Do you tell clients the whole truth?

By Sherry Bonelli / Guest Column

Here is an interesting topic that will no doubt cause a spirited debate among digital marketers. In a recent online poll, we asked our audience an anonymous question: Do you ever change/falsify the stats you report to clients?

Now, this is a controversial subject right off the bat. What you report to clients is a bit of a taboo topic for some. But first, the results of our poll. Of the 683 participants taking part in our poll, a whopping 97 percent said they have never changed statistics/data in a client report.

I have worked the agency side for some time, and I know many other high-level agency executives very well. My own experience, and what I’ve gather from talking to others in agency roles, leads me to believe that even with the best intentions in the world, these stats are wrong.

Before I prepare to face the disgruntled faces of agency owners and SEO professionals everywhere, let me explain my thinking.

I’m not accusing a portion of our audience of being liars – it’s more a case of how you interpret the question. To the creative, problem-solving human mind, the interpretation of “changing/falsifying” and “selectively sharing” is a fine line.

Let me give you a loose example based on something that may or may not have happened to me at some point when creating client reports. Let’s say you have a display campaign set to go live on a specific date. Due to whatever reason, your campaign goes live three days late. When reporting the total number of impressions delivered over the campaign period, is it falsifying the data if you tell the client that the number of impressions was delivered during the original timeframe they thought it was going to run? Or have you displayed the impressions while creatively neglecting to mention the upfront delay?

Let’s face it: It’s common for agencies to be a little “selective” when it comes to digital marketing client reports. When you’ve had a particularly average campaign for sales, but the click-through or engagement rate is high, it’s only normal to pick and highlight the areas you want your client to pay attention to. You wouldn’t be the first agency to remind a client about the value of producing lots of unique impressions with your ads and the significance this has on their long-term branding during a large campaign that didn’t quite deliver on the core KPIs – and you certainly won’t be the last.

The potential for damage

We’re talking about being selective – and maybe a little crafty – about how we present stats and metrics to clients. With modern-day data visualization, lots can be done to either highlight (or cover) specific data in client reports. Of course, we must mention the risk involved in doing this, and the peril in outright falsifying results.

There is something to be said for honesty and transparency. With more freelance consultants and small agencies popping up, clients are demanding a true picture of the performance of your campaigns. They have expectations, have assigned value to those expectations and have agreed to pay for your services. If these expectations are not met, there will be friction.

While a nip and tuck on your PowerPoint slides and bullet-point summary is usually be safe, if a client does spot anything out of sorts and calls you out on it – regardless of its severity – it can have a detrimental impact on that relationship. In some cases, it can completely break the trust the client has placed in you as a professional agency.

Clients are people too, and they will understand that within reason, not everything will go according to plan. Being open and honest, and confronting shortcomings or performance hurdles head-on is typically the best solution.

Educate your clients as to the difficulties ahead and what makes a campaign challenging, and then work out a way to solve ongoing obstacles. Always set realistic expectations. This will often result in a much-improved client and agency relationship, which will help their trust in you grow faster.

Sherry Bonelli, digital marketer and presenter/ speaker, is the owner of early bird digital marketing, a full-service digital marketing agency in Cedar Rapids. Reach her at http://earlybirddigitalmarketing.com