Are you an executive looking to gain better insights into the performance of your organization? KPI dashboards have quickly become essential tools for measuring progress and understanding patterns in data. They allow executives to visualize information from multiple sources, enabling more informed decision-making.
Today, we’ll explore what a KPI dashboard is and why it’s important for business success. Then we’ll discuss 7 key examples of different types of key performance indicators that you can use in order to make sure organizational goals are being tracked correctly.
Finally, dive into best practices associated with setting up and using KPI dashboard so they work most effectively! Join me as I walk through this crucial tool – let’s get started!
Management KPI dashboard
An executive’s ability to manage time efficiently is essential for success. That applies to more than just their day to day schedule. It’s also about maximizing their business resources.
We believe a 30-Second KPI Dashboard should start every executive’s day. This provides a quick overview of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), allowing executives to easily track performance and identify any areas requiring additional support or consolidation.
An effective 30-Second KPI dashboard answers these questions in 30-seconds or less:
- What’s working.
- What’s broken.
- Where should you focus your activities today.
- What’s the near future look like for key business goals.
Using data-driven feedback, executives can also understand which strategies have been successful and which haven’t. Rather than taking time from other core responsibilities, such as meeting customers or developing relationships with potential partners, executives are freed up to focus on their business objectives and ensure that they are achieved.
A Management KPI Dashboard clearly illustrates how exactly resources are being utilized in order to help maximize efficiency, resulting in the best possible outcomes for the business.
The Pipeline Report: The Center of All the KPIs and Metrics
The Pipeline Report is the centerpiece of every dashboard. It gives a quick and simple overview of the entire customer journey. This is broader than a deal pipeline or opportunity pipeline. Many businesses will have more than one pipeline. But they should have less than five.
In two or three seconds you have an overview of your business. Then…
Manage the red and celebrate the green.
Ask the right questions to define the right type of KPI dashboard
As a business leader, it’s critical to define the right type of KPIs dashboard for your organization and its functions. For each part of the organization, the goal should be to identify important questions that help in understanding their strategic objectives.
For example, in sales you may need to monitor the number of activities like meetings, emails and phone calls that lead to a sale. You’ll also want to track revenue and average order values so that you can define the relevant key performance indicators that drive the best ROI on sales activities.
Similarly, when it comes to marketing dashboards look at some basic metrics such as top landing pages, conversion rates, campaign performance and engagement rates. By asking the right questions and utilizing these different dashboards, leaders can ensure they are truly assessing all core aspects of their organization and leading teams to success.
A Structured Approach for Modern KPI Dashboards
The rollout of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) forced us to step back and change the way we created KPI dashboards for our clients. GA4 is more powerful than Universal Analytics (which Google is sunsetting on July 1st, 2023). But more powerful means more complicated. You’ll have more raw data and more data points. But the goal isn’t more data. You want less data that tells you more.
“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.” – Steve Jobs
Building simple KPI Dashboards… dashboards that report less data while delivering more valuable insights is hard.
So, we developed this approach to simple dashboards with actionable insights:
- Map all of your pipelines from first touch to money in the bank. Identify each milestone in the journey and a single owner for each milestone.
- For each milestone owner, have them (not you):
- Clearly identify the inputs to their milestone. These inputs need to be objectively measured data.
- Clearly articulate what their deliverables will be once they have those inputs. Again, in the terms of objectively measured data.
- List the questions they need their 30-Second Dashboard to answer so they can effectively manage their milestone.
- Proactively list the actions they’ll take once they have those answers. Above goal drives one set of actions. Below goal drives a different set of actions.
- Wireframe dashboards for each milestone owner. Evolve the wireframe until they agree it will answer their questions. Identify the infrastructure you need to answer those questions.
- Configure GA4, HubSpot and other infrastructure to be able to deliver the data to populate the dashboards.
- Build the KPI dashboards.
When you do this process, you’ll discover that some questions are answered in native HubSpot dashboards, while other answers are not. That’s why this process is important. Don’t limit yourself to the limitations of your current dashboard templates. Use other tools like Databox to answer the questions that HubSpot’s dashboard templates do not.
KPIs Need Owners
If you want to ensure that your business grows as quickly and efficiently as possible, you need to assign owners for each key performance indicator. Clear ownership tracking KPIs with real time data ensures that the most important business data is managed by the person who can influence it the most. They should have a unique KPI dashboard so they can measure progress on their strategic goals.
