The document provides tips for making analytics and dashboards actionable. It discusses the importance of effective dashboards leading to actions and decisions that impact the business. Sample dashboards shown include examples for marketing campaigns, customers, and strategic reviews. Key recommendations are that dashboards should have clear calls to action and drive business decisions, not just present data passively. Context on customers is especially important to understand buying patterns beyond campaign responses. The document emphasizes dashboards need to be planned and supported to ensure the information provided is used and has real impact on the organization.

1. Analytics
Ten ways to make analytics actionable

2. Agenda

Executive summary
– What is an effective dashboard?



Effective campaign dashboards
Effective customer dashboards
10 tips for effective dashboards
2

3. You’re off to a bad start if…

…you hear dashboard users say
–
–
–
–
–

“So what”
“nice to know” – what am I supposed to do next?
“where’d this number come from?”
“can this be right?”
They are already inundated with data, how will yet another
dashboard help them?
…you begin your development with visualizations in
mind (dials, gauges, thermometers)
– Stop looking to airplane cockpits for the answer
– Don’t fall in love with a pretty (inter)face
3

4. Why do dashboards sit on a shelf ?


Lack of planning, lack of buy-in
No champions to socialize your work
– “Management doesn’t support me”
– “Finance thinks all I want is more money for marketing”

Data pitfalls:
–
–
–
–

Users stumble on definitions, calculations
Numbers look suspicious “this can’t be right”
No callouts or explanations, “you figure it out” attitude
Spotty data feeds, lots of asterisks and insignificant results
Effective dashboards require planning
4

5. Effective dashboards always…



Lead to actions
Have impact on the business
Are part of decision making
–
–
–
–
Good news|bad news?
Going up|going down?
Something worked
New customer insights
Key takeaway:
Effective analytics always have
actions attached to measurements
5

6. Agenda

Executive summary
– What is an effective dashboard?



Effective campaign dashboards
Effective customer dashboards
10 tips for effective dashboards
6

7. If the goal is to ensure marketing accountability…


Establish an ROI objective, then benchmark against it
Track back to the original strategy
– Tip: Insert an example of the creative

Associate actions with results
– Reallocate marketing investment – channel, vehicle
– Try new things (e.g., sweeten offer to acquire customers,
reduce the offer for existing customers to optimize margin)

Why do you think something happened?
– Plan on adding annotations, explanations, glossary
– Plan on making recommendations
7

8. Example of KPIs as they relate to targets

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) relative to target

Restating observation vs target
8
Source: Klipfolio

9. Example of annotations, definitions, narrative

Annotation/callout
– What else was in market?
– What was the competition doing?

Definitions
– What is a “customer”? What time period are we looking at?
– Are you using Gross or Net Margin?
9
Source: Klipfolio

10. Example of comparisons

Year over Year (YoY) and Month over Month (MoM)
example from ClearSaleing
10

11. Example of funnels
%’s represent
conversion to
the next phase
Salesforce.com funnel describing the stages of b2b marketing
Each number
brings up a
question:
What were the
best sources?
Which attracted
new customers?
Funnel example from VisualIQ
Omniture’s SiteCatalyst digital marketing funnel
Funnel example from Value Watcher
How do these
compare YoY,
MoM?
11

12. Example of paths
Google Analytics visitor flow
Illustration from Microsoft Atlas whitepaper
ION Infographic referencing MarketingSherpa statistics
12

