What You Need from Your Marketing Dashboard • Perfect Audience Blog

I remember many things about my first car, a blue, 5-speed, 1982 Datsun 200SX. But what I remember most is the dashboard. The dashboard had a voice command system. The technology was pretty cool: Instead of the usual door-open or key-in-ignition chime, my Datsun would say “Key is the ignition” or “lights are on” or “fuel is low”. That was high-tech stuff for a dashboard in the 1980s.

My Datsun dashboard gave me the tools I needed to monitor the performance of my car, provided critical information when I needed it, in a way that was helpful and reliable. The technology in today’s cars provides even more information to a driver and as a result, a driver can make better decisions when driving.

Marketers rely on their marketing dashboards to make better marketing decisions. The ability to not only gather data but to interpret the data is critical. A marketing data dashboard is a tool used to visualize KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) about the impact of marketing efforts in a way that is immediately understood.

But what are the strategies, tactics, and trends for visualizing marketing data with dashboards?

 An Ascend2 research report, Visualizing Marketing Data with Dashboards, found that the primary objective for a marketing dashboard is to help improve decision-making.

The survey also found that attributing revenue to marketing efforts is the most critical challenge that marketers have with their marketing dashboard. This challenge is more than bad information in, bad information out. Attribution is a problem because you don’t have all the information to make the best decision. Maybe you are running a lead generation program but you are only attributing the first-touch attribution to an outreach effort and underestimating the performance of that effort. Or maybe you are running an ad campaign and not able to identify and tag all the activity generated from the campaign. With a lack of attribution, your decision-making becomes very difficult and the probability that you will make the wrong decision dramatically increases.

Abobe’s Jeff Allen says that the million-dollar question for every brand is “How do I know the impact of every one of my marketing events across the entirety of the customer journey, in every channel touchpoint I have?” Yes, marketing attribution is a big deal!

How should you design your dashboard? Asking and answering important questions during the dashboard design process will result in optimal effectiveness. A majority of marketing professionals say the designer must clearly understand what the right metrics are and how the data will be used.

Published previously on a blog post for Jay Baer’s Convince & Convert, here are some questions you should ask when setting up your dashboard:

• Does this data help me make decisions?
• When setting a dashboard up for someone else (CEO, VP Sales, Social Media Team, etc.): What questions do they need to be answered from the data?
• Do I need this data to make a decision? If no, it may not belong on your dashboard.
• Can I connect the data to revenue?
  • If yes, show that connection.
  • If no, how can I connect the data to revenue?
• What types of graphics fit the data best?
  • Picking the correct graphic will improve the usefulness of the data.
• Do you include goals?
  • Goals will help with your decision making.
  • Goals will improve the usefulness of the data.

If you want to discuss how to set-up your Perfect Audience dashboard to help you make better decisions, the Perfect Audience team is available to help you. We will share with you what we are learning and help you apply those learnings to your specific situation. Click here to schedule a meeting.