Preparing periodic reports for your clients can be a challenge, that is, it’s both time consuming and very important for justifying your activity to your clients.

One way to improve efficiency and save some time each week is to take advantage of a free feature in Google Anaytics: the email scheduler.  It works like this:

1. You identify the Google Analytics report that your client needs to see.
2. Click on the “Email” button, then on the “Schedule” tab
3. Configure the frequency and contents of the email to be sent to which clients
4. Google takes care of the rest, from preparing the report to mailing it out at the time you specified.

Suppose you need to send one of your clients a weekly report that shows the most-trafficked pages on the client’s site.  You’d begin by finding this report in Google Analytics (it’s called the “Top Content” report).  At the top of the report, you will click the “Email” button, which looks something like this:

The Email Button in Google Analytics

Then, you’ll want to click the “Schedule” tab – the schedule tab enables you to set up reports to run and to be distributed periodically.  You’ll see a screen that looks something like this:

Scheduling email reports in Google Analytics

To fill out this form, enter the email address(es) of your client in the “Send to Others” box.  Select the “Send to me” box to receive a copy of the report yourself – it’s nice to have a copy of this report when your client calls you back to ask a specific question about it.

Next, enter the Subject and Description for the email that will be sent.   Include your email address and phone number here to give your client easy access to your contact info in case they have a question.

Next, select the frequency for the reports to be mailed out.  I like “weekly”, which puts the reports in the clients’ hands each Monday.

Finally, check the “Date comparison” if you’d like the emailed report to include a comparison to the previous period’s data.

When you have many clients with many different reporting needs, Google’s email scheduler combined with its custom report functionality can save you countless hours of time and help you add additional value to your service offering.

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: analytics, client services, google, google analytics, reporting