Introduction

To understand how marketing initiatives connect with

business goals, marketing teams use a dozen different tools
and a myriad of metrics and unfiltered data from multiple
sources. However, it often remains a guessing game. This
hampers both decision-making and ROI.

A marketing dashboard allows you to consolidate all your data

in a single location and convert it into easily digestible
information. You get an overview of how campaigns are
performing, as well as the ability to explore further details
when needed. This gives you a more comprehensive
understanding of all the aspects of your marketing mix,
enabling you to make strategic decisions and adjustments.

We have created a step-by-step guide to a great marketing

dashboard.

Penetrace
Verkstedsveien 1
Oslo, Norway

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1. Identify user groups and
their needs
The first step to setting up a great marketing dashboard is to
identify all user groups and their needs. The dashboard should
only contain the information that is relevant to the user. The
information that the CMO needs will differ from your brand
manager or agency partners’ needs.

2. Identify objectives & KPIs for

each user group
Next, you need to make sure that you are identifying objectives
and not means. Your objectives will typically be
communication targets, sales targets and traffic targets. Your
means are media metrics, such as reach and frequency. Make
sure that you have clear and specific objectives and KPIs for
each user group. The goal is not for everyone to have insight to
all data, but for each user group to always understand the
data relevant to their KPIs.

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There are two aspects to consider when identifying your KPIs.

a) Long-term and short-term KPIs

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing focus on
short-term rather than long-term KPIs. This could be due to the
fact that short-term KPIs are considered quick wins, or
because it has simply been easier to track short-term KPIs
than long-term KPIs.

In reality, however, your long-term KPIs are arguably your most

important KPIs. As Mark Ritson argued in an article about Direct
Line Group’s brand strategy in Marketing Week:

“More recent research from Field and Binet suggests this 60/40
split varies depending on the nature of the category and the
brand being operated, but that most marketers stray far too
much to the short-term side of the equation.”

- Mark Ritson, Marketing Week

Short-term KPIs are fast-moving – in other words, they are

prone to change. A short-term KPI can, for instance, be
increased traffic, increased conversions or increased sales.
Long-term KPIs are slow-moving and more difficult to change,
such as brand awareness and brand preference.

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b) Identify drivers
Identifying the most important drivers for each of the KPIs is
crucial in order to reach your objectives. This is typically done
through a regression analysis.

Drivers may vary depending on where prospects are in in the

sales funnel. What drives preferences at the decision stage, for
instance? Imagine that a potential consumer considers your
company as one of several possible alternatives. They are well
aware of your offerings and your brand, yet they choose to
buy from another company. In order to understand why, you
need to identify what drives preferences at this stage. Price,
quality, brand or USP may be driving factors as to why
prospects ultimately select other companies.

In the past, impact could be seen with the naked eye. If two
graphs were going up, they were probably interconnected.
Today, there are a vast number of data sources available to
marketers. In order to understand what drives development in
brand, traffic or sales, you need to use advanced statistical
methods, such as modelling.

Modelling is on the rise, as AI and machine learning speed up

processes, lower the cost and provide more accurate learning.
A powerful marketing dashboard enables you to perform
automated modelling; driving better decisions and helping
you uncover new opportunities.

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3. Gather relevant data
Marketers often spend months gathering data, only to
discover that the issue they set out to resolve has become
obsolete. Having one single source of insight will enable you to
shift your focus from gathering data to analysing it. Perhaps
more importantly, however, by gathering all data in one
marketing dashboard, you will be able to save time and
money.

Let’s take a closer look at four of your most valuable data

sources:

a) Behavioural
Behavioural data is, as you probably already know, consumer
activity data. This can be information about search terms,
website usage and purchases. Behavioural data will give you
insight into the short-term effects of your activities, but will not
answer the question ‘why?’

b) Research
Research data, however, will help you answer this question.
Research data can be gathered through surveys or samplings,
often monitoring long-term KPIs, such as brand preference
and recommendations reported as a brand survey or NPS
study, or campaign effects, such as brand impact or change
in intent. Measuring an isolated campaign will help you
understand why the campaign was successful, or why it was
not.

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c) Investment
Marketing is all about optimising spend to bring more leads
into the marketing funnel for the lowest cost. Marketing Spend
represents the amount of money a marketing department
spends on activities such as content marketing, paid
advertising, SEO, social media, etc.

Media Spend represents how much you spend on showing

your ads in different media. Knowing the gross Media Spend
figures for your industry enables you to calculate a Share of
Voice. Share of Voice (SOV) is the percentage of the market a
brand holds in a given time period compared to that of its
competitors – essentially a ‘share of engagement’. SOV is a key
element in developing your competitive analysis.
Understanding your brand’s share of voice will also help you
allocate resources more effectively. You should also gather
your net spend figures into your marketing dashboard. This will
give you insight into whether or not the output of a campaign
is greater than the input.

d) Contextual
Finally, contextual data may help further explain your results.
Contextual data takes into consideration factors that are
generally out of your control, such as the weather or the
economy, or events that could have impacted your campaign
either negatively or positively.

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4. Create relevant reports
Avoid clutter and create basic reports on your KPIs – not on
everything else. Each user group should be able to create a
report on their specific KPIs. A great dashboard report is a way
for marketers to track their progress towards goals, as well as
providing insight into how they are performing on their KPIs. For
marketing executives, this provides the data necessary to
prove ROI and to attribute marketing activities to business
results.

5. Share the learnings

Create a template for visualising the various reports so that
learnings can easily be shared and understood across
different functions. This ensures a shared focus in the
organisation. There are numerous academic articles and
studies documenting the importance of organisational goal
alignment, and shared insight is the key to achieving this.

A cloud-based marketing dashboard also prevents

employees or consultants leaving with business-critical
knowledge.

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6. Keep reports updated
Rather than creating static reports, set up the automatic
gathering of data from all sources to ensure that the
dashboard is continuously updated. Keeping your dashboard
dynamic and directly connected to your business strategy is
critical. This will give all user groups the insight that they need
in order to act on rapid changes.

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Summary
Customer journeys are increasingly complex, and marketing
campaigns generate a lot of data. Using third-party analytics
apps, custom back-end systems and spreadsheets to track
campaign performance will most likely leave you none the
wiser.

In order to really understand how and when marketing drives

your brand and sales – and to optimise investments
accordingly – you need a marketing dashboard that gives you
a 360° view with the ability to benchmark and analyse results.

Use your data for all it’s worth, and take the guesswork out of
marketing with a cloud-based marketing dashboard.

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Are you looking for a powerful marketing
dashboard? Penetrace can help you see
clearly how your marketing can drive
short- and long-term sales.

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