KPI dashboards & how to use them in your marketing I’ll never forget the first time someone asked me for a marketing performance update. I had six messy spreadsheets open, no clear narrative, and no KPI dashboard to tie it all together. I had the numbers, technically … but not the clarity. I wasn’t even sure which metrics mattered most. That’s when I started building my first KPI dashboard, and everything changed. Since then, I’ve used KPI dashboards to track everything from campaign performance to quarterly revenue targets, and I’ve learned what works (and what really doesn’t). In this post, I’ll walk you through how to build a KPI dashboard (including my favorite free template), the benefits I’ve seen firsthand, and the tools I recommend if you’re just getting started. Table of Contents What is a KPI dashboard? How to Create a KPI Dashboard 5 Best KPI Dashboard Software to Use KPI Dashboard Examples KPI Dashboard Excel Templates Every department from sales to operations needs a dashboard, and dashboards are especially helpful for marketing. Between about a dozen online channels to consider (plus offline marketing efforts), numerous elements go into creating and sustaining a healthy marketing ecosystem. I’ve personally used KPI dashboards to track everything from lead quality to campaign ROI — and the biggest win is peace of mind. No more scrambling to find data in five different tools. And when you’re in the thick of a launch...

Heat Maps: Everything Marketers Need to Know Heat maps are a game-changer for marketers who want to optimize their website and blog for better engagement and conversions. By using heat maps to track user behavior, marketers can determine what their visitors like, what they don't like, and what they're ignoring. Here, we’ll take a closer look at heat maps, how they work, and the different types of maps you can use to optimize your website for more conversions and less friction. Table of Contents What is a heat map? How do heat maps work? Different Types of Heat Maps How to Use Heat Maps Imagine a marketer is re-designing a landing page and wants to position a call-to-action in a high-traffic area. Instead of taking wild guesses on where it should go, she generates a heat map of her website, allowing her to see where visitors are most engaged. This is what makes heat maps so effective. They allow marketers to visualize, understand, and interpret complex data at a glance. By identifying patterns in movement and behavior, marketers tailor their websites to improve user experience, increase conversion rates, and even reduce bounce rates. How do heat maps work? Different color schemes can be used in heat maps — from grayscale to rainbow. However, rainbow-schemed maps are typically preferred because they enable you to interpret data points more easily. The “hot” sections of a heat map — typically represented by warmer colors — are most popular...

Tired of Waiting for IT to Generate Your Reports? Try Ad Hoc Analysis In midsize to large companies, it's standard to have business intelligence (BI) analysts generate reports on behalf of employees. Having a designated team is great, as it signifies you have the resources to process large volumes of data. However, it can be a roadblock to decision-making. Generating a report can take several days and if your team is already receiving many requests, it can take their focus away from higher priority tasks. This is where ad hoc analysis comes in handy – you can run your own queries as you need them. Discover the benefits of generating your own reports and the tools that will help you do it. Non-technical users – who may be unfamiliar with structured query language (SQL) – can use it to answer questions that require immediate answers. With the ad hoc model, everyone is empowered to dig into the data and find exactly what they're looking for, without having to go through someone else. Why is this helpful? It: Saves time – When everyone is able to run their own analysis, they don't have to wait days or weeks for IT to get to it. It also allows your IT team to focus on top priorities without being distracted by one-off tasks. Speeds up the decision-making process – This also enables your team to make decisions quickly, as they can access data to support their decisions. Empowers...

7 Best Marketing Attribution Software for 2021 Determining which parts of your marketing efforts drive conversions and sales can be one of the messiest areas of marketing. But it's also one of the most important — assuming you want to increase ROI, revenue, brand awareness, conversions, campaign success, and more. This is where marketing attribution comes into play. In this blog post, we'll cover the definition of marketing attribution, the three main types of marketing attribution, and seven marketing attribution reporting software. Here are four examples of the benefits of marketing attribution: Determine the most effective areas to focus your marketing efforts and budget. Understand your target audience and their needs. Improve your chances of reaching and resonating with your audience with personalized experiences. Increase ROI. Three Types of Marketing Attribution and Software No matter which benefit you're trying to derive from marketing attribution, there are three main categories of marketing attribution — keep these in mind when setting your attribution goals and deciding which software is ideal for you. 1. Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) Multi-touch attribution identifies which of many possible customer touchpoints is responsible for a sale. It’s important to realize that while most MTA programs include some channel data, they’re designed to test specific touchpoints. For instance, a multi-touch marketing attribution tool may evaluate your touchpoints in the following ways: First-Touch Model: A first-touch model assigns all of the credit to the first webpage or digital asset that...

