Marketing Dashboard

A Google search on "Marketing Dashboard" generates 285,000 responses. That's a phenomenal number given the relatively few businesses that actually use a marketing dashboard.

After speaking with several marketers recently about the use of dashboards, I came to a seemingly obvious but critical conclusion. A dashboard is only as good as the data feeding it. A marketing dashboard is only useful if it ties to the marketing objectives and performance goals of the organization. Without this connection between marketing data, marketing objectives and business performance metrics, the dashboard is only a sexy gadget. Generally, marketers love gadgets. But this one won't gain you any support without the proper alignment.

A short but nice overview of marketing dashboards can be found on Chief Marketer. Of course, you could also read the 285,000 links on Google.