Marketing Dashboard

Synopsis

Need a dashboard to calculate top marketing metrics? We've created this Marketing Dashboard spreadsheet template in Excel and Google Sheets to track the budget spent against ROI gained. Enter the top metrics to track to customize the spreadsheet to the desired specifications, and the template will create dashboards to compare budgeted spent against your actual spent, as well as revenues gained, to find the return on investment (ROI) of all dollars spent.

Questions and answers

Can you provide real-world examples of companies that have successfully used this marketing dashboard to improve their return on investment?

View answer

I'm sorry, but as a language model AI, I don't have access to real-time data or specific examples of companies that have used this marketing dashboard. However, many companies across various industries use marketing dashboards to track their budget, expenditures, and ROI. These tools are instrumental in helping businesses understand their marketing performance and make data-driven decisions.

What are some alternative methods to track budget spent against ROI gained in the field of marketing?

View answer

There are several alternative methods to track budget spent against ROI in marketing. One method is to use marketing automation tools that provide real-time tracking of marketing spend and ROI. These tools can integrate with your CRM and other business systems to provide a holistic view of your marketing performance. Another method is to use digital analytics tools like Google Analytics, which can track online marketing spend and ROI. You can also use social media analytics tools to track spend and ROI on social media platforms. Additionally, you can use customer journey analytics tools to track spend and ROI across different stages of the customer journey.

View all questions

Ask follow up

With formulas on how to calculate budget vs. actual spent and return on investment across multiple dropdown fields, this Marketing Dashboard spreadsheet template provides all the visualizations needed to track trends over time. When trends are visible, tactics and budget allocation can be changed accordingly. But best of all - this isn't just limited to marketing. You can customize this Marketing Dashboard spreadsheet to track whatever budget and revenue data that's most important to you, then download it in Google Sheets or Excel. Below, we review how to use this spreadsheet.

Ask follow up

Customize your dashboard

First, go to the Fields tab and enter your static inputs like the name of the report and what event you plan to track, such as marketing spend. Below, you can customize two dynamic dropdown fields and two nested dropdown fields. In our example, we chose to track regions with specific countries nested inside those regions. But this could be cities and states, states and countries, or something entirely unrelated to location, such as customer demographics or ad types.

Ask follow up

Last, select a noun to be tracked in the dropdown. This could be customers gained from this marketing spend, products sold, new subscribers added, or whatever metric is most important to determine your ROI.

Below the dropdowns, list all of the inputs that will appear in your dataset. In our example, media refers to the platform where we spent our budget, and channel refers to the types of marketing effort. You can list up to 20 individual inputs here to track, but you may want to stick to about 5 to 10 so the dashboard is easier to interpret. If you do use all 20, then the filter inputs on the dashboard will be your best friend.

Ask follow up

Enter your data

Now that the inputs have been customized to your specifications, enter your data here. Make sure to include the date of the purchase, the budgeted amount for that date, the actual spent, and the revenue and customers (or whatever your "noun" metric is) gained from that period.

It's easiest to assess this data on a monthly basis, but you can get as granular as you want with the date range. Once all your data has been entered, you can compare and analyze it across time.

It's important to turn this data into dashboards - for one, the Wharton School of Business found the use of data visualization could shorten meetings by 24%. And Bain and Company found that companies who use data visualizations are 5x as likely to make faster decisions than their peers and are 3x as likely to execute decisions as intended. With dashboards to visualize your marketing budget versus actual and spend versus revenue, you're more likely to make more robust decisions. And according to Bain, you'll be 2x as likely to be in the top quartile of your industry's financial performance. Not bad at all!

Questions and answers

Can you provide a real-world example of a company successfully using a 'Budget versus Actual' dashboard to optimize their spending?

View answer

Amazon is a prime example of a company that uses a 'Budget versus Actual' dashboard effectively. They use it to track their spending and compare it with their budget. This allows them to identify areas where they are overspending and make necessary adjustments. It also helps them to allocate resources more efficiently, ensuring that they are investing in areas that provide the best return on investment.

What are some alternative strategies to the 'Budget versus Actual' dashboard for tracking ROI?