Having an owner for each KPI will also help introduce accountability within the company. That makes it can be clear who is responsible for a key performance indicator and whether or not they are successfully meeting their assigned KPIs. With KPI owners in place, businesses know exactly where they stand at any given time and make well informed strategic decisions that lead to growth.
Prepare your Data Sources for Your Unique Key Performance Indicators
The key to success in today’s data-driven business climate is the ability to effectively use data sources like GA4 and HubSpot to make informed decisions. Customize these sources to naturally structure the data so they can report the key performance indicators for your unique business.
By creating KPI dashboards that allow real-time data tracking with clear visuals, business leaders can quickly see where their efforts are paying off, while also spotting opportunities for improvement and growth.
Use these insights as a foundation to base more and more strategies on evidence-based decisions powered by meaningful insights into the specifics of their customers, prospects and operations. With immediate access to the right data, executives can take action swiftly and confidently – ensuring that their investment in these influential technologies yields substantial rewards.
Marketing KPI Dashboard
As a marketer, it is important to understand what reports should be on a marketing KPI dashboard so you can accurately track the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and campaigns.
The marketing dashboard should include key reports that tracks must be included are those which indicate how well the marketing department is performing in terms of metrics such as website traffic, lead generations, conversions, and sales. These reports should be easily broken down into more granular levels of detail so that marketers can analyze trends and adjust their strategies accordingly. Utilizing a KPI dashboard also allows marketers to compare their performance against industry standards and discover opportunities they may not have been aware of beforehand. By keeping track of these numbers, you’ll have a better understanding of which marketing initiatives are providing tangible results or need to be rethought.
Marketing Operational KPI Dashboard Examples
Here are a few examples of operational dashboards for marketing.
Landing Page Engagement Report
This dashboard template packs a ton of information into a five-to-ten second view.
- The funnel shows you entrances, engagements, and conversions. (by user – not session)
- You also have total users, conversions, and user conversion rate by channel.
- Lastly, you have a list of internal referring pages to your landing page.
While we like HubSpot dashboards, it would be hard to achieve something this compact in a standard HubSpot dashboard template. Also combining data from HubSpot and Google Analytics requires that we use a tool like Databox to bring them together. The good news is we can embed this report in a HubSpot dashboard.
Multi Ad Platform Performance Tracking Dashboard
Again, in a 5-to-10 second glance, you get a quick understanding of how your different ad platforms are performing. Anyone who has run ads knows there are accuracy issues on the ad reporting platform. That’s why we use HubSpot instead of Google Analytics as the primary source of data.
Organic Landing Page KPI Dashboard
You can find this report in Google Analytics, but we believe it’s better to view it in HubSpot. One reason is most managers and executives never log into Google Analytics. And for those who do, it’s cumbersome to make the reports. We believe HubSpot dashboards should be the single source of truth. So, we build this dashboard in Databox and embed them in HubSpot.
Sales KPI Dashboard
What gets measured gets done. And a sales KPI dashboard should focus on the most essential metrics that drive sales performance. As always, closely scrutinize vanity metrics vs. a true sales KPI.
30-Second Dashboards with key performance indicators lets the sales team to quickly make data-driven decisions that are based on reliable sales data.
The types of reports used in KPI dashboards will vary greatly depending on the company’s specific goals and needs. The best KPI dashboards include monthly sales volume, daily sale trends, quarterly goals, customer lifetime value, and conversion rates.
Equip your sales team with a clear understanding of their performance tracking and overall performance. This helps guide their daily activities.
Sales Operational KPI Dashboard Examples
Here are a few examples of operational dashboards so you can track performance of your sales team.
Lead Response Time Dashboard Template
Few things will move your revenue needle more than improving response time. Thankfully, HubSpot has an outstanding built-in dashboard tool to build these reports. Here is an example of one.
Average Deal Amount and Total Deal Amount Dashboard
I won’t tackled the debate if you want your sales team closing more deals or higher value deals. The good news is you can see both sales reports side-by-side, and fortunately, HubSpot dashboards makes this easy with built-in reporting.
Deal Revenue by Sales Rep Dashboard
Sales folks are naturally competitive. So give them what they need. HubSpot has a built-in report that shows sales revenue by sales rep. Post this to your HubSpot dashboard and let competition do its magic.
Post-Sales Dashboard: Customer Satisfaction
Tracking customer satisfaction holistically involves tracking the entire customer journey, from pre-sales to post-sales. A customer satisfaction KPI dashboard is an essential tool to achieve strategic goals.
