White Label Reporting for Agencies: The Ultimate Guide (2024)

As a digital marketing agency, client retention is just as important as acquisition.

You need to make sure your clients understand why you're the best fit for their marketing needs. And reporting is a crucial part of ensuring your clients are aware of the value your agency provides. There are many different ways to approach reporting for agencies, but here, we’ll focus on white label reporting.

This guide will show you everything you need to know about white label reporting — what it is, why it's important, and how it works.

Let's jump right in.

What is White Label Reporting?

White label reporting is the practice of providing custom, branded data reports to clients, colleagues, online audiences, and other internal stakeholders. In addition to data visualizations, white label reports may contain customized color palettes, logos, layouts, presentation elements, and other style-related modifications.

To create white label reports, you need a dedicated data visualization or Business Intelligence (BI) solution that supports in-depth customization.

Polymer, for example, is as flexible as you can get in terms of customizability. You can completely restructure your report's layout, use a custom logo, apply a different color theme, and insert presentation elements — from rich text blocks to video embeds.

White label reporting can be used for just about any branch of marketing, including but not limited to SEO analytics.

Benefits of White Label Reporting for Agencies

Below are the top benefits of white labeling marketing agency reports for clients:

• Personalize the reporting experience. Craft unique reports tailored to your client's particular needs. Highlight the top metrics they should track, include explanations that match their technical knowledge, and help them turn data into sharper, real-world business decisions.
• Improve client relationships and loyalty. Providing clients with personalized, clear-cut reports will help you leave a lasting impression. This will help your agency stand out from the competition, secure long-term business, and perhaps gain new clients through referrals.
• Create a reusable template for multiple clients. Creating white label reports is only time-consuming the first time around. You can easily reuse your white label reporting dashboard as a template for future reports, significantly reducing the time it takes to keep clients posted on their results.

Components of a White Label Report

So, ready to take a shot at creating white label reports?

To help you succeed, remember that creating impactful white label reports boils down to a handful of components, namely:

1. Company Branding

First things first, white label reports need to be instilled with your agency's brand identity.

Start with your logo to make sure clients don't forget who put the report together — just for them. This enhances brand recognition and customer retention.

Most advertising and marketing reporting tools reserve a dedicated spot for brand logos. Others let you take brand placement to a higher level by inserting custom images or videos into the report itself.

Of course, you can also insert images that contain more meaningful information to enrich the reporting experience. This takes us to the next component of an effective white label report.

2. Presentation Elements

A presentation element is any block within a report that doesn't contain data but augments the reporting experience all the same. It can supplement datasets with more context or present metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in new, more digestible ways.

Some common examples of presentation elements in white label reports are:

• Metric scorecards — Scorecards are a great way to help clients focus on their most important performance metrics and KPIs. A handful of white label reporting tools also allow you to set target or goal values, helping data stakeholders gauge how close they are to their desired results.
• Text snippets — Text blocks are as flexible as you'd expect in terms of providing readable insights to clients and colleagues alike. You can include detailed explanations, prescriptive analytics, and predictions that can help stakeholders make data-driven decisions.
• Videos — If there's one thing better than custom images in conveying extra information, it's video embeds. This allows you to pack loads of new insights into white label reports without committing a lot of space.
• Headers — Some reporting tools allow you to split up comprehensive data dashboards into clear sections using headers. Ideally, you should be able to customize header descriptions, colors, and sizes to make them look seamless.

Presentation features vary from platform to platform. The best-case scenario is, you have a data visualization and BI platform rolled into one that offers all the presentation tools you need.

Other presentation elements may include grids, content galleries, menus, and links to external resources. These allow viewers to squeeze more insights from your report without relying on nose-deep data analysis techniques.

3. Report Customization

Aside from branding and presentation elements, you should also pay attention to other areas of customization when creating white label reports. This includes report layouts, colors, and data labels.

The degree of customization you can achieve depends on your reporting tool.

For example, if you prefer a traditional style of reporting with spreadsheets, a tool like Google Sheets makes it possible to craft unique-looking reports from top to bottom. Whereas other tools trade customizability for the sake of simplifying the report creation process and ensuring the readability of datasets.

Of course, there are platforms that balance customizability with convenience.

Case in point, Polymer implements a drag-and-drop interface that lets you resize and reposition your data visualizations however you see fit.

You can also modify the colors of your data visualizations on a block level. This allows you to make key sections of your report stick out or more in line with your brand colors.

4. Automated Reporting

One easily missable aspect of white label reporting is the delivery, which plays a huge role in the client's experience.

The industry standard is to deliver reports through automated emails — sent on a schedule that aligns with the client's preferences. This will save your agency a lot of time and manpower in the long run, especially if you have a long list of clients waiting for results.

An alternative to automated email reports is to send invitation links to your agency dashboard. This gives clients direct access to their data, eliminating the need to request on-the-dot progress reports.

Some platforms also allow you to assign specific access permissions to invited users. For example, on Polymer, you can invite clients and give them the ability to either make changes or just view specific dashboards.

To grant clients access to only certain pieces of data, another option is to use embed codes. This unlocks a bunch of new ways to get white label internet marketing reports into your clients' laps.

Embed codes can be generated for an entire report or just specific sections, usually an individual data visualization. Your code can then be inserted into a client portal, resource page, or app that clients can access at their own leisure.

