What are dashboards? Are they important? Why are they important? Would your business benefit in building one?
One of the top technology buzzwords is self-service analytics.
The amount of data relating to Digital Marketing is constantly growing and companies are recognizing the need to focus their energy on analysing this data in order to make better business decisions. The ability to visualise this data in a clear and concise format helps business to understand the cause and effect of their digital campaigns and whether true value is being unlocked in spending time, effort and money on these campaigns.
Data visualisation is also a good way to assist in storytelling. We’ve picked up an alarming trend with many potential and new clients that have approached us. The lack of transparency around advertising spend in the PPC and on Social platforms, coupled with the lack of data to substantiate the results is one of the greatest gripes. Digital Marketing Agencies produce reports on a monthly basis and share these with their clients. The trouble with this model is that clients develop a reliance on being fed data and require the agency to translate the data into meaningful information.
The inherent problems in this are threefold:
- The agency essentially controls the interpretation of this data and can spin a story to justify poor results. Spend is often not declared.
- The client doesn’t own the data and will have to wait until the next report is presented.
- The ability to drill down into detail or analyse cross-sections of the data is missing from a static report.
Digital Dashboards
For this reason, we enter the realm of self-service analytics. One of the tools we’ve introduced to clients is a digital dashboard. Simply put, all the key Website Analytics data, PPC Campaign metrics, Social Media Campaigns, Emailers, YouTube metrics and more can be incorporated into a single dashboard. In fact, most data in a usable format can be built into a segment in the dashboard. As a result, the client essentially becomes the owner of this dashboard and can operate it at any time to validate the effectiveness of their digital strategy.
Due to the positive feedback we’ve received from these bespoke dashboards, we’ve made them part of our core offering. Transparency, flexibility, a sense of data ownership and ease of use have been the reasons that have been cited as attractive to our client base. The build includes a one-off cost, there are no ongoing monthly subscription costs, and we can embed this into a secure page on your intranet or website.
Finally, a solution that empowers, provides transparency, helps de-mystify digital marketing and provides a sense of ownership for an everchanging market.
For more information, get in touch and we can help develop a solution for your business.
