How to understand a Citation Builder Campaign report

a) Campaign Name

The most prominent feature is the name of the business for which this campaign has been created (see below within the red box): 

b) Campaign Status

Each Citation Builder campaign gets assigned a certain status, which depends  on a specific stage the campaign is at:

There are seven different statuses that you may see on your report — these include:

Saved: This status means that the client has created a campaign, but did not select the number of citations in step 2 during campaign set up. The client may go back and add more data or citations in the future.

Paid: This means that the purchase of the campaign has gone through, and we are now doing the preliminary data checks.

In Progress: This means that our agents are currently working on the campaign and submitting the data to the directories, or that it is in the queue and will begin soon.

QA and Review: This means that we have completed the submission of the data to all of the citations. Our senior managers are performing their quality check to make sure that the correct information was submitted, as well as detecting and fixing any errors or issues, and checking whether any pending listings have gone live.

On Hold: This status means that we have found issues or data inconsistency in the campaign information, and we need the client's confirmation on how to proceed further.

Confirmed: This status means that the client has selected the number of citations to be ordered, filled in the business details at step 3, but have yet to pay for the campaign.

Finished: This status means the campaign is now complete, with a minimum of 70% guaranteed live listings.

If any of these statuses have the word ‘extra’ next to it, this means it's a follow-on campaign that has been renewed.

c) Campaign ID

Each campaign is assigned a specific ID number. If you need to get in touch with us, your ID number will help us find your campaign in our system a lot quicker.

If you renew the campaign, or buy more citations, we will add a different letter of the alphabet to it, to differentiate between them.

d) Campaign Dates

A campaign report always mentions the following dates:

Purchase Date: When the campaign was paid for.

Expected Submission Completion Date: When we expect to complete the submission of the business data to your selected directories.

Expected Campaign Completion Date: When we are expecting to complete the entire campaign —we aim to complete each campaign within 6 - 7 weeks.

e) Campaign Credentials

When our submission agents start working on the Citation Builder campaign, one of the first things they’ll do is create a dedicated email account, which is then used for registration purposes on most citation sites.

When you click on the ‘Login / Password’ button, a popup window will appear with login information similar to this below:

Most directories will require both the email and password, however, some may use the username instead, so we have added that here too.

We also added the URL, where clients can access the mailbox using the same credentials.

We'll use these credentials for the majority of the citation sites throughout the campaign. If a specific site requires a unique or specific email address (e.g. Bing will require a Microsoft email address), we will add it to the notes section next to the citation in question.

These details will also be used as recovery information for unique credentials that we use for sites like Bing — so if you are locked out from the account, these can help you regain access.

f) How is your Citation Builder campaign delivered?

This link takes you to a very helpful video that explains how our agents are working on the Citation Builder Campaign, and the duration of each campaign stage.

 a) Citation Site

This is the site that was selected for the campaign at step 2 of the set up: 

 
b) Type of Site

This specifies whether the site is a general directory, or a niche site:

c) Authority

This information shows the Domain Authority of the chosen citation. This is an ‘SEO’ score of the website that predicts the ability of the site to rank well in search engines:

d) Date

This is the date when our team submitted or updated the citation:

e) Status

This shows the current status of the citation.

There are five different status options that can appear on the report:

Live: This status means there was no existing listing for the business, so we created one which is now live on the directory. Click the ‘Live’ icon to view the directory listing in a new tab.

Updated: This status means there was an existing listing on the directory for the business with incorrect details, so we have successfully updated this listing with the correct data.

Submitted: This status means we have submitted a brand new listing, and we’re now waiting for the listing to go live. We check for live listings twice: the first check is made two weeks after initial submission, while the second check is made four weeks after initial submission. You can also manually update the links yourself if they’ve gone live.

Pending: This status means that we have found an existing listing with incorrect data. We have contacted the directory, requested that they update it, and are waiting for the edits to be approved by the site moderators.

Existing: This status means we've discovered an existing listing and we’re unable to update it because of the site’s publishing policies. Alternatively, it can mean that the listing already had the correct NAP information, so we’ve made no attempt to update it. You can find more information in the notes section.

In some cases, we may encounter an issue that will prevent us from using a certain site.

If we are not able to submit the business data to one of the chosen sites, it will still appear on the Citation Builder report. However, no status will be assigned to it, and we will display the following message instead: 

f) Replacement Citations

We always do our best to submit the business data to all citations that have been selected for the campaign. Unfortunately, sometimes it is not possible due to unforeseen circumstances that are out of our control.

When we are unable to submit to a site, we will submit you to an alternative replacement site with a similar Domain Authority to ensure you receive the correct number of submissions ordered.

The replacement citation will appear on the report and will have the word ‘Rep’ in front of it (see below within the red box):

We will always leave detailed feedback as to why we were unable to submit to that site — this information will be available in the notes section, next to the citation:

g) Campaign Notes

Our submission agents will often leave notes next to some citations to provide feedback or additional information — here's an example of the notes icon (see below in red box):

To view the notes, you can either hover above the symbol, or click on it to see the popup message:
 

These notes will contain information about the details that we have updated, additional / unique credentials, an issue that we have encountered, and so on.

h) Actions

‘Actions’ is the very last column in the citation report, and is populated by blue double-arrow symbols (indicated within the red box below) — only for citations that are marked as ‘Pending Approval’ or ‘Submitted’:

This icon allows you to add the link to the live listing yourself and update your campaign report. This can be used in several cases — for example, if you notice that submitted or pending listings have gone live before we check it, if you have completed the phone verification and the listing is now live, or if your campaign is complete but you want to update the listing yourself.

All you need to do is click on the double-arrow symbol to see a popup window like this:

Enter the listing’s URL to the field and click ‘Add URL’. The listing will then be added to the report, making the status of the listing change to ‘Live’ — this is a great function that allows you to edit your own report.