If you’re on a go-to-market team, you know reporting can feel like busywork. You’re drowning in dashboards, but half of them don’t help you win more deals or understand customers any better. This guide is for sales, marketing, and customer success folks who want to use Common Room to get reports that actually move the needle—not just fill up slide decks.
Let’s break down how to build reports that show you what’s working, what’s not, and what to do next.
Step 1: Know What You’re Really Trying to Measure
Before you even log into Common Room, get clear on what you care about. Don’t just copy what other teams are tracking. Ask:
- What decisions will this report help us make?
- Who’s actually going to use it, and why?
- What’s actionable here, vs. just “nice to know”?
Pro Tip: If you can’t imagine yourself (or your team) actually changing what you do based on the number, don’t bother tracking it.
Some examples that matter for GTM teams: - Who are the most active advocates or detractors in your user base? - Which companies are ramping up engagement (and might be ripe for outreach)? - Where are deals getting stuck—are there product questions, competitor mentions, or support bottlenecks?
Skip the vanity metrics—like total mentions or followers—that sound good but don’t drive action.
Step 2: Set Up Your Data Sources (and Clean Them Up)
Common Room pulls in data from all over—Slack, Discord, LinkedIn, GitHub, email, CRM, you name it. But garbage in, garbage out. Before you build a report:
- Connect only the sources you care about. Don’t turn on everything just because you can.
- Make sure your integrations are working. Test them. (You’d be shocked how many dashboards are built off half-broken data pipes.)
- Map customer accounts correctly. If “Acme Corp” is showing up as three different organizations, your report’s worthless.
What to ignore: If a data source doesn’t get real use or has nothing to do with your GTM process, skip it. More data ≠ better insights.
Step 3: Tag and Segment the Right Way
You can’t report on what you can’t find. Set up tags, segments, and custom fields that match how your GTM team actually works.
Tips: - Tag users by persona, company type, stage, or anything that matters to your sales/marketing flow. - Use segments for things like “hot prospects,” “active customers,” or “churn risks.” - Keep it simple—don’t create 20 tags you’ll never use. Start with 3-5 that actually matter.
What works: Having a field for “account owner” or “deal stage” makes cross-team follow-up way easier.
What doesn’t: Overcomplicated segment logic or tags that only one person understands. If your team can’t remember what a tag means, it’s useless.
Step 4: Build Reports With a Clear Goal in Mind
Now you’re ready to build reports in Common Room. Don’t just click around and hope for the best. Pick a goal, then choose the right visualization.
Common actionable reports for GTM teams: - Engaged Accounts: Surface companies where activity is rising—helpful for sales outreach or expansion plays. - Feature Requests by Segment: See what your most valuable users are asking for, so CS or product can prioritize. - Top Advocates or Detractors: Identify who’s moving the needle on deals, whether positively or negatively. - Time-to-Response: Track how quickly your team is answering questions in community channels or support forums.
How to do it: 1. Use filters to hone in on the right users/accounts (by tag, source, or engagement). 2. Choose a visualization that makes sense (table, trend line, etc.). Don’t get fancy—clarity beats wow-factor. 3. Add custom fields if needed (e.g. “potential deal size” or “risk level”). 4. Name your report something obvious. (“Engaged Accounts—Q2” beats “Report 6.”)
What to ignore: Pie charts showing percent of activity per channel rarely help. Focus on trends, not just static numbers.
Step 5: Automate Delivery (But Don’t Overdo It)
A report that no one reads is a waste of time. Common Room lets you schedule reports to go out via email or Slack. This is handy, but don’t spam your team.
Best practices: - Send key reports weekly or bi-weekly, not daily. - Tailor the audience—sales probably doesn’t need the same view as customer success. - Include a one-line summary or “so what?” in the body of your report email/Slack. Otherwise, people will ignore it.
What works: Sending a digest with “here’s who to reach out to this week” or “top blockers raised by customers.”
What doesn’t: Auto-sending every single metric to the whole company. That’s a great way to get ignored.
Step 6: Close the Loop—Take Action and Track Results
A good report prompts action. The best ones let you see if that action worked.
- Assign follow-ups directly from the report (e.g., “reach out to these 5 engaged accounts”).
- Track what happens next—did deals move forward, did engagement change, did issues get resolved?
- Adjust your tags, segments, and report filters as you learn what actually matters.
Pro Tip: Once a month, sit down with your team and ask, “Which reports are we actually using, and which are just noise?” Then prune ruthlessly.
Quick Wins and Honest Truths
What works: - Focusing on reports that answer “what should we do differently this week?” - Keeping reports dead simple—no one wants to decode a 10-layer dashboard. - Tying reports to real outcomes (pipeline movement, customer retention, etc.).
What doesn’t: - Tracking everything just because you can. You’ll end up with analysis paralysis. - Fancy charts for their own sake. - Ignoring data hygiene—messy inputs mean useless outputs.
Ignore the hype: Just because Common Room can surface “community sentiment” or “influencer scores” doesn’t mean those numbers matter for your GTM goals. If you can’t explain the metric in plain English, skip it.
Keep It Simple, and Iterate
The best reporting setup is one your team actually uses. Start with a few reports that drive action, and improve them as you go. Don’t get caught up chasing perfect dashboards—most teams just need clear signals and a way to act on them. If you’re not sure where to begin, ask what you wish you could know about your customers or pipeline, and build from there.
Less is more. Keep it real, keep it useful, and don’t be afraid to delete reports that don’t help. That’s how you make Common Room work for you—not the other way around.