Calling all spreadsheet fans and slide deck connoisseurs — now is your time to shine! End-of-year reporting is one of the few times marketers can step back, reflect, and review how the year went at a high level.
And with the high of the holiday rush behind you, December’s downtime offers the perfect opportunity to gather all the metrics, remember that high-ROI ad campaign you did way back in February, and try not to cringe over the mid-summer promotions that flopped.
So, where to start? Here’s everything you’ll want to include in your end-of-year reporting.
Sections
Start with the KPIs that mattered
Your end-of-year report should revolve around the handful of metrics tied to revenue or tangible business outcomes. That includes:
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
- Return on ad spend (ROAS)
- Cost per lead (CPL)
- Conversion rate (by funnel stage)
- Marketing-sourced revenue
- Customer lifetime value (CLV)
Highlight where these KPIs improved, where they dipped, and why. Separate controllable factors (creative fatigue, weak targeting, bad channel fit) from uncontrollable ones (market shifts, budget cuts, algorithm changes).
Do a channel-by-channel performance review
Your end-of-year reports should feature a high-level review of every marketing channel, including:
- Paid search: Which campaigns consistently drove profitable conversions? Which keywords dragged down ROAS? Did branded search carry too much of the weight?
- Paid social: Which audiences converted? Which creatives flagged after week one? Did Meta or TikTok ads outperform expectations?
- Organic: What content drove the most traffic and conversions? Where did rankings rise or fall?
- Email/SMS: What were your top revenue-generating flows and campaigns? Were unsubscribes tied to bad segmentation?
Try to review your channel performance as if you’re looking at another brand, not your own work. Separating yourself will allow you to better hone in on opportunities for improvement in the next year.
Review your ad creative
Ideally, an end-of-year report offers more insights than “This ad got good CTR.” Try to look deeper:
- Which creative angles converted best (and worst)?
- Which formats performed best (UGC, testimonials, product demos, video)?
- Were you refreshing creative often enough to prevent fatigue?
Also, list the creative concepts you didn’t test this year but wanted to. Consider whether any could be worth exploring next year.
Audit your content strategy
Content deserves to be a big star in your end-of-year reporting. Take time to review:
- Top-performing articles, videos, and social posts
- Content that ranked unexpectedly well
- Pieces you invested heavily in that didn’t perform as expected
- Gaps in your funnel content (awareness, consideration, conversion)
- Search terms you could have targeted but didn’t
This is also the time to evaluate your messaging. Did it stay consistent? Did it resonate? Any learnings you can apply to next year?
Look at audience and customer behavior shifts
End-of-year reporting also gives you a chance to check in with your audience, and make sure you’re targeting all the right people. Answer these questions in your report:
- Did customers discover you on different channels this year?
- Did time-to-purchase shrink or grow?
- Did you see new objections in comments, support tickets, or customer reviews?
- Did demographic or behavioral patterns shift in your analytics?
- Are there any new customer personas worth exploring?
If your audience is moving and you don’t adjust, your performance will eventually suffer, so it’s smart to include this audience check-in in your end-of-year report.
Evaluate your tech stack and operational efficiency
You can find further budget wins by reviewing your current marketing stack. Ask yourself:
- What tools did you actually use vs. the ones you paid for?
- Which automations saved time?
- Which reporting or attribution gaps slowed your team down?
- Did you have data you weren’t leveraging?
- What tools, templates, or workflows did you want to set up, but didn’t have time?
If the tech isn’t helping you market smarter or faster, you shouldn’t bring it into the new year. Instead, streamline your stack so you can invest in new marketing tools or workflows that can make a real impact.
End with recommendations for next year
Finally, a strong end-of-year report ends with a simple, honest plan that answers these questions:
- What will you stop doing?
- What will you double down on?
- What tests will you run early in 2025?
- What resources do you need to hit next year’s goals?
With end-of-year reports, your job is to give leadership a clear picture of what worked, what didn’t, and what needs to happen next. Keep it direct. Keep it strategic. Keep it impactful.
Want help creating a custom end-of-year report that you can use year after year? Talk to Your Marketing People.
