What to Include in Your B2B Marketing Dashboard

Robust monitoring is the bedrock of all effective B2B marketing campaigns and dashboards are an increasingly popular tool for doing this. They allow marketers to track their campaigns at a glance and easily share information with key stakeholders. But which KPIs should you include in your dashboard? 

Answering this question is the first – and probably hardest – part of setting up a new dashboard. The technical side is getting ever easier with growing numbers of software solutions that link to your core analytics tools, but they can’t tell you what to monitor. Here are some suggestions on how to approach this issue in a B2B context: 

Show the full funnel 

Your dashboard should include an indication of performance right through the sales funnel, whether or not a large part of this activity takes place offline. A good dashboard should give a comprehensive view, forming the basis of a high-level conversation and highlighting issues. 

Tracking the metrics you need to achieve this comprehensive view is not always so easy in a B2B context, where there are more complex buying decision processes, with more people involved. For most B2B campaigns, web analytics will not be enough, CRM data will also need to be displayed to get the full picture from lead to sale. Get as much information as you can from your CRM tool to show how many leads have been qualified, how many have been contacted, how many have been churned etc. 

Monitor MQL and SQL 

MQL and SQL are important indicators of how healthy your funnel is looking and should be appearing on most B2B marketing dashboards. MQL (marketing qualified lead) and CpMQL (cost per MQL) show the direct results of your online activities, whereas SQL (sales qualified leads) and CpSQL (cost per SQL) keep track of the longer-term health of your marketing activities. 

Do you want to build your first marketing dashboard or need consultation about an existing one? We can certainly help -> contact us! 

Use cohorts 

The more complex nature of some B2B sales funnels means sometimes the best insights are to be gained by segmenting leads into cohorts. A cohort-view splits up your leads –arranging them by the channel or individual campaign for example – to get a more useful picture of performance. 

There are so many potential touchpoints in a complex B2B sales process and so many potential actors involved. Using cohorts can make this picture simpler and ensure better attribution back to your initial ad. 

Leverage de-anonymization tools 

To boost your existing web analytics you might want to use one of the many de-anonymization tools on the market. Combined with good use of UTM parameters, these tools can give you more information about the type of companies that are visiting your site as well as more detailed information about job titles, seniority, and search intent. Tools like Salesviewer, Ablacross, Leadfeeder , and Clearbit can shed light on who your website users are, helping you understand if your activities are attracting the right audience and how best to handle them. 

Display company-level ROI 

A key metric – and one that is worth the effort of implementation – is company-level ROI. This KPI should be right at the top of the priority list for most B2B marketing dashboard projects. This is the KPI that transcends the complexities of multiple touchpoints and multiple users to display the crucial information you need: how much did it cost to acquire a company as a new customer (rather than how much it cost to acquire an individual). You should consider implementing company ID dimensions in Google Analytics, that allow you to attribute multiple users to one company in GA.  

And iterate 

The decision on what to monitor is always fraught and it’s something that you should constantly be revisiting. An iterative approach to what you should monitor, what you can monitor effectively, and what your stakeholders want to know, is the best way to ensure your B2B dashboard becomes and remains relevant.