This enables companies to visualize and analyze data points related to the customer experience. Typical KPIs that should be included in this operational dashboard are customer satisfaction score, Net Promoter Score, brand loyalty score, renewal rate, and churn rate.
A reliable KPI dashboard keeps businesses on top of trends so they can continually work on improving the customer experience – a key factor to maintaining success.
Choosing Dashboard Software
KPI Dashboard Software can be a great addition to the built-in dashboards in HubSpot for anyone looking for greater insight into their business metrics and analytics. With the ability to easily add data sources from multiple systems, KPI Dashboard Software augments the HubSpot platform to deliver valuable insights that would otherwise remain invisible.
One of our favorite tools is Databox. It pulls data from multiple sources to build data visualizations give a broader view of the company’s performance. One of the most powerful dashboard examples is the Pipeline Report. It gives a comprehensive overview and shows the customer journey by tracking data from Google Analytics to HubSpot to whatever accounting software you use.
Use Vanity Metrics Sparingly
Vanity metrics are flashy statistics, seemingly impressive on the surface but ultimately misleading. While it’s tempting to be distracted by the attention-grabbing numbers, it’s far more important to create a KPI dashboard removes noise so you can make data driven decisions based key indicators that actually move the needle.
They can clutter your dashboard and sidetrack you from what really matters. Track KPIs and metrics that amplify your business objectives or help you uncover unknown nuances in customer behavior.
KPI Dashboard Templates
Tools like HubSpot and Databox have built-in KPI dashboard templates. The good aspect of these is you can quickly deploy instant reports with little thought.
But they aren’t necessarily the right KPIs for you. Don’t fall into the trap of believing relevant KPIs for someone else are also relevant for you. The important KPIs for each company are different. So, a KPI report for you may be complete nonsense for someone else – and vise versa.
Don’t Let Your First KPI Dashboard be a Daunting Task
It may seem like a daunting task to get started. So, your first KPI dashboard may come from a dashboard template. But quickly build a dashboard template for your strategic objectives. The most important thing is to get started.
Build something. Identify what you like and identify what could be better. Then build your next dashboard. It’s unlikely you’ll “nail it” in your first try. But once you start, you’ll build momentum towards your ultimate goal.
Set your Dashboards Free
We live in a highly competitive business world. To face that competition, it’s important to make sure that all of your KPI dashboards are free from any limitations and available to as many stakeholders as possible.
Doing this gives a full view of operational performance It’s another way to gain an edge over competitors in the market. Making KPI dashboards open and available allows organizations to make data-driven decisions on key aspects of their operations. This drives more efficient efforts and better results. And that’s critical to running a successful business today.
Combine Metrics to create Actionable KPIs
It’s no secret that KPI dashboards give unique insights into your data. But data without action doesn’t help you.
So, how do you get the most out of them? One of the best ways to gain more visibility and understanding over your data is to combine metrics to create actionable KPIs.
Instead of just analyzing single numbers, combining multiple metrics together can alert you to trends or connections that otherwise might have been missed. This in turn will create more meaningful kpi dashboards, giving you actionable insights quickly and efficiently while providing an even deeper understanding of your data then keeping the metrics separate.
Finally, some practical Dashboard tips
When creating your KPI dashboard, it’s important to remain focused on pertinent data and not get overwhelmed by too much information. Focus on strategic KPIs. To make sure dashboards are helpful stay focused on business performance. The best KPI dashboards avoid overburdening the milestone owners with unnecessary details.
These analytics dashboards give historical data visualizations provide trend analysis that give insights to the future. They eliminate the need to look at different dashboards and consolidate all KPI reports in a single dashboard. The visual representation is clean and uncluttered.
Summary – Your Action Plan for Starting KPI Dashboards
In conclusion, kpi dashboards are critical to unlocking insights and growing your business.
Start with a Pipeline Report. It will structure your thinking and questions for the most powerful results.
Make your stake-holder dashboards consumable in 30-seconds. That’s essential if you want them to be used and grow your business.
Additionally, make sure you focus on actionable metrics and avoid vanity metrics. Aggressively cut fluff and distractions.
When you combine multiple metrics in a single dashboard, you’ll unlock new levels of insight into how your business functions. If done correctly, these power dashboards will drive growth for years to come.
On this note, if you need help getting started or want support building KPI dashboards, reach out and we’ll do a mini-project together.
The KPI software you’ve discussed here seems like a game-changer! I’m eager to see how it can help streamline our business processes and enhance decision-making. Thanks for shedding light on this powerful tool.