A useful marketing dashboard answers a handful of recurring questions on one screen. Start with the decisions you make each week or month, pick the few metrics that inform them, define each metric exactly, and only then choose a tool. Most dashboards fail from too many numbers, not too few.
Start with decisions, not data
List the decisions the dashboard should support. For example: “Do we keep spending on this channel?”, “Is enquiry volume rising or falling?”, “Which page needs fixing?” Each metric on the screen should connect to one of these. If a number would not change anything you do, leave it off.
Choose a small set of metrics
Think in three layers:
| Layer | Question | Example metrics |
|---|---|---|
| Outcomes | Did the business get what it wanted? | Enquiries, bookings, sales, revenue from marketing |
| Efficiency | What did it cost? | Spend, cost per enquiry |
| Diagnostics | Where is it working or leaking? | Traffic by source, conversion rate by page |
Aim for outcomes at the top, a few efficiency measures beneath, and diagnostics only as far as you will act on them. For campaign-level thinking beyond views, see how to measure creative campaign performance.
Define every metric in writing
Disagreements about dashboards are usually disagreements about definitions. For each metric write down:
- What counts (for example, a form submission or a phone call over a set length).
- The source system.
- The time window and time zone.
- Who owns the number.
If “conversion” means a form submission in one report and a purchase in another, people will stop trusting the screen.
Make sure conversions are tracked
The outcomes layer depends on tracking set up properly. In Google Analytics, you mark events as key events. Google’s help notes that marking is not retroactive: it applies only from that point forward, and newly marked events can take up to 24 hours to appear in standard reports. Standard properties can have up to 30 key events, so choose the meaningful ones rather than marking everything. Some events, such as purchase, are marked by default.
For ad platforms, see Google Ads conversion tracking setup, and for how credit is assigned across channels, marketing attribution basics. If phone calls or offline sales matter, they will be missing from the dashboard unless you track them separately.
Pick tooling that fits
Choose the simplest tool that works for your data and your audience.
- A spreadsheet. Fine to start. Manual updating is a real cost, so use it only if the data is small.
- A free reporting tool. Google’s reporting product describes itself as a free tool that turns data into dashboards and reports, built in a drag-and-drop editor with filters viewers can use, with sharing for your team or publicly. See Google’s Looker Studio documentation. The documentation page itself does not detail data connections, so check the connector you need before committing.
- A paid business intelligence tool. Worth considering only when you have many sources, many users or complicated calculations.
This article does not rank products. Choose by data sources supported, refresh method, who must read it and who will maintain it.
Design for reading
- Put the most important number at the top left.
- Show change over time, not only a single total.
- Compare against a target or the previous period.
- Limit the page to what fits on one screen.
- Label every chart with what it shows and the date range.
- Use a note on the page to explain any known data gaps.
Build a rhythm around it
A dashboard is a habit, not a deliverable.
- Decide the review cadence, such as weekly for channels and monthly for strategy.
- Assign a person to check data quality before the review.
- Record what you decided at each review.
- Prune metrics nobody discussed.
- Revisit definitions each quarter.
Common mistakes
- Vanity metrics with no decision attached.
- Mixing time periods across charts.
- Counting the same conversion in two systems and adding them.
- Building the dashboard before the tracking works.
- Nobody owning the data.
Where Radiance Impact fits
Radiance Impact’s Growth and Marketing team helps businesses with strategy, campaigns and measurement planning. See Growth or contact us.
Sources
- Mark events as key events, Google Analytics Help
- Looker Studio documentation, Google Cloud
