Dashboards that go unused and forgotten are said to have landed in the "dashboard graveyard.” If you aren’t using the dashboards you create, you aren’t connecting data to decisions, which makes it harder to prove your impact.
To create dashboards you want to use, you need more than data. You need a strategy that includes tailoring them to specific purposes, creating an interconnected ecosystem, impactful design and continuous improvements.
What are marketing dashboards, and why do they matter?
A marketing dashboard is a tool that makes raw data easy to draw conclusions from. Typically, marketing dashboards are created as a collection of interactive graphs that consolidate metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) from multiple sources, such as advertising or e-commerce platforms.
Checking a marketing dashboard is like checking a car’s instrument panel, which tells drivers the most important things about their car's functionality at a glance: gas levels, engine health and speed. Marketers use dashboards like a car instrument panel to understand performance and make decisions without getting distracted by unnecessary details.
Dashboards serve many purposes. A high-level marketing analytics dashboard might give CMOs a 10,000-foot view of ROI. A more specific digital marketing dashboard, such as an SEO dashboard, might show traffic trends, whereas an email marketing dashboard might shine a light on open rates. You could build several marketing KPI dashboards, from a web analytics dashboard to a product marketing dashboard, to ensure you impact the business goals executives care about.
Marketing dashboards can be high-level or drill down into an area of expertise.
Nick Desbarats, a leading expert in data visualization, stresses that every dashboard you create must serve a purpose to avoid the dashboard graveyard.
“You need to figure out why you’re making a chart in the first place and think about how you can design the chart so that it does that job,” says Desbarats.
A good dashboard answers straightforward questions and turns data into stories stakeholders can act on. According to Desbarats, successful dashboards are part of a dashboard ecosystem. In an ecosystem, dashboards are linked together. They share specific insights individually, but, together, they tell a performance story.
They’re linked together so the viewer can drill down into specific insights or pull back to a higher level to understand overall performance. For instance, role-specific dashboards for senior leaders might provide a high-level view of revenue. They can also link to area-specific dashboards for ads or email campaigns that focus on more specific metrics like CVR.
Types of marketing dashboards (with examples)
We could provide hundreds of marketing dashboard examples, but they all rely on the same four fundamentals: data sources, metrics, KPIs and visualizations.
Every dashboard is founded on the same four fundamental components.
Your data sources are the platforms that track your marketing activity, such as Google Analytics, ad platforms, and CRMs. Metrics like website traffic or email open rates are raw numbers from these sources. KPIs contextualize these metrics by tying them to goals, such as customer acquisition cost (CAC). Finally, visualizations such as line graphs or bar charts make data easy to understand.
Each dashboard should have a specific purpose and work in harmony with others. These marketing dashboard templates cover two main types: status dashboards and performance analytics dashboards.
Status dashboards
Status dashboards monitor activities regularly. They’re designed for quick checks, and like a car's warning lights, they highlight issues that need immediate attention rather than historical analysis.
They might track metrics like active ad spend, website uptime and live campaign counts to help operational teams spot and address anomalies before they become problems. Those issues might include things such as sudden cost spikes or broken landing pages.
They come in three forms:
- Role-specific dashboards aligned with individual responsibilities
- Area-specific dashboards focused on particular marketing channels
- Entity dashboards tracking specific assets or campaigns
The key is simplicity. They should answer questions such as, "Is everything working?" and "Do I need to act now?" without deep analysis.
Role-specific dashboards
Role-specific dashboards are for the person who occupies a particular position or title. They help that person make good decisions without getting lost in unnecessary data. They're typically built for high-level positions like C-suite executives or department heads who need focused insights.
Leaders can see the most important metrics at a glance without drowning in unnecessary data.
For example, a head of paid media might need a dashboard focused on ad performance. They could track metrics like ROAS, total ad spend versus budget and cost per lead (CPL). The dashboard might break down performance metrics across channels like Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads or programmatic advertising so they could compare impressions, clicks and conversions across campaigns.
Area-specific dashboards
Area-specific dashboards are for marketing teams working as a department or within a single focus area. They help monitor their specific activities without getting distracted by metrics that don't matter.
Marketing teams can dive deep into their specialty while filtering out noise from other channels.
For example, an events team might need a dashboard focused on event performance and attendee engagement. They could track metrics like registrations, attendance rate, cost per attendee and post-event survey scores. The dashboard might break down performance across different types of events like webinars, trade shows or virtual conferences so they could compare ROI.
Entity dashboards
Entity dashboards are for tracking a specific campaign, project or initiative. They help teams monitor detailed metrics for a single focus.