View answer

Alternative strategies to the 'Budget versus Actual' dashboard for tracking ROI could include the 'Cost per Acquisition' dashboard, which tracks the cost of acquiring a new customer against the revenue they generate. Another option could be the 'Lifetime Value' dashboard, which measures the total revenue a business can reasonably expect from a single customer account. This helps in understanding the long-term value of customers and can be a good indicator of ROI. A 'Sales Growth' dashboard can also be useful, as it tracks the rate at which the company's sales revenue is growing, which can be a good indicator of positive ROI.

View all questions

Ask follow up

Find your budget versus actual

Start with the "Budget versus Actual" dashboard. At the top, you can filter the dashboard based on the date range and dropdowns you want to prioritize. Remember to clear all the inputs to see all your data. Below the filter inputs, the Budget versus actual overview gives a quick glance at the data from the last three months of the latest date in your date range. Next to it, the "Budget versus actual by month" section calculates how much you spent against how much you budgeted for the given search filter.

Ask follow up

The next section details the budget broken out across your nested dropdowns. So in our example, we can see the budget spent across each region and each country. The dashboard then compares the percent used across fields.

Below that, the budget versus the actual spent is compared against one another. In this example, it's by media and by marketing channels. Remember, you can customize this template to fit your comparison parameters best.

Compare your spend versus revenues

Now, the "Spend versus Revenues" dashboard compares the actual amount spent across all your various channels against the revenue returned from that spend. The filter inputs at the top allow you to filter based on a given range or dropdown field. Remember that the filter inputs on both dashboards are unique to that dashboard, so make sure they match one another if you are comparing data across both dashboards at the same time. The actual versus revenues overview gives the same quick glance at the last three months of the latest date in the query, and the "Revenues versus actual by month" section compares the data over the entire period.

Questions and answers

How does the visualization of ROI changes over time enhance business strategy?

View answer

Visualizing ROI changes over time can significantly enhance business strategy. It allows businesses to identify trends and patterns in their returns, which can provide valuable insights into what strategies are working and which ones are not. This can help in making informed decisions about where to allocate resources for maximum returns. Additionally, it can help in identifying potential issues early on, allowing businesses to take corrective action before it's too late. It also aids in setting realistic expectations and goals based on historical performance.

How does the Marketing Dashboard compare to other business frameworks for tracking budget and ROI?

View answer

The Marketing Dashboard is a comprehensive tool that allows for detailed tracking of budget versus actual spending, as well as actual spending versus ROI gained over any period. It offers customization options for dropdown fields and allows for the definition of top KPIs. It provides visual representations of ROI changes over time, enabling the discovery of trends in the data. Compared to other business frameworks, it may offer more detailed and customizable tracking and analysis features. However, the exact comparison would depend on the specific features of the other business frameworks in question.

View all questions

Ask follow up

Below that, you can see the number of customers per month as well as the average revenue per customer (or whatever noun you decided to track) as well as the ROI per month over the given period. The dashboard then provides bar charts comparing the revenue versus actual per all four dropdowns and line charts to find the average revenue per noun per dropdown. Below that, bar charts show the noun gained per each dropdown, and the noun, in our case, customers, gained per month by each dropdown.

Ask follow up

The next section finds the ROI, revenue, and customers by nested dropdown, followed by the ROI, revenues, and customers per the other dropdown fields below. The percent of ROI gained per each dropdown is shown as bar charts along with line charts.

These charts are so the user can visualize changes in ROI over time to discover trends in the data that wouldn't otherwise be visible. Make good use of the filter inputs above to break down your analysis across each input.

And that's everything you need to know to use this Marketing Dashboard template to calculate your budget versus actual spend, return on investment, and track your top metrics and KPIs. Remember, you can download and customize this Marketing Dashboard spreadsheet to use it for whatever you want to track and save time and hours of work creating your own dashboard.

Ask follow up

Now, go check out our KPI Sales Dashboard to learn about how you can use a dashboard we created specifically for sales teams to track your top sales metrics, or check out our KPI Charts spreadsheet for a generic KPI dashboard with further customization elements.