Webinar: Why Marketers Need Dashboards

Webinar: Why Marketers Need Dashboards

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Mychelle MollotChief Marketing Officer,

Klipfolio

Jonathan TaylorDigital Marketing Manager,

Klipfolio

Erin CropperDirector of Customer

Success at Stratigent

Questions we will answer

1. Why do Marketers need Digital Dashboards?

2. What metrics/KPIs matter?

3. What does a Marketing dashboard look like,

and how do I build one?

4. What do I need to know to make my dashboard

project a success?

Why do marketers need dashboards?

WHY

To answer a question we all have:

How are we doing?

How are we doing?

in SEO?

And email

campaigns?

Advertising?

Social media?

Events?

Last month?

This month?

RIGHT NOW?

But this question is actually many questions

And answering it requires data from a lot of

cloud services

Social Media Web Analytics

CRM

EMAIL

Marketing

Automation

SEO

And on-prem data sources

Social Media Web Analytics

EMAILSEO

Marketing

Automation CRM

And answering it requires

data from multiple services

and databases at the same

time.

How is our new campaign

impacting sales today?

So how are most marketing

organizations getting the

answer today?

HOW ARE WE DOING?

Most are using the Quarterly Marketing Presentation

● Many hours of reporting, cutting,

pasting, analyzing

● Often very functionally focused

(Web, programs, advertising….)

● Huge opportunity cost

But there is a better way! Marketing Dashboards

A Dashboard answers the

“how are we doing?”

question regardless of

where the information is

coming from.

It becomes the

single place for

all the key

metrics you need

to track on a

regular basis

And it is always on and

tracking, giving you the

answers you need, in

the time-frame you need

them:

● every minute

● every hour

● every day

● every week

Marketing Dashboards take you from: Reflective, quarterly performance management Continuous optimization

WHAT

WHAT KPIS AND METRICS

MATTER?

Why KPIs are Important

▪ Have a clear way to assess

performance

▪ Give us hints about where to look

for insights

▪ Provide context

▪ Create consensus regarding

what’s important

Why does this exist in the first place, and is it

doing what it’s supposed to do?

Defining KPI’s doesn’t have to be difficult – we’re

answering one question with many metrics.

● Reach an audience

● Acquire visitors

● Engage/Educate users

● Convert users into purchasers or

registrants

● Retain visitors over time

● Evangelize brand messaging by getting

users to share

Depending on the complexity of the site, they can have as

little as two or as many as five objectives.

Split your KPIs into objectives.

KPI Insight | Utilize Indicators + Metrics.

● KPIs = the numbers that determine how you are performing

○ Revenue

○ Orders

○ Application Submissions

● Diagnostic metrics = the numbers that tell you why you are performing

that way

○ Top products by revenue

○ Top channels by orders

○ Application submission conversion rate

What other types of KPIs can I use?

● Smoke alarms = a metric that tells you if something has gone horribly awry

○ Zero yield searches

● Predictor/Leading Indicator = how is this going to perform in the future?

○ Intent to Purchase

○ Conversion Proxy (e.g., form prints for an offline coupon)

● Latent metrics = where are there opportunities?

○ Customer Satisfaction

○ Competitive Data

Key Tips for KPIs:

● Minimize.

○ Too many KPIs make it impossible to know what is important. Only

things that are actionable or provide valuable context should be KPIs.

● Provide context.

○ Don’t just show a number – show something that will tell you why this

number is the way that it is.

● Adjust frequently.

○ When there is a site change, a re-organization, or a change in

marketing strategy, reassess your KPIs

● Be accountable.

○ If no one is accountable to a particular number, no one will ever care if

it changes or stays exactly the same.

Avoid these KPI Pitfalls:

● Too complicated.

○ Complex KPIs often do not have any place on a dashboard because

they cannot be easily represented in a visual format.

● Not part of the story.

○ Just because you have a KPI doesn’t mean it belongs on your

dashboard

○ If it isn’t relevant to the overall story that you are telling, eliminate it.

● Bad or no data.

○ If your KPIs don’t have data, or if the data that they do have isn’t of

good quality, eliminate them from your dashboards until they are

ready for presentation.

● Align the elements to a grid

● Place according to importance

● Place related things together (e.g., objectives, metric types, etc.)

● A 3/6 column layout is the easiest to start with

Designing Insight | Use layouts strategically.

Designing Insight |

Assign Placement Importance.

Designing Insight |

Place related things together.

Key Metrics

Referral

Sources

Top X Lists

Imp

ort

an

t Most Important

What does a marketing Dashboard

look like and how can I build one?

HOW

HOW CAN I MAKE MY DASHBOARD

PROJECT A SUCCESS?

Most dashboard projects fail in the following

areas:

1. Unclear requirements

2. Expanding timelines

3. Bad data or no data

4. Lack of understanding

Unclear RequirementsUnclear requirements make it tough to design a dashboard that meets the needs

of your audience.

PROBLEM SOLUTION

Executives are looking for different KPIs or timeframe

comparisons.

Get signoff on a comprehensive list of requirements

before designing.

Visual design elements aren’t consistent with what the

business wants to see.

Ask your audience if they have any visual

specifications to be considered during design.

• Data sources aren’t well defined

• Metric definitions don’t include key components for

automation

Define data sources and metric definitions for the

technical team during the requirements phase and get

signoff.

Expanding Timelines

PROBLEM SOLUTION

Technical access issues prevent starting

automation

Start the project with a “technical

requirements” phase

Changing requirements or design create

extra work once build is already underway

Create signoff milestones for each

requirements (business + technical) and

design phase

Tweaks needed to underlying data structure aren’t considered in the initial timeframe

Include re-estimation of timeline after technical requirements signoff to update for necessary changes

Delays in complex project components often cause timelines to expand

(sometimes exponentially).

Bad Data or No Data

PROBLEM SOLUTION

Reports for key KPIs or comparisons have

insufficient data

Check through key KPIs as part of the

technical requirements phase

Custom reports that needed to be created

weren’t ready for the launch of the

dashboard

Re-estimate the timeline after the tech

requirements phase, and move out launch

if needed

Complex requirements force the presentation of smaller than ideal datasets

Work with stakeholders to assess if a larger dataset can be used; if not, use caveats and lots of education

Nothing is worse than a dashboard without data, and dashboards with bad data

only serve to undercut stakeholder confidence.

Lack of Understanding

PROBLEM SOLUTION

Stakeholders don’t understand what data

points the dashboard represents

Ensure that requirements are very well

documented at the outset, and create a

data dictionary

It isn’t immediately clear what is important,

and what changes are significant

Design with the most important elements at

the top left, and use color to highlight

changes

Data caveats and other important footnotes aren’t clear to users of the dashboard, causing confusion

Use annotations and analysis wherever possible, and conduct extensive knowledge transfer for all users

No dashboard project is successful without providing a solid understanding to the

business.

Thank You!

http://www.klipfolio.com/ http://www.stratigent.com/