If you’ve ever opened your CRM and thought, “Why do we have 19 dashboards and none of them answer my question?”, you’re not alone.
Marketing dashboards often turn into a graveyard of half-used reports, one-off experiments, and charts no one checks after they set them up. But building a great marketing dashboard in your CRM doesn’t require advanced reporting wizardry or tracking everything. It just requires clarity, intention, and a little restraint.
Step 1: Ask the Question(s) First
Most dashboards fail before they’re even built because they start with metrics instead of meaning.
Before you add a single report, ask yourself (or your team):
- What decisions should this dashboard help us make?
- Who is this dashboard for?
- How often will someone look at it?
A helpful way to think about this is to anchor your dashboard around core marketing questions, like:
- Is marketing driving meaningful growth?
- Which channels are actually performing?
- Where are leads getting stuck?
- What should we double down on this month?
If a report doesn’t help answer one of those questions, it probably doesn’t belong on the dashboard.
Step 2: Follow the “3-Dashboard Rule”
One of the biggest mistakes I see is teams trying to cram everything into a single dashboard. We’re after clarity here, so combining unrelated reports, having too many reports, or not organizing them in a visually concise way defeats the purpose.
The “3-Dashboard Rule” looks like this:
- The Executive Snapshot: This dashboard is for leadership. It should be clean, high-level, and easy to digest in under a minute. The dashboard will focus on:
- New contacts and leads over time
- Lifecycle stage progression
- Revenue influenced by marketing (if source data is available)
- Top traffic sources at a glance
- The Marketing Performance Dashboard: Use this dashboard to understand how your marketing efforts are performing across channels. Examples of reports to add to this dashboard:
- Website traffic by source
- Campaign performance
- Email engagement trends
- Lead volume and conversion rates
- The Optimization Dashboard: This dashboard is for improving results, not just reporting on them. This likely won’t be a dashboard that you’re sharing every week, and that’s okay. Its job is to help you fine-tune and experiment. Examples of reports to add to this dashboard:
- Landing page conversion rates
- Form completion vs. abandonment
- CTA click-through rates
- Email subject line performance
Step 3: Build Reports With Intention
Most CRMs make it very easy to create reports. But again, before adding a report, ask:
“What action would I take if this number went up or down?”
If the answer is “I’m not sure,” skip it.
For example: A high-impact report to show Lead Quality over time
- Report type: Custom report → Contacts
- Filters: Lifecycle stage = Lead or MQL
- Breakdown: Original source
Repeat this mindset for each report you add. Fewer, better reports will always outperform a cluttered dashboard.
Step 4: Avoid These Common Dashboard Traps
Even well-intentioned dashboards can go sideways. Watch out for these classic mistakes:
- Tracking everything just because you can
- Mixing executive KPIs with tactical metrics
- Leaving dashboards untouched as strategy or campaigns evolve
- Treating attribution reports as absolute truth
Step 5: Make It Visual (But Not Flashy)
Dashboards are meant to be scanned, not studied.
A few quick visualization tips:
- Line charts for trends
- Bar charts for comparisons
- Tables only when details matter
- Avoid stacking too many metrics into one chart
A lot of CRMs do this well straight out of the box. It’s your job to resist overcomplicating it.
Step 6: Revisit (and Delete) Regularly
Here’s the secret step most teams skip: maintenance.
At least once per quarter, you should:
- Review which dashboards are being used
- Remove reports that no longer serve a purpose
- Update metrics based on current goals
- Delete one dashboard you don’t need anymore (seriously)
Again, dashboards should evolve as your marketing strategy does.
A great reporting dashboard isn’t about proving marketing’s value; it’s about improving it. When built intentionally, dashboards become tools to make better decisions and have clearer conversations. When built without purpose, they become digital clutter. Start with the questions. Keep it simple. And don’t be afraid to delete what no longer serves you.