5. Explanations and Interactivity

Whether you're reporting SEO analytics data or advertising campaign results, additional context in the form of explanations or descriptions helps clients turn data into actionable takeaways.

You can use rich text elements to write explanations in your white label reports, which helps clients grasp the story that the data is trying to tell. However, this can make it tricky to create an organized report structure since standalone text blocks take up their own space.

Alternatively, there are platforms like Polymer that allow you to add explanations or descriptions directly to your charts.

When added as a description, viewers can access them by clicking the 'Read Explanation' or 'Read More' link on your dashboard.

Polymer also has interactivity baked into each data visualization. This adds another layer of information that clients can explore without taking up more space in your report.

Other types of interactive elements include:

• Control elements — If possible, include functional elements like filters, clickable labels, sliders, toggle buttons, and drop-down menus to create a more interactive reporting experience.
• Pivot tables — Unlike regular data tables, a pivot table is an interactive tool that allows viewers to analyze, compare, and answer data-related questions through simple calculations.
• Calculators — Modern dashboarding platforms can include calculators, like Polymer's "ROI Calculator" element, to help clients work with their own data without leaving the report.

6. Real-Time Data

Being able to include up-to-date or even real-time data significantly boosts the value of your reports in the eyes of clients.

That's why automated reporting cycles are very important for any agency's client relationship building. Just be sure your automated reports always contain the most recent data available from your client's data sources.

Incorporating outdated data into any report — white label or not — may seem disingenuous and hurt your agency's brand in the process. Not to mention they might skew the analysis of trends and metrics that rely on said data.

A reliable way to circumvent this issue is to use a reporting tool that's equipped with native data integrations. This will automate the process of synchronizing data between third-party sources and your white label reports.

7. Custom Metrics

Lastly, a white label report may contain custom metrics and KPIs that your client's data sources may not include right out of the box.

For example, when creating a Google Ads report through Search Ads 360. Or, you can use a reporting tool that lets you define custom metrics after importing your client's data or setting up their data connectors.

To feature custom metrics in white label reports, you can use presentation elements like scorecards with target values or interactive bar charts. This provides clients with a clear and insightful way to track the data points that matter the most.

If you're interested in learning more about custom metrics for advertising campaigns, read our comprehensive PPC reporting guide here.

How to Build White Label Reports with Polymer

The best way to learn about white label reporting is to see how it's done. And without further ado, here's a quick crash course on how to create a white label report with Polymer:

1. Set up your data sources

Before you get started, make sure you have access to your client's data source — you'll need valid account credentials when setting up data connectors in Polymer.

When ready, go to Polymer's main dashboard and click 'Manage Data' in the upper-right corner to fire up the V3 Data Manager.

From there, switch to the 'New Data Source' tab and select the app or service you want to pull data from.

Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the setup. This includes providing valid login credentials and selecting the specific dataset you want to import.  

2. Build your dashboard

The fastest way to create a ready-to-use report with Polymer is by using a pre-built template.

But if you'd rather build everything yourself or if there's no available template for your specific reporting objectives, go to your main dashboard and select 'New Board.' From there, select the data source you need to use and click 'Create Board.'

Select 'Blank Board' to start from scratch or 'Auto-Generated Board' to get a few ideas on how to visualize certain data points. Regardless, you want to build the majority of your report yourself.

Here are all the tools you'll get at your disposal when building data dashboards with Polymer:

• Customizable data blocks — Polymer lets you create column charts, pivot tables, scatter plots, heatmaps, funnel charts, and a variety of other data visualizations. All of them don't require any coding work and can be fully configured or customized in minutes.
• Suggested Insights — You can speed up the creation of specific data visualizations using Polymer's "Suggested Insights" feature. AI-driven suggestions are also available when configuring certain data visualizations.  
• PolyAI — On top of suggested insights, Polymer's built-in chatbot — PolyAI — can also instantly generate usable data visualizations from text prompts. Just type in your question or specific instructions and let PolyAI determine the best data visualization for the insight you need.

3. Add your white label elements

Polymer allows you to customize the logo, colors, info banner, and popup modal to create a boutique reporting experience for clients.

These basic options are available through the 'Settings' menu at the bottom of the Polymer UI.

For presentation elements, just click 'Add' under the left menu and choose the block you want to use:

• Header — Break up sections with a custom header and description.
• Rich text — Create rich text sections with font formatting options, link embeds, and media attachments.
• Metric & KPI — Insert compact scorecards with a visual progress bar based on a target value.
• Grid — Organize large datasets into a spreadsheet-style table.
• Image — Attach a custom JPEG or PNG image from your device.
• Gallery — Create information cards to present datasets with images.
• Loom — Embed or record a video straight into your report via Loom.

4. Share your white label report

To share reports with clients, open up the right dashboard and click 'Share Board' to see your reporting options.

Your options include:

• Sharing a board link — Let clients access white label reports directly.
• Using an embed code — Insert your report into a separate app or web page.
• Schedule an email report — Send automated email reports to deliver updates straight into your client's inbox.

Try Polymer for Free

White label reporting is a great addition to your agency's digital marketing repertoire.

But you'll need the right tool to do it right.

To get the ball rolling, we invite you to take Polymer out for a spin — completely free of charge.

Click here to start a 7-day free trial and experience what white label reporting is all about.