We use dashboards every day. In our cars, on motorbikes, the information on our screen, on any vehicle that deals with performance. heck, even ironman uses one.
And with digital marketing nowadays becoming more data-driven, with non-stop data feeds from marketing technology platforms and analytics, there has to be one focus screen where all the data can be viewed and can be used to make real-ice decisions.
When I was still working at Renaud Air, I definitely needed a dashboard to display the metrics that I keep track of. I keep tabs on the organic traffic coming in, the number of social network activities such as likes and shares, the number of leads generated, and lastly the online sales for the day.
I was able to keep track of my daily metrics, and at the same time, I know if the campaigns we implemented for key activities such as customer acquisition, activation, retention, and revenue were all working and meeting the targets set by management. I also shared the KPI dashboard to the CEO, so he knows how the marketing campaigns on my end are doing. And in terms of reporting, everything is easier to validate since he’s also seen the data and knows how his marketing team is.
As a marketer, instantly seeing real-time numbers is very powerful since I can quickly do updates in real time, and in more ways have allowed me to improve the performance after a substandard day. One of the tools that I use for Real-Time Dashboard for Metrics is Klipfolio. I’ve tried other metric reporting tools such as GeckoBoard, however, I have to admit and (biased) that Klipfolio is the better real-time KPI and Metrics Dashboard tool.
So why use a KPI Dashboard?
With a dashboard, all the data, KPIs and Metrics are all presented on 1 screen. Reducing information clutter and promoting efficient data visualization and understanding. It provides answers about how much inbound traffic your site has for the day, the number of leads converted and online sales generated. It gives marketing managers and CEOs a quick update on where the company is in terms of their goals in a given day.
Reason #1: Understand Data with Colourful Charts and Visualizations
Monitoring digital marketing performance deals with numbers. A lot of them. And with several tools such as Google Analytics, HeatMaps, Sales CRM, there’s just so much information that needs to be monitored and reported that it can sometimes seem daunting. In having a KPI dashboard, it was as easy as viewing the gauge of a car. You know what’s going on.
Reason #2 Be More Transparent to Key Stakeholders and Team Members
Management usually keeps tabs on marketing teams and their performance. In most cases, marketing teams are allowed to have big budgets but needs to provide a substantial ROI at the end of the quarter. By sharing your KPI dashboard to your managers, there is transparency in day to day marketing reporting. They know what’s going on, the same time that you do. And this is evident when providing reports at the end of the quarter, as they know, in detail how the marketing campaigns are doing.
The information can also be shared with key team members such as a sales director. By sharing information with the sales team, they know that you are doing your job in terms of getting leads. And it is up to them to close the leads.
Reason #3: The Ability to React to Trends
Real-time stats provides marketers with the ability to make quick adjustments to their campaigns. This has happened to me several times, especially with lead generation campaigns. I usually set a specific number of target leads per day.
So for example, if my lead generation numbers are low and will not hit my daily target, I can easily set up a secondary lead generation campaign on Facebook to further promote our landing page and also create another lead generation campaign there was well. Thereby, getting more traffic but ultimately getting additional leads to hit the target.
If you’d like to know more on how you can use KPIs and Metrics dashboard to monitor digital marketing performance for your company, feel free to send me a message.