Entity dashboards give teams a complete view of how a single campaign or asset is performing.
A retail company running a Black Friday campaign might need a dashboard focused on performance across marketing channels during the sale. They could track daily ad spend, CVR, revenue generated or cart abandonment rate. The dashboard might break down performance for Google Ads, Meta Ads or email so they can identify which drives the most sales and adjust their budget accordingly.
Performance analysis dashboard
Performance analysis dashboards are used to track long-term strategic goals. They help teams and decision-makers see how they progress toward their KPIs over time. Unlike status dashboards focused on day-to-day monitoring, they dig into historical trends to help teams adjust their overall strategy.
Performance analysis dashboards use historical data to help teams double down on what works.
For example, a content marketing team might need a dashboard to evaluate their impact over a quarter. They could track metrics like organic traffic growth, keyword rankings, social shares or lead generation from gated content. The dashboard might aggregate performance across different campaigns or channels so they see which topics moved the needle.
How to gather and clean data for marketing dashboards
Your dashboard is only as good as the data that powers it. Before you start building, make sure your data is clean and accurate so you can trust the insights it provides. Intentional data gathering and preparation help ensure your dashboard is reliable.
1. Connecting the right data sources
Choosing the right data sources and setting up reliable integrations creates the foundation for your dashboard. Without automatic data connections, you might depend on manual updates that break when someone's out sick or on vacation.
Start by identifying the platforms where your most valuable marketing data lives, like:
- CRMs such as HubSpot or Salesforce
- Analytics platforms such as Google Analytics
- Advertising platforms such as Google Ads or Facebook Ads
- Any tool capturing customer interactions such as Unbounce or Salesforce
The data sources you choose will depend on your dashboard's purpose. If you're tracking an Instagram campaign, you might integrate Meta Ads for data on CPL, click-through rate (CTR) or CVR.
A good approach is to outline your required KPIs first. Then, map which tools provide that data. Most marketing platforms offer APIs or built-in connectors with tools like Funnel or Looker.
Just make sure to verify what each platform allows — check that critical tracking parameters like UTMs are correctly captured and look into any limits on API calls or restrictions on data volume. Consider how often you need to refresh your data and if that aligns with platform limits.
2. Transform and categorize data
Raw data from different platforms often arrives in inconsistent formats. Transforming your data helps align metrics across platforms so you can make more accurate comparisons. Watch out for mismatched definitions, data overlap or missing data points.
Transform your data in three steps to make sure you're comparing apples to apples.
For example, impression counting varies significantly across platforms. Google Ads logs an impression whenever an ad is called, even if the user never sees it. On the other hand, LinkedIn Ads only counts impressions when an ad is visible in the feed for at least 300 milliseconds. Without transforming this data, Google Ads might look like it delivers more impressions. However, the comparison isn't fair since LinkedIn's stricter definition results in fewer yet higher-quality impressions.
To resolve these kinds of discrepancies, you should:
- Map where your data originates and how it flows between platforms
- Standardize formats and calculations to match across sources
- Group KPIs by logical categories, like separating paid, organic or email data
In the impression example, you could transform Google Ads impressions into "Estimated Viewable Impressions" by applying visibility thresholds (the minimum amount of time and screen space an ad must be visible to count as an impression). Then, you could keep LinkedIn's stricter "Viewable Impressions" as is and categorize both under "Impression Quality" for a fair comparison.
You could also group data by geography, campaign type or audience segment — whatever makes the most sense for your goals. Just make sure to find a tool that helps you normalize data consistently.
3. Make sure data is clean and accurate
Clean data ensures your marketing performance dashboards reflect reality. Data from different sources often contains inconsistencies that can distort your analysis of marketing efforts.
For example, imagine running two Pinterest campaigns in USD and another in Euros for a global launch. Without normalizing currencies, your total ad spend might look inflated, making it seem over budget when it's just a conversion issue.
To resolve these kinds of problems, you need to:
- Remove duplicate transactions
- Apply consistent currency conversion rates
- Verify each platform reports unique, non-overlapping spend data
Run these basic quality checks on your data:
- Eliminate duplicates so you don't double-count values like ROAS or revenue
- Fill in missing values using averages or placeholders where appropriate
- Standardize naming (such as treating "Google Ads" and "Google Adwords" as the same thing)
These steps help ensure your dashboard gives you an accurate view of your marketing performance.
