It’s Not the Size of the Data

Imagine you’re driving on the highway. A quick glimpse at your car’s dashboard tells you that you’re driving too fast, and that you’re almost out of fuel. Without having to consider all the complex processes going on underneath the hood of your car, you’re able to make the right decision: slow down and refuel.

To do the same for their business, marketers also need their own dashboard. A marketing dashboard helps link marketing to performance by making data understandable and actionable.

Any company with huge amounts of data about their sales, for instance, would only be able to glean insights from those raw numbers by spending quite a long time examining them. This is rather like taking a stalled car and staring at the parts under the hood, hoping that the problem jumps out at you.

In much the same way that a car dashboard shows a driver the performance indicators she needs to know to get from point A to point B safely and efficiently, with a marketing dashboard, raw information can be summarized clearly using visuals that help you comprehend and make use of the patterns your data reveals.

An informative and visually pleasing dashboard will also help you use your data to keep your marketing decisions accountable and within budget. Studies have shown a long-standing disconnect between marketing operations and a company’s executive agenda; this is likely tied to the way we tend to make marketing decisions instinctively, sticking to what feels right without questioning why.

This lack of reflection often leads to lavish spending, as controlling costs isn’t usually a top priority for marketing departments. It’s here that your marketing dashboard can really make a difference, connecting marketing spending to a company’s financial and strategic plan, helping you monitor campaigns and stay on top of expenses.

If you’re starting to think that a marketing dashboard is rather distinct from a car’s dashboard in its potential and capabilities, well, you’re right! Find out why in the next blink.