This article covers some general best practices you should consider following when using NinjaCat to set your team up for long-term success. The article is separated by the core concepts of the platform much like the rest of our Knowledge Base. Although there may be exceptions to how your team uses the platform, our most successful users follow most of these practices.

Section Links

General

Agency Setup

Accounts & Networks

Template Builder

Report Profiles

Dashboard Profiles

Campaign Monitoring

NinjaTrack

• General Things To Consider
  • In our experience, the teams we work with tend to see a higher level of engagement and a better experience when delivering Reports over Dashboards to their clients. Because of this, we strongly recommend that you consider a Reports first approach when getting started in NinjaCat.
  • Taking the time to craft a good data story rather than relying on “data deluge” will allow you to control the story you are telling and make your Reports and Dashboards more meaningful to your clients. (more on this in our article on Client Reporting Best Practices) 
  • Consistent naming of campaigns across all tactics will make it easier for you to aggregate your data in the platform. (more on that in this article)
  • If you are new to using NinjaCat we would strongly recommend taking the time to explore NinjaCademy as a way to learn the platform rather than just jumping right in on your own. the Getting Started with NinjaCat course is a great place to start.

• Agency Setup
  • Utilizing the ability to set different roles and permissions for your user accounts in NinjaCat is an excellent way to control who can do what on the platform. For example, some of our most successful teams will set up different roles & permissions based on their various internal teams to easily control who can do what in NinjaCat. There is no limit on the number of roles that you can create. (more on roles here)

• • It is strongly recommended that you update your agency's SMTP settings to send reports and other emails from your domain. If this is not done, reports will send from mymarketingreports.com, which may end up in spam depending on your client’s spam filtering.
  • All defaults emails templates for all outgoing communications from the platform (report delivery, new user invites, dashboard invites, etc.) can be found in your Agency Settings under Email Templates. These email templates are all in HTML and support full HTML if you want to customize them. 

• Accounts & Networks
  • Build an internal “data dictionary” or document where you clearly define what constitutes conversions or any unique calculations your team uses so it is easily shared with others building or working on your templates.
  • When naming your Accounts in NinjaCat, it is important to be deliberate with the names you select. Account names can be displayed on reports, be used for data matching when using smart connectors, and show up in many other ways inside the platform. We recommend avoiding unclear, messy, or duplicate names to avoid unnecessary confusion and frustration when working in your Agency.
  • When working with a Smart Connector, ensure the samples being uploaded/used to create a mapping are obtained the same way they will be sent/uploaded to NinjaCat. Also note that if the organization of the sample file (headers, order, spelling) differs from what was initially uploaded NinjaCat will have trouble reading the file and result in incorrect data. (If you have questions about what makes data a good fit for a NinjaCat Smart Connector we have a great article on that here) 
  • When adding data sources be specific with how you name them. The more specific you can be the easier it is for you and your team to manage these later on if credentials need to be modified or updated. For example, a data source named “Google Ads - email@ninjacat.io” offers way more clarity about what is connected than if it was named “Google Ads.” This tip can be handy if your agency has multiple versions of the same data source you need to connect.
  • When setting up the Email Smart Connector it is reccomended that at least the first few sends of data, you include yourself as CC'd on the email so that you have visibility into the file that is being sent into NinjaCat.

