Reporting Templates and Dashboards

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Templates

Reporting templates are pre-built reporting structures that users simply complete to create the report. They streamline processes but are limited in the scope of reporting as they are a pre-built solution (though some have limited customization functionality).

Dashboards

Reporting dashboards provide a comprehensive snapshot of performance. They contain curated data, charts, and tables, rather than all the data. And they are specifically geared towards providing visual overviews of metrics and KPIs to management, and non-analysts for the most part. They are an extremely useful way to quickly show performance and help management use data insights for better decision-making.

There are three main type of dashboards, each with different functions, data sets, insights, and visualizations.

• Operational: This is the most common type, showing a snapshot of real-time performance in different channels or parts of the business - useful for management updates.
• Analytical: This uses historical data to try to predict future trends using comparative tables, charts, PivotTables, and data drill-downs - useful for analysts mapping trends and modelling outcomes.
• Strategic: This measures performance against KPIs to help decision-makers choose actions that will deliver on strategic objectives. Strategic dashboards can contain a higher amount of words than other dashboards as the audience can be senior management non-analysts, and words, rather than raw data, can be more effective in conveying the insight.