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Whether you are a small startup with a simple e-commerce system or a global retailer with a complex sales process, clear dashboards and clear reports are the key to effective team work. However, creating reports often takes considerable time and effort only if the data is disputed or ignored. Maintaining these reports also uses valuable resources that would be better spent reviewing results and making informed decisions.
Centralizing and simplifying dashboards helps address these issues by increasing efficiency and delivering better results. At our agency, we work with leading brands to design and implement business intelligence (BI) solutions using a proven approach based on four key factors.
1. Use case methodology
You’ve probably seen reports full of charts, metrics, and graphs that are overwhelming. It can be hard to figure out which parts matter most or what to focus on. While it’s tempting to include as much detail as possible, keeping it simple is usually more effective—unless there’s a clear need for additional data or visuals.
A “use case” methodology helps streamline dashboard views by ensuring that each report connects to specific business decisions. Tailoring messages to their audience is also essential. For example:
- Top management needs clear performance indicators, such as percentage against sales targets or year-over-year comparisons.
- Operations teams benefit from granular breakdowns such as CPA by site and audience to optimize ongoing activity.
Start by answering a few key questions, such as:
- Who is the target group?
- What business decisions are expected after viewing the report?
- What are the main KPIs that make this possible?
Careful consideration before building will help you deliver a compelling and useful BI view.
2. Data management
Although data management may not be the most exciting topic, many have experienced debates about data accuracy in news. A strong data governance structure is key to building trust in the numbers shared across the business.
Two areas are particularly important in data management: data inputs as well as taxonomy and naming conventions.
Data inputs
in the media performance report, it is essential to validate conversion tracking tools such as Adobe, Google Analytics (GA) or other platforms to ensure reliability of performance metrics. It’s also important to note the differences between data sources, such as GA data excluding revenue, while backend CRM data includes it.
Taxonomy and naming conventions
Consistent naming helps combine data from multiple sources (eg, combining Meta spend with Adobe transfers). It also supports creating custom report dimensions such as tactics, audience, and channel grouping. This requires a clear taxonomy that all teams and partners adhere to, and automated monitoring to catch errors – because errors can happen.
Dig deeper: How to put marketing data into meaningful context
3. Automation of reporting
Ten years ago, manually running Excel reports filled with endless VLOOKUP and SUMIF functions was understandable. Today, there is no reason not to have automatic BI setup.
If it doesn’t already exist, starting with a centralized repository for all your marketing and analytics data is key. Whether you’re using Snowflake, Google Cloud, or another platform, keeping all your data in one place allows for automated reporting. It also opens the door to advanced applications such as propensity scoring, media mix modeling and customer churn analysis.
Whichever platform you choose, having dedicated technical experts is essential to ensure robustness, good maintenance and proper documentation. These experts also play a key role in creating automated data validation processes to catch and resolve issues early rather than reacting to user concerns about data accuracy.
4. Advanced analytics
It is important that your reports are understandable and engaging. While regular summaries of key business metrics are essential, improving them often means providing more advanced insights.
You can test creative analytics views to determine what’s driving creative performance—like background color, logo placement, or call-to-action design. You can also explore forecasting tools that show expected ROI based on different budget scenarios.
Adding these deeper insights gives you and your team a clearer reason to use reports and make smarter business decisions.
Simplify your reporting and send BI
Clear and accurate reporting is critical to your business success, but few brands feel fully satisfied with their current setup. Reporting will always be a work in progress as your business evolves, but laying a solid dashboard foundation now can help you achieve better results and spend less time on maintenance.
Hopefully, these four key considerations have given you practical steps to review your current setup and create more efficient and effective lineups for smarter decision making in 2025.
Dig deeper: 5 steps to get the most out of reports and analytics
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