In a world overflowing with data, marketers often find themselves lost in a sea of spreadsheets, struggling to make sense of the numbers that inundate them from various platforms. To make sense of such disparate data, marketers must employ a range of visualizations in order to spot correlations, trends and other insights hidden within their data.
The workflow to achieve these visualizations has been a challenge for these marketers. Data must be extracted from the platforms, normalized somewhere and then (normally) exported to an additional tool to create dashboards full of graphs. At every new step in the data’s journey, the risk of data truncations or other hiccups rises.
This brings us to today’s launch of Funnel Dashboards, a new feature within Funnel that aims to streamline and improve this entire process. But how did we get here?
Training day(s)
While the Funnel team had spotted this challenge for our fellow marketers, we also wanted to make sure that our solution was rooted in the best data visualization practices. That meant the first step in the journey was for our product team to bone up on their dashboarding skills.
They sought out education from Nick Desbarats, one of the world’s leading data visualization experts. In fact, Nick took over visualization legend Stephen Few’s education practice when the latter retired.
The Funnelers’ intensive two-week course covered many of the topics found in Nick’s latest book, Practical Charts. This included best practices around dashboard layouts, UX, functionality and more.
It was important for the team to gain this hands-on experience so that they could implement all of these best practices when building our own dashboard system.
What’s the deal with Funnel Dashboards?
Look, we’re the first to admit that Funnel Dashboards aren’t some kind of Tableau or Look Studio killer—at least not yet. This feature was designed specifically for marketers who need to visualize data quickly and prove their performance to various stakeholders.
We know that most performance marketers will use Data Explorer to perform most of their analysis. However, you can’t normally hand that analysis or tables to a senior executive and expect them to understand the impact of your campaign optimizations on the marketing efficiency ratio.
Instead, you need to build a high-level dashboard that can be easily customized for your audience’s needs. Plus, you need to make sure there isn’t any data loss when you move over to building that dashboard. And with Funnel, you can go back-and-forth between data exploration and dashboarding incredibly quickly.
So, while you won’t get the world’s most powerful BI tool, you will get a tool that has been created for your unique needs.
How do you get started?
With today’s launch, Funnel Dashboards are available for all plans worldwide. Simply log in to the Funnel app and click “Dashboards” on the left-hand menu. You’ll then be able to start setting up your dashboard based on the data currently populating your account.
And be sure to play around with your dashboard’s layout. Each visualization is modular in nature and can be moved and resized as needed.
The proof you need
Digital marketers work hard to ensure their efforts pay off. They deserve a tool that gives them the recognition they deserve. With Funnel Dashboards, marketers can now connect, organize, store, share and visualize their data in a single marketing data hub. That means faster and more efficient reporting, stronger dashboards, fewer breakdowns and happier stakeholders.
Login in to start exploring Funnel Dashboards today.