With any business that thrives online, having a digital marketing dashboard is a necessity. The tricky part is learning how to read all the data that comes with it.
And if you’re struggling to read that, knowing what steps to take to improve your online presence or SEO ranking will be a difficult task.
What is a Digital Marketing Dashboard?
There’s no better place to start than the basics.
Digital marketing dashboards are platforms used by marketers to measure performance, primarily online.
When performing marketing for any company, you need to have a proper tool for measuring the KPIs that enable you to make the right business decision. So, marketing analytics dashboards play a significant role in tracking metrics like bounce rate, footfalls, visitor traffic, conversion rate, leads, etc. This is where a veteran like “Marketing Reports” can be of immense help, as they are able to integrate one such dashboard.
When you implement things like search engine optimization in your marketing plan, simple versions of digital marketing dashboards are used to measure your key performance indicators, or KPIs, such as:
- Visitors
- Leads
- Opportunities
- Conversion rates
Why is a Digital Marketing Dashboard Necessary?
Unless your business is run entirely offline, there are many different reasons why using a digital marketing dashboard should be a non-issue. If you plan on doing your business’s marketing yourself, you need a way to measure all the KPIs your business needs to succeed.
These dashboards are the most effective at delivering real-time reports for you and your business all in one place. They can also create the reports you require at the click of a button.
Even though it may be more of an at-a-glance indicator, it does provide a treasure trove of information that can drive more sales and increase revenue. This gives you an indication of your audience’s buying patterns.
This isn’t even going into the amount of time you can save using the dashboard. Unlike traditional marketing services such as hiring TV Advertising Agency for running ads on various live broadcast channels, digital marketing dashboards provide real-time data, so you can see what is and isn’t working in your marketing plan. This also allows you to make adjustments to the plan to either increase a specific approach or back off and try something new.
And with improvements in the code used for these dashboards, once you put in the KPIs you want to measure, you can learn to read the graphs pretty quickly.
What Does A Digital Marketing Dashboard Need to Measure?
That’s the tricky part. It depends.
Before you rip out your hair in frustration, hear us out.
The needs of each business are different. However, three questions tend to be universal when building a digital marketing dashboard:
- What is being done?
- What do we need to measure?
- How is the data being handled?
The answers to these questions will then be input into whatever dashboard you choose. This is typically done during the planning phase of your digital marketing strategy. Knowing what goals to strive for will make inputting the data that much easier.
What Are Some of the Best Digital Marketing Dashboards?
While there are plenty of excellent digital marketing dashboards available, we wanted to put a spotlight on five that we think really shine.
Google Data Studio
Since Google seems to be the king of search engines, it makes sense that they would have a digital marketing dashboard to help businesses monitor their progress.
This free-to-use dashboard can merge other Google-owned software like AdWords with ease. You can also integrate third-party software like social media, blogs, or other search engines to measure KPIs accurately. It also provides the ability to create and share reports.
TapClicks
This digital marketing dashboard is pretty popular, being used currently by thousands of businesses. While it is $25 a month, it contains possibly the most features of any digital marketing dashboard.
Over the last few years alone, TopClicks has been able to incorporate data from multiple locations like Google, Facebook, Adobe, and many others. It also sends out a monthly report to whoever needs to see KPI progress.
Whatagraph
If email marketing is the main focus of your digital marketing plan, Whatagraph would be worth looking into.
Their dashboard interface is incredibly user-friendly and is simple to set up. Most of the integrations they have are in line with email services like MailChimp, but it does have the ability to incorporate other methods like social media and SEO. It does start at $99 per month, which can be worth it if you don’t want to deal with more complicated dashboards.
Power BI for Office 365
Microsoft tends to excel at creating platforms designed for business analytics. Power BI is no exception.
While this works best for primarily funnel-based campaigns, this also provides analytics for social media platforms, email services, and others.
It does have what it calls a “freemium” version that has a lot of bells and whistles, but there is a genuine premium that starts at $9.99 a month per user.
Mixpanel
This digital marketing dashboard has the potential to give Google Data Studio a run for its money, particularly when it comes to more specific reporting related to things like user device, country, and more. What it can merge with is also impressive, allowing for a user-friendly interface even with its free version. A premium version starting at $89 a month provides more features that are worth looking into as well.
Who Can Help With a Digital Marketing Dashboard?
Digital marketing dashboards are a key tool in a modern marketer’s toolkit. The Target River also uses these dashboards to assist their clients regularly. We provide the insight they need to improve their KPIs and, as a result, their bottom line. If you need a team to assist with or manage your digital marketing dashboard, contact the Target River, Complete Marketing Services today for a consultation!