Databox. We can immediately go through and analyze it and add our summary. Itâs saved us 3 or 4 days per month.â
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