9 Custom Reporting Tools For Your Marketing Team When it comes to creating reports for your data, sometimes a pre-built dashboard, table, or template will do the trick. But what happens when your current tool doesn’t have a pre-built report that meets your needs or includes the metrics and dimensions you want to use? Well, that’s when a custom reporting tool comes in handy. What are custom reporting tools? Custom reporting tools provide the ability to create personalized and unique (or customized) reports for your data. In addition to selecting the data you’ll display in your report, you can also customize a report’s metrics, dimensions, appearance, and more. There are a number of custom reporting tools available today including options that come with other perks like no necessary coding, easy installation, different pricing plans, support, and integrations (e.g. for data analysis and one-click sharing). Many custom reporting tools, like HubSpot, often come with pre-built templates and dashboards as well for instances in which you don’t need or want to customize your report. Here are 9 custom reporting tools to help get you started. 1. HubSpot Marketing Analytics Software Source HubSpot helps marketers surface a combination of customer insights and data to better understand what’s working and what’s not among target audience members. All of these insights and reports are available at your fingertips — alongside your CRM — without SQL. The custom report builder offers access to all of your data in a single location...

15 Key Performance Indicators to Help Improve Your Marketing When I was cooking steak the other day, I had to use a meat thermometer to check and see if the meat was cooked all the way through. In other words, I had to look for an indicator to see how the cooking process was coming along. Marketing is fairly similar. As a marketer, instead of a meat thermometer, you're going to use key performance indicators (KPI) to measure success. Below, let's learn more about KPIs and review some examples of marketing KPIs that can help you improve your marketing. Essentially, KPIs are measurable metrics that gauge overall performance over time. A great way to analyze and report on your KPIs is to create custom dashboards in your automation software. So, now that we understand what a KPI is, let's look at some examples. For today's purposes, we'll focus on marketing KPIs, but to learn more about sales metrics, check out our ultimate guide. 1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Customer acquisition cost (CAC) measures the amount of money it takes to convert a potential lead into a customer. This metric can be used to improve your marketing because it helps you make important budgetary decisions. For example, you don't want to spend too much money acquiring a customer if it won't result in a profit. Basically, this helps businesses decide how much money to spend on attracting customers. 2. Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV) Another metric that can...

14 Reporting and Business Intelligence Tools For Your Marketing Toolkit Whether you're conducting a blog traffic audit or analyzing the success of your most recent social media campaign, it's undeniable that data is an integral part of any marketing role. As HubSpot's Director of Analytics, Bridget Zingale, says, "Reporting and attribution haverevolutionized marketing in every industry. Marketing data allows businesses to make more informed decisions about their audiences’ needs, challenges, and interests." Fortunately, there are dozens of analytics tools for marketers with the ability to collect data from different sources, crunch it effectively, and deliver helpful campaign analysis. Ultimately, reporting tools should do more than just calculate — they should also make the marketer’s job easier, and more productive. Creating attractive and readable reports is key to ensuring that the results of your work are clear for your entire team. Here, let's dive into some of the best data reporting tools, as well as some effective business intelligence (BI) platforms, to enable you to properly analyze your work. Best Business Intelligence & Data Reporting Tools As Zingale notes, "Data points such as age, ethnicity, gender, location, education, and employment have informed marketing teams and heightened the impact of campaigns across the board." Good tools you use should give you the above metrics — but greattools give you more. If you're one of the 75% of marketerswho report ROI from marketing campaigns, you're going to need reliable, accurate data. Let's explore the 14 best tools to help get you the...

19 Ways to Spend Your Marketing Budget Next Quarter The tough part is over — your budget's been approved for the next quarter. But now, another challenge looms how to spend that money. You might be a little lost about how best to allocate your budget. Consider the resources and tools your team needs to do their jobs well. Additionally, leave a little room for celebrating your team for their wins — both big and small. So, how do you accurately plan out that perfectly balanced budget? Whether you have “use-it-or-lose-it” funds left over from the quarter, or are putting together a budget for the first time, here are some guidelines for allocating that money effectively. 1. Test new versions of calls-to-action that are performing poorly. Estimated cost: $50 per call to action In your analytics software, sort calls to action by click rate and conversion rate. Then, redesign ones with the lowest performance and test them. One way to do this is by performing an A/B test, which will show you which design your audience prefers. Perhaps a simple design change is in order to attract more visitors, like choosing a different photo. Or, maybe tweaking the wording can strengthen the connection you make with leads. This test will be useful in identifying the best ways to further prospects along in their buying journey. 2. Identify improvement opportunities on your homepage. Estimated cost: $150 Install heat map tracking software, like Hotjar or Crazy Egg, on your homepage....