Dashboards

The typical marketing dashboard enables data to be thrown onto a screen. I chose “thrown” deliberately. It may look appealing, but the viewer can be easily misled. They can feel as though they are wading through a mess of data.

The dirt can be well hidden. But destructive. This makes it hard for the reader to understand the story you want to tell.

To explain…

Many dashboards emphasize their ability to include data from online sources. This source data is simply fed through to the dashboard.

Sadly this simple flow creates the problem. The data in the typical online system has many problems. These include:

Data gathering normally captures as much easy data as possible. The marketing dashboard can then show this presented at will. For example Google Analytics can easily capture every page on a website.
The data gathering may be deep as well. It may capture lots of detail. This allows the reader to segment the data.

For instance.
Google Analytics events are often labelled with the page. This means the reader knows on which page a particular event type occurred. There can be thousands of different pages on which even a single event type occurs.
Let’s suppose each time a web visitor downloads a brochure for a kettle an event is counted.
And suppose our dashboard user looks after household electrical products.

It still requires much work to make the numbers useful to our dashboard user.
1) We should be able to add kettles to all the other household electrical brochure downloads.
2) But we should also be able to see the kettle downloads on their own.
2) We should be able to exclude countries that the dashboard user isn’t responsible for.

But segmentation by page doesn’t aggregate products. And aggregating all products could include non electrical product downloads.
Geographical segmentation of viewers doesn’t precisely match responsibility for marketing in Southern Europe. The former is about the location of the potential consumer. The latter is about the location of the vendor. With easy global distribution of products we cannot assume these two are the same.
So our dashboard user has several nasty choices. None really address the precise problem the reader has.

The more we leave the user to do, the less likely it is that the dashboard will help answer their real questions. We relegate the dashboard to “interesting.. but not crucial”.

I believe this is an abdication of responsibility on the part of the dashboard provider. Is the dashboard vendor just hoping that the consumer won’t notice?

Dashboards often show data on a continuing trend. The dashboard user may compare this month with last month visually.
But the data has other relevant contexts. There may, we hope, have been a plan. So the dashboard should allow the user to compare the actual result against the plan.
But can every user see if it’s too far away from plan?
Think about the plane flying from London to New York. It will be off course for most of it’s journey. But the auto pilot will make sure the error is minimal. It would be a disaster if the plane ran out of fuel off the Brazilian coast.

Any competent engineer understands the concept of tolerances. For instance diameter of each piston within a combustion engine has a tolerance. Each piston will be slightly different. But no piston can be so different it doesn’t fit into the cylinder.

It’s the same for marketing dashboards. There ought to be a tolerable deviation from plan. This enfranchises the non expert dashboard user. As a side note, the discussion of deviation is tolerable helps improve the plan. The qualitative what is good vs bad. What is better or poorer may be hard to assess.

Whilst most users have good eyesight this isn’t a good assumption. Changes in longer term trends can be difficult to see. Short term fluctuations may hide any acceleration or deceleration.

It’s like assuming that people know whether an approaching car is speeding up or slowing down. In this case the viewing angle makes a huge difference.

So the data often needs to be smoothed for the dashboard user. And manipulated. These can reveal subtle but important changes.
These changes may be important indicators of environmental changes. The effectiveness of marketing locations may be changing. Early warning of these is really helpful.

The client business has objectives. The marketing campaigns are subordinate to these. If the business executive can see a “line of sight” from a chart to a current business objective it’s much more relevant.

And if the link isn’t obvious the dashboard should state the link.

The client business has objectives. The marketing campaigns are subordinate to these. Can the business executive see how a chart relates to a current business goal? If it’s obvious the chart is much more relevant.
And if the link isn’t obvious the dashboard should explain the link.

Agencies are required to report regularly to clients. It can’t be escaped. But what makes the marketing dashboard great rather than just average? It can’t be the quantity of charts.

It’s not hard to bundle some charts and tables together and call it a dashboard. But what justifies a chart its place in the dashboard submitted by a marketing agency to its client. I want to suggest 7 criteria.

If the information simply generates a “that’s nice” then it has missed the mark. Going back to the basics – the reason for using agency was to create a particular result.

The stakeholder receiving a dashboard is answerable for the value received. They should be able to take action using the dashboard as justification.
So every part of a marketing dashboard should be answering

If the dashboard doesn’t influence more people as time goes by; then the agency is almost certainly missing out.

Many marketing agencies can safely be ignored by most within their client’s company. The agency is only visible to 2 or 3 within the immediate marketing “department” of the corporate.
Why not create dashboards that actively generate interest in what the agency is doing? Why not stimulate positive questions at board level. That provoke discussion of options.
One way to do this is to ask a series of what if questions:

The Dashboard should work for existing stakeholders. Do they read the reports regularly? If they don’t – why not? Are they boring? Does the dashboard empower the user to ask ever more demanding questions as time goes on. So a good question for every dashboard ingredient is:

Selling more to existing clients ought to be much less effort than getting new clients. The marketing dashboard can do a number of jobs to support this.

What if the client people your agency deals with all left? Without warning? What would confirm the “rumour” that your agency did anything for that client?

OK – so there is a contract.

But what did you actually deliver?

Now for obvious reasons this scenario is rare. But is it wise to rely on your contacts alone to publicise how great your agency you agency is? Isn’t a plan B a wise precaution?
The reporting cycle and marketing dashboard provide the audit trail. They prove that not only did you have a contract and get paid – you also did something. Affected something. Helped your client in some specific ways.

Procurement departments are under relentless pressure to get more for less. Periodic demands to re-justify purchase contracts are inevitable. But it isn’t obvious that your contacts need to find alternative options easy.

Evidence that your agency dashboard is hard to replace could really help.

Help directly, because other agencies could be forced to offer similar or better. Because agencies who did this would feel the need to charge more – and the ease with which they could undercut the incumbent would lessen.

Help indirectly, because change isn’t valued. Any significant group of people from within your client arguing against change (even quietly) could help push the actual re-tendering process further into the future.

All too often marketing dashboards have one overall view with segments. But if these segments don’t align with the responsibilities of the dashboard “consumers” then they aren’t going to really hit home. The reader isn’t going feel the hard work your agency does is relevant to them.

Using segments like this isn’t ideal either. It’s tedious to have to apply “your ideal segment” every time you open a report. Technology ought to do that – remember which segment you prefer. Or relate your profile to your ideal segments.

Creating a marketing dashboard that works effectively is not about drag and drop. It requires deep thinking about what the reader wants, needs and how your agency can benefit. So why not go for a walk and think?