13. Campaign dashboard example
Campaign analytics measure audiences, offers, ideas
Sales/Piece
$2.00
$3.00
$4.00
$3.00
8,000
7,000
Circ
AOV
Resp Rate
Sales/Piece
Key market 1
Key market 2
1,000,000
4,000,000
$50.00
$35.00
6.0%
2.0%
$4.00
$2.00
Grand Total
5,000,000
$40.00
3.8%
$3.00
Circ
AOV
Resp Rate
Sales/Piece
1,000,000
2,000,000
1,900,000
100,000
$55.00
$65.00
$25.00
$40.00
5.0%
6.0%
2.0%
3.0%
$4.00
$1.75
$2.00
$2.00
5,000,000
$40.00
3.8%
$3.00
Circ
Buyers
Trans
Sales Sales/Piece
300,000
200,000
500,000
500,000
500,000
1,000,000
1,000,000
1,000,000
5,000,000
90,000
50,000
40,000
40,000
35,000
20,000
15,000
10,000
300,000
110,000
75,000
55,000
50,000
40,000
22,000
16,500
11,500
380,000
Distance to Store
Within 1 mile
2 miles
3 miles
4 miles
5 miles
6 to 10 miles
11 to 15 miles
16 to 20 miles
TOTALS
$ 4,000,000
$ 3,000,000
$ 3,000,000
$ 2,000,000
$ 1,000,000
$ 900,000
$ 650,000
$ 450,000
$ 15,000,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
$13.33
$15.00
$6.00
$4.00
$2.00
$0.90
$0.65
$0.45
$3.00
Margin
$2,000,000
$1,500,000
$1,500,000
$1,000,000
$ 500,000
$ 450,000
$ 325,000
$ 225,000
$7,500,000
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
55.00
45.00
50.00
45.00
25.00
40.00
35.00
35.00
40.00
3/7/2010
3/5/2010
3/3/2010
3/1/2010
2/27/2010
2/25/2010
2/23/2010
2/21/2010
2/19/2010
2/17/2010
2/15/2010
2/9/2010
2/13/2010
2/7/2010
AOV
2/11/2010
2/5/2010
2/3/2010
2/1/2010
1/30/2010
0
1/28/2010
Grand Total
4,000
1/4/2010
$25 off
$35 off
Gift w Purchase
Control group
5,000
1/2/2010
Discount
6,000
1/26/2010
3.8%
4.5%
3.2%
4.0%
9,000
1/24/2010
$40.00
4.0%
3.0%
3.8%
45.00
35.00
40.00
Resp
Rate 2
10,000
1/22/2010
3.2%
4.9%
4.6%
Resp
Rate
AOV
50.0% $
50.0% $
50.0% $
1/20/2010
$55.00
$45.00
$35.00
$5,000,000
$2,500,000
$7,500,000
1/18/2010
Resp Rate
5,000,000
Market
AOV
1,000,000
2,000,000
2,000,000
1. List x
2. List y
3. List z
Circ
GM%
1/16/2010
$2.50
$1.50
$3.00
Margin
1/14/2010
250,000 $10,000,000
130,000 $ 5,000,000
380,000 $15,000,000
Sales/Piece
1/8/2010
List Priority
Sales
1/12/2010
200,000
100,000
300,000
Trans
1/6/2010
Retail
Direct
Total
Buyers
1/10/2010
Channel
Customers

Resp
Rate
Resp
Rate 2
7.0%
6.0%
6.0%
5.0%
4.0%
2.0%
1.5%
1.0%
3.8%
7.2%
6.5%
6.4%
5.5%
4.0%
2.2%
1.7%
1.2%
4.0%
13

14. Email dashboard example in Excel
Overall health of the program (each tab is a deep dive)
Yes
Email Capture Rate Trend
%/Total
Linear (%/Total)
90.0%
25,000
80.0%
20,000
70.0%
15,000
60.0%
10,000
50.0%
5,000
40.0%
Jan-10
14
Dec-09
Oct-09
Nov-09
Sep-09
Jul-09
Aug-09
Jun-09
Apr-09
May-09
Mar-09
Jan-09
Feb-09
Dec-08
Oct-08
Nov-08
Sep-08
Jul-08
Aug-08
Jun-08
Apr-08
May-08
Mar-08
Feb-08
0
30.0%
Pct New Customers w/Email
30,000
Total New Customers


15. Strategic review leveraging a dashboard

Strategic review with alerts and recommendations
Supports a recurring meeting
Total Program
Performance Summary

