Business Metrics Dashboard

Why have a metrics dashboard

Most businesses are overflowing with data.

As marketers we need to be able to make data driven decisions. The challenge isn’t having enough data or the right kind of data. Our challenge is the ability to identify what the critical metrics are and to communicate performance for those metrics in a way that drives action.

Dashboards provide a quick understanding of business performance by tracking the critical business data in an easy to understand manner. An effective dashboard can be a powerful communication tool and help to drive action.

Benchmark & Segment

An effective dashboard includes context to ensure that it delivers insights rather than questions. To provide context we can use:

• benchmarks (internal or external)
• goals
• prior performance

Without context metrics provide little or no value to the dashboard. The goal of the dashboard is to communicate not just the performance metrics but also to enable you to take appropriate action based on insights garnered from viewing the metrics in context. Segmentation is key to understanding what might be causing good or bad performance. 
It’s easy to look at a bar chart over time and see how it’s doing and how it might be contributing to overall performance. If the overall performance was by itself this dashboard element would only raise questions, or worse hide key insights.

Isolate Critical Metrics

The key to a useful metrics dashboard is understanding which metrics are critical to driving the business. Do you know which metrics are critical to the bottom-line of your business? As a general rule your dashboard should contain fewer than 10 metrics (ideally 3 to 5). Each metric should have its own goal and segmentation.

Identify Insights

An effective dashboard will include a potent set of insights that summarize performance and recommend action.

The dashboard should include a section that conveys your insights (successes and misses) and recommended actions (what to do next).
This allows you to put the analysis & recommendations front and centre so that executives can make decisions, as opposed to mulling over the “numbers”.

One page

If the dashboard doesn’t fit on one page, it’s report, not a dashboard.

A one page dashboard encourages thought be applied in selecting the metrics. It’s also a barrier to cramming in too much information, makes data presentation easier and more understandable and hence more likely to promote action.

Flexible and Relevant

Businesses evolve, people come and go, priorities change and we become smarter. As such, our dashboards and metrics need to evolve to meet business requirements.

An effective dashboard will have a certain amount of churn all the time. Metrics should be eliminated as soon as they are no longer relevant. 
Evolution is the only way to ensure that your dashboard doesn’t become stale and stops adding value.

What’s keeping you from creating a metrics dashboard for your business?

Coming up

Check back next week when we’ll talk about creating and tracking “Goals”. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about Google Analytics so you can leverage its full value for your business, we offer a 3-hour hands-on workshop that will get you started.

Chris Burdge

Chris Burdge is the founder of bWEST Interactive. His passion & profession is helping clients leverage social media to create genuine and lasting relationships with their target audience and customers. bWEST and Sage Internet have aligned to provide comprehensive services in social media, website design, and web analytics.