How to create a digital marketing dashboard
You're ready to build your dashboard once your data is clean and accurate. While the exact steps depend on your tools and goals, the basic process looks like this:
- Choose a dashboard tool that connects to your data sources
- Import and transform your cleaned data
- Create your visualizations based on your KPIs
- Organize metrics in a way that tells a clear story
- Test and refine based on user feedback
Building a dashboard is just the beginning — following dashboard design best practices will help make sure stakeholders want to use it to avoid the dashboard graveyard.
Best practices for marketing dashboard design
The difference between an insightful dashboard and a forgettable one comes down to a few key design principles that are meant to make dashboards clear and simple to understand.
1. Choose the right charts
Both Nick Desbarats and Alexis Miske, a senior business intelligence specialist for Digital Reach Agency, a Funnel Solution Partner, emphasize how the right visualizations can be the difference between teams achieving their marketing objectives and abandoning their dashboards. Desbarats compares creating a chart to writing an essay — every element should work toward informing and persuading your audience.
Each chart type serves a specific purpose in telling your data's story.
Here's when to use different charts in a marketing context:
- Line graphs track trends over time, such as a social media team monitoring impressions
- Bar charts compare categories, such as CTR across different ad designs
- Scorecards show high-level KPIs, such as "Total Demo Requests: 1,500"
- Stacked bar charts reveal contributions to a total, such as how much each event costs
- Heatmaps uncover patterns, such as showing when blog traffic peaks during the week
Avoid complex visualizations, especially pie charts. While pie charts can show proportions, they make it hard to see meaningful differences. For example, if paid ads generate 38% of leads, email, 37%, and social media, 25%, those small but significant differences would be tough to spot in a pie chart. A bar chart would make these comparisons clearer.
2. Design for readability
A well-designed dashboard guides viewers to information about their digital marketing campaigns quickly. Viewers who have to hunt through clutter or scroll endlessly tend to get frustrated and abandon their dashboards.
Position your most important metrics where they’ll be seen, typically the top left of your dashboard.
For example, a social media dashboard might have key metrics like impressions, engagement rate or follower growth at the top, where they're immediately visible. Supporting details, like breakdowns by platform or campaign, can live further down the page. You might include a bar chart comparing engagement across Instagram, LinkedIn or TikTok but keep it below those high-level metrics.
This hierarchical approach follows natural reading patterns — top to bottom, left to right for Western audiences. You might position a trend line tracking engagement to the right of key metrics so the flow of information is intuitive.
Avoid overwhelming your dashboard with unnecessary details. Instead of showing all posts and engagement rates upfront, use drill-down features that let viewers click to explore details. Alexis Miske also suggests eliminating excessive grid lines and cluttered backgrounds to keep the focus on your data.
3. Use colors, fonts and icons with intent
Color is a powerful tool in dashboard design, but it can overwhelm viewers when misused. Desbarats emphasizes the importance of restraint — using color with purpose, not decoration.
Desbarats recommends using low-saturated hues to avoid distracting branding elements. For signaling performance, colors like green, orange and red signal a need for resolution, investigation or celebration. ROI might appear in bold blue at the top of your dashboard, with individual metrics in neutral tones.
Don't assign colors randomly.
For example, imagine a dashboard for digital marketing campaigns that include swag. Most data points might be displayed in grayscale, with a single color highlighting the top performer. If noise-canceling headphones outperform t-shirts and mugs in ROI, you could use green just for that bar while keeping others in neutral gray. This focused approach draws attention to what matters without creating distractions. On the other hand, using red for mugs and yellow for t-shirts could confuse viewers
Keep fonts consistent, too. Add helper icons that offer definitions and context when users hover over them to help viewers understand complex metrics without searching for explanations elsewhere.
4. Use minimal filters and titles
Clear filters and descriptive titles help users navigate data. For example, a CMO might need high-level marketing insights and the ability to dive deeper into specific areas without getting overwhelmed.
Filters should answer specific business questions. A bar chart showing revenue across paid, organic and email channels might include filters for:
- Time frames to analyze quarterly performance
- Regions like North America or Europe
- Campaign types like product launches or seasonal promotions
But be careful — filters should apply to all dashboard data. Don't overload your interface with unnecessary options for every demographic detail and accidentally distract from the most important points.
Well-designed filters and clear titles help users find what they need without getting lost in the details.
Dashboard titles should immediately tell viewers what they see and why it matters. Instead of vague headers like "Marketing Overview" or "Performance Summary," use specific titles like:
- ROI by Marketing Channel (YTD)
- Regional Performance Overview (Q3)
- Top Campaigns by Impressions
Avoid technical jargon that might confuse those not involved in day-to-day operations. Also, skip redundant information, such as labeling every section with "Q3" when you already have a date filter.