$700,000
$625,000
$550,000
this week
last week
+/-
month to date
run rate
vs. last year
Impressions
$475,000
Weekly chart
Weekly Chart
$400,000
Affiliate
Paid Search
$325,000
$250,000
Visits (clicks)
Click charges/Pub. Comm.
Transactions
$175,000
Sales ($)
$100,000
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
PFX Fee
Total Fee
Sales
this week
last week
$1,174,583
-65%
Paid Search
$774,027
-65%
Data Feed
$400,556
-65%
$18,244
-65%
$1,192,827
-65%
Search
Affiliate
Total
+/-
-
month to date
run rate
$1,174,583
$1,174,583
vs. last year + / -65%
$774,027
$774,027
-65%
$400,556
$400,556
-65%
$18,244
$18,244
-65%
$1,192,827
$1,192,827
-65%
-
vs. plan
-65%
-65%
-65%
-65%
-65%
+/-
Cost per click
-
Conversion Rate
Avg. Order Value
Revenue share
Performance to Goal
Alerts
$6,000,000
$5,000,000
$4,000,000
$3,000,000
$2,000,000
$1,000,000
$0
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
June
July
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
15

16. Agenda

Executive summary
– What is an effective dashboard?



Effective campaign dashboards
Effective customer dashboards
10 tips for effective dashboards
16

17. Goal of customer dashboards

Customer dashboards give campaign data context –
– it’s not about response rates and conversions rates but
about loyalty, advocacy and lifetime value


Customer data brings all the channels together
Customer data adds to the missing ingredient for
product sales:
– Who’s buying the product?
– What else are they buying (market basket analyses)?
– Is that product their first- or 10th purchase?
17

18. Why is customer data important?

Because campaigns don’t buy, people do
– Customers are in control – more “pull” than “push”
– Customers see brands not channels
– Customers don’t care who gets credit for the sale
18

19. 2 approaches to campaigns…
1. How “deep”
should I
circulate?
1. Batch & Blast
Mail1
Email1
Email2
Y
Y
N
Email3
Mail2
1
2.
Customer
Centric
2
Y
N
3
.
.
.
2. What does
my customer
want?

20. What’s wrong with Batch & Blast?

Batch & Blast is an old model of marketing outreach
– Selects audiences based on a marketing calendar
– Each campaign seen as a distinct event, leads to overmailing
– Response rates of 1% are acceptable (99% failure rate)

What’s wrong?
– Presumes customers are in market on our timetable
– Slave to “what have you done for me lately” mentality
• Audiences are selected based on Recency – Frequency model for
expensive media such as telemarketing and direct mail
– For email, it becomes one size fits all
• Anyone with an email address gets all email campaigns, no targeting
20

21. What this looks like to a customer (mail edition)
Campaigns within a promo period
Campaign 1
Campaing 2
Campaign 3
Campaign 4
Campaign 5
21

22. What this looks like to a customer (email edition)



Customers being pummeled by email
Despite clear differences in engagement
Everyone gets the same level of attention
RFM and Email analysis
Active
Email
0 - 3 Mos
70,960
4 - 6 Mos
79,305
7 - 12 Mos
131,193
0-12M buyer 281,458
%
74.6%
83.4%
80.2%
79.5%
13 - 18 Mos
19 - 24 Mos
25 - 36 Mos
37 - 48 Mos
49+ Months
Grand Total
75.2% 3,550,586
71.7% 2,813,285
67.4% 4,036,381
44.8% 2,173,384
24.9% 2,035,069
61.1% 23,107,479
Recency
110,122
94,968
160,279
73,727
60,842
781,396
Total Emails
% who
Opens
% who
Clicks
Emails /Buyer Openers Opened
Opens /Buyer Clickers Clicked Clicks /Buyer CTR
2,124,751
29.9
43,580
61.4%
339,099
4.8 33,304 46.9% 115,778
1.6 5.4%
42,724
53.9%
342,965
4.3 30,743 38.8% 102,063
1.3 4.6%
2,212,122
27.9
57,161
43.6%
407,003
3.1 36,133 27.5% 95,216
0.7 2.3%
4,161,901
31.7
51.0% 1,089,067
3.9 100,180 35.6% 313,057
1.1 3.7%
8,498,774
30.2 143,465
32.2
29.6
25.2
29.5
33.4
29.6
44,609
33,669
49,156
21,294
16,946
309,139
40.5%
310,592
35.5%
221,741
30.7%
308,036
28.9%
135,273
27.9%
111,304
39.6% 2,176,013
2.8 27,159
2.3 19,487
1.9 27,007
1.8 11,350
8,953
1.8
2.8 194,136
24.7% 65,970
20.5% 43,939
16.8% 57,400
15.4% 23,129
14.7% 17,889
24.8% 521,384
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.3
0.7
22
1.9%
1.6%
1.4%
1.1%
0.9%
2.3%

