With marketing going digital, it’s becoming increasingly important to measure results. There are 5000+ data sources, and the challenge of tracking and making sense of all this data is getting harder.

So what metrics should a marketer’s dashboard contain? If your answer includes only activity-based metrics such as impressions, clicks, and form fills, please read further.

We recommend looking at the data across two dimensions: depth and breadth.

On the depth side, the data can be organized into four layers:

1. Assets – The most granular level is assets, which are typically landing pages (LPs) and email templates. The objective here is to determine which landing pages have high conversion rates and which emails have better open rates or click-through rates.

2. Programs and Campaigns – Programs and campaigns are groups of ads, emails, and LPs that have a specific objective. The objective could be lead generation or conversion of leads from the top of the funnel to further down the funnel.

3. Leads – At the lead level, the analytics you’ll be most interested in are the volume of new leads generated and the funnel view of the leads.

4. Pipeline – The dollar value of the pipeline generated or influenced by marketing and the value of revenue closed are the most important data points. Setting up well-integrated marketing systems will enable you to determine the economic contribution of channels and campaigns.

On the breadth side, the measurement spans across these areas:

1. Lead Acquisition – Web traffic, campaigns, and events that offer top-of-funnel metrics

2. Lead Management and Nurturing – The volume of the marketable database, the volume of leads, the movement of leads from one stage to another (conversion rate), email campaign performance metrics such as open rates, and click-to-open rates

3. CRM – To arrive at the pipeline and ROI metrics, it’s important to map the leads that came in via multiple sources to their end journey, either opportunity generated or deal closed.

While you’ll start with basic cuts of the data (by time, industry/vertical, and acquisition channel), over time you’ll likely want to add more customized dimensions, including BUs, geos, products, and services.

Also, you’ll want to convert the measurements into key performance indicators (KPIs), which are typically ratios, to determine efficiencies. Best practices include comparing against goals or past performance to determine corrective actions.

Perfect marketing dashboards are not the ones that contain real-time data on siloed metrics but the ones that can give you a comprehensive view of marketing performance across the breadth and depth of marketing activities. We are confident that Arena Calibrate provides an easy to set up and use dashboard. Give it a try and see how it can make your life easier. Once you start using it, we would love to hear your ideas on how we can make it better and more useful for marketers.