Free takeaway: Marketing KPI dashboard

Worked example to compare with: Starting with a question

• Question: which channel brings the most customers?
• Data: customers by source from the order form.
• Analysis: 40 percent from search, 35 percent from referrals, 15 percent from email, 10 percent from social.
• Decision: spend more time on search and referrals.
• Check: confirm the data is complete and consistent before deciding.

Worked example to compare with: Picking three KPIs

• Goal: grow online sales.
• KPIs: sessions from search, conversion rate and average order value.
• Targets: 5,000 sessions, 2.5 percent and $60.
• Ignore: vanity numbers that do not drive the goal.
• Check: could you change what you do based on this number?

Worked example to compare with: Using a benchmark

• Your conversion rate: 1.4 percent. Benchmark: 2.4 percent.
• Gap: your site is about 42 percent below the benchmark.
• Hypothesis: the checkout is too long.
• Action: shorten the checkout and test.
• Check: compare against similar businesses, not all websites.

Worked example to compare with: Calculating engagement rate

• A post reached 2,000 people.
• It received 60 likes, 12 comments and 8 shares: 80 interactions.
• Engagement rate: 80 / 2,000 = 4 percent.
• Compare: to your own past posts to see what is above or below normal.
• Result to look for: a pattern across several posts, not a single result.

Worked example to compare with: Reading the trend

• Visits grew from 800 to 2,100 in six months.
• Growth: (2,100 – 800) / 800 = 163 percent.
• Cause: three posts that rank in search.
• Action: write related posts around those topics.
• Check: look at visits by post, not just the total.

Worked example to compare with: Testing the installation

• Visit your own site on your phone.
• Open the real-time report. You should see yourself.
• If not: check that the tag is on the page and not blocked by a plugin.
• Result to look for: confirmed data before you start making decisions.

Worked example to compare with: Excluding internal traffic

• Find your office IP address.
• Create a rule to exclude it.
• Test: visit the site from the office and confirm it does not appear.
• Result to look for: lower but more accurate numbers.

Worked example to compare with: Finding a problem

• Mobile visitors are 68 percent but convert at 1.1 percent. Desktop converts at 2.9 percent.
• Hypothesis: the mobile checkout is hard to use.
• Action: test the mobile checkout on a real phone.
• Result to look for: a higher mobile conversion rate after the fix.

Worked example to compare with: Tracking a contact form

• Action: submit the contact form.
• Event: when the thank-you page loads.
• Test: submit a form and see the event in real time.
• Review: which sources bring the most form submissions.
• Result to look for: a clear number to improve.

Worked example to compare with: A one-page dashboard

• Top row: sessions, leads and conversion rate as three number tiles.
• Middle: a line chart of leads over time.
• Bottom: a table of top sources.
• Date range: last 30 days compared to the previous 30.
• Check: can a manager understand it in 30 seconds?

Worked example to compare with: Writing a summary

• "Leads rose 18 percent this month, mainly from search. Cost per lead fell to $22. The email campaign underperformed. Next month we will rewrite the subject lines and add two new search pages."
• Why it works: result, reason and next step.
• Check: could someone decide what to do after reading only the summary?