• The Template Builder
  • The first thing you should do when creating a new template is to go into its global settings and give it a unique title. Not doing this may lead to an abundance of templates in your agency titled “New Template”.
  • When designing and stylizing your templates start with and use the global template settings whenever possible rather than updating each individual widget.
  • Templates with permissions set to “Private” can not be used in a Report or Dashboard Profile.
  • Keep in mind when working with date ranges that all widgets will follow the template’s global default date range first but can be overridden on an individual widget basis.
  • Clips can be a great way to dynamically pull in details such as Account name, dates, contact info, and many other details from your Accounts settings to help keep your templates scaleable. When working with text widgets, you can access clips by selecting the “+” button in the text format bar at the top of your screen.
  • When creating graphics or background images for a full 4:3 page on your templates the pixel dimensions are set to 1484.63px by 1049.02px. We support file types under 8MB in size in .gif, .jpg, or .png format. 
  • The previews you can generate in the template builder should not be relied on for data accuracy or client reports. When delivering client reports or verifying data you should always run your template as a report or view it as a dashboard. This is especially true for roll-up reports (aggregating data across multiple accounts using Account Groups).
  • Global Filters and Metrics can be an incredibly powerful tool for creating scalable templates that work across several different accounts. (More on Global Filters and Metrics here)
  • When designing your template for a Report we find it helpful to limit results for very data-dense tables to only the top 5 or top 10 results based on the story you are trying to tell. Doing so will keep your main data story clean and clear, and if you would like to provide the opportunity to dive deeper you can attach the full tables as an appendix for these tables at the end of your template.
  • If your goal is to use Powerpoint as your file type, select native fonts to PowerPoint in your template's Global Settings.
  • If you plan to create roll-up reports it is recommended that you have a unique template created for these reports that are separate from your individual Account report template. 

• Report Profiles
  • Although there will be exceptions, we recommend that you strive to keep your Report Profile to Account ratio as close to 1:1 as possible. Having multiple versions of a single Report Profile for an Account can lead to a confusing experience when viewing your Report Profile List. 
  • When building your report profile selecting a date range other than “use template date range” will cause all widgets following the template’s globally set date range to use the new date range you have selected. Widgets that have had their date range overridden individually will continue to follow their pre-set date range.
  • When choosing your File Type for a report PDF will always give you the truest example of what you see in the template builder. CSV will create a single CSV file that shows the data from all tables in a single CSV file with line breaks but contains no visual or graphical elements. PowerPoint will contain graphical elements as seen in the template builder but should always be inspected before sending to a client to check for changes that may happen during report generation with type and graphic placement. 
  • When selecting a day of the month to automatically generate your reports if you have selected a day of the month to generate that does not exist reports will be run on the closest day to your selection (Example: If you choose the 31st to run your reports and February only has 28 days the report will run on the 28th)
  • When at all possible you should avoid running reports on the first of the month at midnight. Based on the data collection and display methods of major providers our recommendation would be to wait to run on the 3rd or 4th when attribution windows have settled for your various data sources towards the beginning of the business day. Here are a few real-world examples from data providers' documentation. These examples demonstrate the need to schedule automated reporting using a "data settling period".
    • • Google Ads
      • Google Analytics
      • Microsoft Ads
      • Meta for Business
  • If you choose to email your reports and the email field is left blank on your report profile the default email address will be set to the primary contact of the Account you selected to generate the report.
  • The four most common setups for the email settings on a report profile are as follows:
    • • Fully automated reporting: This allows you to have “hands-off reporting” where reports are generated by NinjaCat and automatically sent on the cadence you select. To do this have your report set to a schedule other than Manually Run, set the email mode to “Automatic Email,” fill out all your email options on the profile as desired, and set the attachment mode to “Include.”
      • Notification of a ready report: This allows you to have a notification sent when NinjaCat has generated a report but does not automatically include the report in the email. To do this have your report set to a schedule other than Manually Run, set the email mode to “Automatic Email,” fill out all your email options on the profile as desired, and set the attachment mode to “Do not include”
      • Automatically generate and do not send: This allows you to have reports generated in NinjaCat but not sent anywhere. To do this have your report set to a schedule other than Manually Run, set the email mode to “Do not email,” and leave all other settings as is. 
      • Generate and do not send until notes have been added: This allows you to generate a report in NinjaCat automatically but add notes or insights before sending your report. To do this have your report set to a schedule other than Manually Run, set the email mode to “Do not email,” and fill out the other options under email as desired, making sure to include the recipient(s). Once this report has been generated in the platform, you can add notes from the action menu on the report profile and then save and send the report from the add notes interface.
  • Templates used for reports are typically longer templates containing the entirety of your data story. If an individual Account is not using a data source on that template and a page in the template or an individual widget returns no data it will be removed from that Account’s generated report. 

