This documentation means to establish the parameters and understanding around Kickback Reports between members of leadership. It is independent of the Kickback Process and has no bearing on the day-to-day work.

Points of Contact

  • Content Team Lead - Amanda Kelner

  • SEO Director - Lance Shroyer

  • SEO Team Lead(s) - Mia Lupo (DS), Katie Hill (ARI)

  • Senior Rep(s) - Jose Viscaya (DS)

  • QA Team Lead - Ned Faulhaber

  • Juniper Team Lead - Gabe Reyes

  • SEO Trainer - Joe Linebarger

Important Resources

  • Kickback Reports Folder - All Kickback Reports are kept in the shared Google Drive folder.

  • Active Kickback Sheets - The Content Writers track their kickbacks throughout the month on the Kickback Tab of their monthly tracker. It is not necessary to monitor the Kickback Sheet unless a unique concern is raised.

  • Content Kickback Process - The Content side of the kickback process only. SEO-specific details are not provided on this page.

Information Collection

Throughout the month, the content writers keep track of each request they kick back in their monthly tracker on the Kickback Sheet tab.

At the end of every month, the Content Team Lead organizes this information into the monthly Kickback Reports.

These reports are then distributed to some or all of the leads listed above.

Transferring Information from the Kickback Sheet to the Kickback Report

This task usually falls on the Content Team Lead and should be carried out in the first week of the following month, after the last work day of the month in question.

Review the Kickback Sheet and note the months listed in the Proposed Month column. Open all existing Kickback Reports that require updating and create new Kickback Reports when appropriate.

To create a new Kickback Report, open one of the previous Kickback Reports, and click File → Make Copy. Remove all information about the previous month on both tabs and update all relevant information to match the details of the new month. The new Kickback Report should be kept in the same file as the previous reports, unless transitioning to a new year, in which case a new file can be made.

Group all kickbacks in the Kickback Sheet for one month and copy the details from those entries. Paste them into the Detailed section of the corresponding Kickback Report, matching the information in each column in the Kickback Sheet to the respective column in the Report.

If a kickback for a platinum indicates issues with both requests, duplicate the entry so they’re counted as two separate kickbacks.

Go through each entry and use the check boxes on the right half of the board to indicate how frequently each kickback reason appeared. This may involve adding or removing reasons that aren’t relevant for that month. The formulas at the bottom of the sheet should automatically add up the totals for each reason.

Also take a moment to highlight all requests that were kicked back twice, if any.

Identify the total sums for each kickback reason, frequency of individual SEO reps tagged on the cards, and each team’s totals between Dealer Spike and ARI. Also note the total number of kickbacks for that particular month.

Tip: This is often easier to calculate using a separate spreadsheet.

Enter in the information collected in the Detailed tab into the Summary tab for easy quick reference. Make sure each section is sorted by frequency (most to least).

For the Team Totals, use the packaging numbers pulled at the beginning of the corresponding month to calculate percentage.

Repeat this process for each month noted in the Kickback Sheet.

Once all reports are updated and created, share the reports with relevant members of leadership. Along with all the updated/created reports for the month, include the total number of kickbacks for the previous month, regardless of request month.

Understanding the Monthly Kickback Reports

Every kickback report contains all kicked back requests requested for a particular month, not the month they were kicked back in.

Ex. All January requests that are kicked back are put in the January Kickback Report, whether they were kicked back in December, January, or February.

Generally, at the end of every month, a few reports will be updated and require review.

Kickback reports summarized information in one tab and detailed information in another. Provided information includes:

Summary Tab

The total number of requests kicked back that were requested for that month/year.

All kickback reasons, listed in order from most frequent to least.

The SEO reps tagged on each card kicked back, listed in order from most frequent to least.

The total number of kickbacks broken down by the corresponding team (ARI or Dealer Spike). These numbers are listed by sum total and by percentage of overall requests.

Detailed Tab

A link to the Trello card that was kicked back.

The SEO rep tagged on the card

The corresponding team for the kickback.

A summarized reason for the kickback.

The remaining columns group all kickback reasons by frequency. The first row states the basic kickback reason and the subsequent checked boxes indicate how often that reason came up. Totals can be found at the bottom of the sheet below the last kickback entry.

Kickback Report Review Discussion

If any single kickback reason appears more than 9 times in a given month, it warrants further discussion from leadership. The Content Team Lead will communicate the need for a followup discussion in their initial Kickback Report communication and schedule the discussion meeting.

It is imperative that two SEO representatives be present at this discussion, one from Dealer Spike and one from ARI. This person should be prepared to speak on the issues at hand and follow up with their respective team on solutions.