23. Enter customer dashboards

Customer dashboards start with the customer lifecycle
– Acquisition versus Retention versus Reactivation
– The way customers begin makes a difference

Customer dashboards provide the longitudinal view
–
–
–
–

Customer segmentation comes first
Each segment has joiners, stayers, leavers as times goes by
Each has its own repurchase rate and value
Each has its own trajectory (rate of change)
Most importantly, each scenario has an action plan
– Example: Triggered communications
23

24. Step 1a: Customer segmentation

Customer segmentation based on value
24

25. Step 1b: Customer segmentation

Customer segmentation for new customers
25

26. Step 2: Joiners, Stayers, Leavers

Customer segments at Period 1
Period 1
Segment (conceptual)
Advocates
Repeat buyers
New and Hot
New and Not
High dollar, loyal fans, nearing attrition
High dollar, trial byrs, nearing attrition
Operational
0-3M 3x+ $51+
0-3M 2x $51+
0-3M 1x $51+
0-3M 1x $50 or less
4-6M 3x+ $51+
4-6M 1x $51+
Customers
30,000
45,000
30,000
75,000
etc.
25M+ 3x+ $51+
Dormant buyers, worth reactivating
Low dollar, trial byrs who went dormant 25M+ 1x $50 or less
total
150,000
250,000
580,000
26

27. Step 2: Joiners, Stayers, Leavers

Customer segments at Period 2
Period 1
Segment (conceptual)
Advocates
Repeat buyers
New and Hot
New and Not
High dollar, loyal fans, nearing attrition
High dollar, trial byrs, nearing attrition
Operational
0-3M 3x+ $51+
0-3M 2x $51+
0-3M 1x $51+
0-3M 1x $50 or less
4-6M 3x+ $51+
4-6M 1x $51+
Period 2
Customers Customers
30,000
30,000
45,000
44,900
10,000
25,000
30,000
26,000
75,000
70,000
etc.
Dormant buyers, worth reactivating
25M+ 3x+ $51+
Low dollar, trial byrs who went dormant 25M+ 1x $50 or less
total
150,000
250,000
145,000
245,100
580,000
596,000
27

28. Step 2: Joiners, Stayers, Leavers

Customer segments between Period 1 and Period 2
Period 1
Segment (conceptual)
Advocates
Repeat buyers
New and Hot
New and Not
High dollar, loyal fans, nearing attrition
High dollar, trial byrs, nearing attrition
Operational
0-3M 3x+ $51+
0-3M 2x $51+
0-3M 1x $51+
0-3M 1x $50 or less
4-6M 3x+ $51+
4-6M 1x $51+
=====>
Customers Joiners Leavers
30,000
100
100
200
300
45,000
10,000
25,000
30,000 1,000
75,000 5,000
5,000
10,000
Period 2
Customers Comments
30,000 Looks like nothing happened
44,900
10,000 Welcome stream on steroids
25,000 Normal welcome stream
26,000
70,000
etc.
Dormant buyers, worth reactivating
25M+ 3x+ $51+
Low dollar, trial byrs who went dormant 25M+ 1x $50 or less
total
150,000
250,000
580,000
5,000
5,000
10,000
9,900
145,000 Best bets for winback
245,100 Let them attrit
596,000
28