• Dashboard Profiles
  • Each account inside of NinjaCat can only have one public-facing Dashboard assigned to it. However, as a NinjaCat user, you can preview any account with any dashboard profile in your agency. 
  • Data stories presented in a Dashboard are typically spread across several templates that can be selected as individual, specific views when setting up your dashboard profile. If an individual client is not using a specific data source that view will disappear for that client. This is also true for individual pages or widgets in a template. 
  • It's important to note that some features of a dashboard profile such as enabling custom comparisons for all widgets may alter the way your template appears as these features may require additional space to display.  
  • If you are using find and replace on the dimensions in your widgets and want to use a Dashboard filter on that dimension, please note that you most likely will need to apply that same find and replace on the dashboard filters to make sure the filter options displayed match what shows in your widgets. 
  • Although the feature exists to allow you to download your current view on a dashboard as a PDF, it is not recommended that you use this as a primary method of delivering reports to your clients. 
  • If Dashbaord load times are an issue that you frequently run into below are some of the most common practices that you can follow to help improve the load time of your Dashbaords:
    • • For your Data sources make sure that you have an ‘Earliest Reporting Date’ set at the Network level. Doing so will ensure that the system is not continuously looking for historical data that is not available. This is especially important if you are using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) in your Dashbaord.
      • Utilize the Lost Permissions email notification to make sure all of your Account level data source connections are healthy and connected. If you are requesting data for an account that no longer has permissions to a data source, NinjaCat will continue to try to find that data, thus make more Live API Calls which will delay the data loading in your Dashbaord.
      • When building your tempaltes, utilize the ‘Estimated’ versions of Unique Metrics (I.e. Estimated Sessions) to minimize the amount of Live API calls needed to load data.
      • Within your Dashbaord Profile endusre that you toggle on ‘Disable Yesterday’s Data’.
      • Create a Report Profile that is powered by a tempalte that has the same widget(s) as the widget(s) which are taking a long time to load in your Dashbaord and run that daily overnight. Doing this will help ‘pre-load’ data points to minimize live api calls.
  • There are three ways you can give someone access to view a dashboard:
    • • Insecure Link: This link can be retrieved by going to an Account’s Command Center and selecting the Copy Insecure Link option under the More Actions menu. You can also find this link in the CSV file generated when you choose “Export CSV” from your Accounts List. Please note this link is static and anyone who has access to it can view the data inside without signing in. 
      • Dashboard User: This type of user is set up to only have access to a single account’s dashboard. This type of user can be created from the “Users” option under an individual Account’s Settings. (More information on this type of user and how to set it up here)
      • NinjaCat User with Only Dashboard Access and Multiple Accounts: This type of user does require setting up a unique role in your agency that only has dashboard access but will allow one user to see multiple of your Account’s Dashboards. (More information on this type of user and how to set it up here)

• Campaign Monitoring
  • You can choose to filter the information that is included in your results when setting up a campaign goal by using Global Filters. These filters can be set up on a dimension to show only the specific data you want to see for your goal.
  • In its current iteration Campaign Monitoring only works on a monthly cycle. However, you can select which day of the month this cycle begins.

• NinjaTrack
  • If you are looking to use a Dynamic Number Pool with your call tracking the formula we recommend is to take your peak hourly session traffic from the sources you are tracking with your number pool and divide it by four. For example, if you want to track keywords from Google Ads and your peak hourly Google-Paid traffic is 20 user sessions/hour, then you will need five phone numbers to track that website accurately.
  • You have the option to set conversion periods and thresholds at both the Agency and the Account levels. Whatever you set at your Agency level will become the default behavior for all your accounts, with the opportunity to override this on a per Account basis in your Account settings.