5. Create dashboards for specific purposes and interlink them
The ability to navigate between dashboards is the backbone of an effective digital marketing dashboard ecosystem. Interlinking lets viewers move naturally between different levels of detail, following their train of thought as they explore.
Think of a CMO's dashboard showing marketing performance metrics like ROI and CAC across paid media, content, social media and events. If paid media shows the highest ROI for the quarter, they might click "View Paid Media Dashboard" to see a stacked bar chart breaking down spend and ROI across Google Ads, Meta Ads and LinkedIn Ads. Noticing strong Google Ads performance, they might click another link to see specific campaigns to understand what's driving that success.
To make navigation intuitive:
- Use clear, action-oriented labels like "View Paid Media Details" or "Performance by Campaign"
- Keep navigation elements in consistent places, like the top right of charts or in a sidebar menu
- Always show breadcrumbs or "Back" buttons so viewers can easily return to where they started
- Focus on the most logical connections between dashboards
Speak regularly with stakeholders using your dashboards to look for areas of improvement.
How to use and improve your marketing dashboards
A dashboard is most valuable when it’s actionable. The key to action is approaching your dashboard with a clear framework that helps you spot patterns, connect them to your strategy and make better decisions. This isn't a set-it-and-forget-it process — it requires constant refinement.
1. Use dashboards to make real-time decisions
Regular dashboard check-ins should help you decide how to prioritize your day. For example, an SEO team monitoring organic traffic, CTR and keyword rankings might spot issues early by looking at the relationship between rankings and CTR, not just isolated numbers.
A dip in organic traffic with stable rankings might suggest seasonality or changing search behavior, while dropping rankings could signal an urgent need to improve content or increase backlinks.
2. Translate insights into strategy
Dashboards should also guide strategic decisions. That same SEO team might see high organic traffic for a content topic and decide to expand that cluster or optimize existing pages. Or they might spot low conversion rates despite substantial traffic and choose to A/B test CTAs on landing pages.
3. Adjust your dashboard as goals evolve
Your marketing priorities will change with algorithms, business goals and new opportunities. Your dashboards need to adapt, too. For example, our hypothetical SEO team might need to expand into new international markets. They might add filters to one of their dashboards to track traffic by country, monitor localized keyword rankings or analyze performance by language and device type.
Dashboards are dynamic tools that shape daily decisions and long-term strategy — not just static reports.
Choose the right marketing dashboard tools for the job
When choosing the right dashboard tool, you need to think about two core capabilities: collecting, transforming and cleaning data, then visualizing and presenting it effectively.
Funnel excels at collecting and cleaning data from over 500 sources — from Google Ads and Facebook Ads to CRM tools and analytics platforms — then automatically normalizing it for Funnel Dashboards, or those you build with a third party.
Funnel standardizes your data automatically with tasks such as turning "cost" and "amount spent" into the same metric, converting currencies or aligning time zones.
This happens without any coding, eliminating the need for manual data prep work. Plus, you can build dashboards by dragging and dropping elements where you want them.
You can also quickly create and customize reports outside of Funnel in your visualization tool of choice.
If your team already uses Looker Studio, Tableau or Power BI, Funnel works alongside them by feeding clean, transformed data directly into your preferred platform. This helps maintain consistency while letting teams use tools they already know.
For example, your team might use Funnel to pull data from multiple platforms into Tableau for cross-channel reporting. A CMO could view high-level KPIs in Funnel while analysts work in Looker Studio without disrupting existing workflows.
When choosing a dashboard tool, consider the following:
- Integration capabilities: Connect to all your data sources without manual imports
- Data transformation: Normalize and align metrics automatically
- Visualization: Create everything from quick monitors to executive reports
- Ease of use: Make it accessible for both marketers and technical teams
The right tools help you build effective dashboards, but success comes down to how you use them to improve your marketing.
Good marketing dashboards turn data into decisions that drive growth
A well-designed dashboard ecosystem transforms marketing from reactive to strategic. When your dashboards are thoughtfully designed and interconnected, they create a shared language across teams where every decision is driven by clarity, not guesswork.
Instead of scrambling to piece together insights from fragmented sources, you can spot trends as they emerge, collaborate across channels and confidently test new strategies based on real-time data. This shift redefines how your organization approaches growth, helping you anticipate what's next rather than just react to what's happened.
Start building effective marketing dashboards with Funnel.