29. Step 3: Action plan - triggered communications

Behaviors that trigger a marketing communication
– Buying behavior (transaction, spend, ship status)
– Lack of buying behavior (time has gone by, abandoned cart)
– Channel behavior (bought online/pickup at store, loaded
shopping cart/shopped at retail, “contact me” form)
– Loyalty behavior (enrolled in loyalty program, earned an
award, redeemed an award, close to an award threshold)
– Segment behavior (rhythm of purchase, replenishment)
– Site behavior (transaction at the site- not individual level)
– Post demand behavior (return) or customer service call
29

30. Customer dashboard example
Names through:
Customers
Total New
New and Hot
New and Not
Reactivated
Last Month
This month
Main product 1
Last Month
250,000 275,000
10,000
1,000
4,000
10,000
Main product 2
This month
Last Month
Order Penetration %
13,000
1,300
5,000
11,000
This month
Last Month
Order Penetration %
25.0%
35.0%
45.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
Main product 3
Order Penetration %
25.0%
35.0%
45.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
This month
25.0%
35.0%
45.0%
20.0%
30.0%
40.0%
3,500
30.0%
1,500
28.0%
1,000
26.0%
24.0%
500
D…
N…
O…
S…
J…
A…
J…
A…
M…
M…
J…
F…
D…
N…
S…
O…
22.0%
A…
0
J…
50,000
10,000
5,000
32.0%
J…
50,000
10,000
5,000
2,000
A…
Buying monthly
Twice a Month
Weekly
34.0%
M…
Rhythm
36.0%
2,500
M…
500
55,000
110,000
J…
1,000
50,000
100,000
38.0%
3,000
F…
Used-to-Be-Hot
Lapsed Account
"One and Done"
150,000 160,000
# NTF Accounts
Inactives
40.0%
20.0%
30
6M Retention %
Key Customer Metrics

31. Not about the tool

Integrate with existing work, don’t presume to replace
anything with a magic dashboard
– The dashboard consumer is always going to add their spin
– MS Excel, MS PowerPoint

Don’t forecast; simulate
– Make your dashboard interactive with what if scenarios

My favorite dashboard solutions
–
–
–
–
–
Alterian’s Alchemy, best campaign interface
MicroStrategy, best integration with Microsoft Office
Klipfolio, best marketing applications
Tableau, best gallery beyond marketing
Dundas, best visualizations
31

32. Push to PowerPoint

33. Push to PowerPoint

34. Agenda

Executive summary
– What is an effective dashboard?



Effective campaign dashboards
Effective customer dashboards
10 tips for effective dashboards
34

35. Ten tips for effective dashboards
1. Plan effectively, know your audience, get their buy-in
ahead of time, survey them afterwards
2. Vet all of the KPIs before they’re published
(especially with finance), centralize definitions
3. Don’t be afraid of MS Excel, promote dashboard’s
ability integrate into someone else’s work
4. Show screenshots of the creative
5. Drill down for more detail; but be able to aggregate
up for the contextual overview
35

36. Ten tips for effective dashboards
6. Less is more; don’t use visualizations
indiscriminately, what are your top 5 KPIs?
7. Always put the numbers into context (e.g., trends,
YoY comps, benchmarks)
8. Leave space for user commentary, reactions,
disagreements; but start the ball rolling with your
recommendations
9. Tell a story; don’t be boring
10. Every section should have an associated action
36

37. Effective dashboards always…



Lead to actions
Have impact on the business
Are part of decision making
–
–
–
–
Good news|bad news?
Going up|going down?
Something worked
New customer insights
Key takeaway:
Effective analytics always have
actions attached to measurements
37

38. Roy Wollen
President, Hansa Marketing Services Inc.
(847) 491-6682
Roy.Wollen@HansaMarketing.com
www.HansaMarketing.com
http://www.linkedin.com/company/404316?trk=tyah