Marketing Dashboard Definition
A marketing dashboard is a centralized report that includes information from multiple sources like website analytics, CRM software, and accounting programs. The purpose of a marketing dashboard is to help business owners and marketing teams evaluate and understand how well their strategies and tactics are working.
Marketing dashboards are generally updated frequently and report information using charts, tables, and graphs to organize and visualize data in an easy-to-understand format. Every business has unique goals and manages their data using different technologies. Useful marketing dashboards are customized to meet specific requirements of each business.
There are many types of reports that people include in their marketing dashboards. Typically, each report summarizes a marketing KPI (key performance indicator). The collection of individual reports that make up a marketing dashboard create a useful tool for tracking progress toward goals, proving ROI, and attributing marketing activities to revenue.
Marketing Dashboard Example
A business wants to know how many leads and customers they are getting from each of their marketing channels, which campaigns are the most profitable, and how quickly leads are becoming customers (sales velocity). This information will be used to help them decide how to prioritize their marketing investments.
Accomplishing this means that the marketing dashboard will need to include and compare the following data:
- Leads acquired from traditional and digital marketing channels
- Time between initial contact and first sale
- Amount of initial sale
- Customer lifetime value
Leads acquired from their website, social media, events, phone calls, and other marketing channels are tracked using the company’s CRM. Time between initial contact and first sale is also tracked by the CRM. The amount of the initial sale and the customer lifetime value is tracked by accounting software.
To make the reports in the marketing dashboard, information needs to be gathered from each source and centralized in one spreadsheet. Once the data is organized in a single spreadsheet then it can be visualized and shared with everybody on the team.
Why are Marketing Dashboards Important for Strategic Marketing?
- Strategy
- A marketing dashboard serves as a decision-making tool, not just a report. It’s essential to helping you make the right choices so you can prove your marketing strategy and tactics are working and make adjustments to better reach your goals.
- Continuous Improvement
- A marketing dashboard is an excellent tool for getting everyone from ownership and accounting to sales and marketing on the same page. Every team member will have a deeper understanding of how improving marketing over time contributes to profitability.
