Embarking on your inbound marketing journey without data is like sailing a ship without a compass: you might eventually reach your destination, but you'll likely face unnecessary obstacles and delays along the way.
To navigate effectively and maximize your success, a purpose-built, centralized dashboard is indispensable for every business engaged in inbound marketing.
With the right HubSpot dashboards, teams gain a comprehensive overview of their inbound efforts to monitor, manage, track and optimize the entire funnel – and ensure your marketing spend produces the maximum possible ROI.
This article explores the proven method we use at ProperExpression to build best-in-class dashboards in HubSpot to provide clarity, make data-driven decisions and generate more revenue.
Expect to learn:
Inbound marketers face three common challenges:
The number of channels B2B buyers use to research vendors has doubled since 2016. But this creates two problems for inbound marketers:
Many inbound marketers produce a high volume of leads – but struggle to convert them into customers with the sales team. From gaps in your nurture funnel to inefficient processes, many inbound strategies prioritize quantity over quality in lead generation and miss the bigger picture.
40% of B2B marketing CMOs feel under pressure to prove ROI faster. But without clear revenue attribution or accurate tracking of individual channels’ performance, it can be difficult to definitively prove your inbound marketing is influencing deals and producing measurable returns.
All three of these problems can be solved with the right dashboards. Reporting dashboards provide a comprehensive, easily accessible executive overview so you can:
But this raises a question: how exactly do you measure “influence”?
Imagine a lead requests a demo and you have comprehensive data showing every interaction they’ve had with your marketing channels. They liked 12 social posts, clicked a CTA in 6 emails, viewed 4 blogs and clicked on one of your Google ads – but you have no clue how much influence each of those channels had on their decision to take the next step.
Marketers solve this problem by using an attribution model – which is a fancy-sounding way of saying they agree to credit specific channels based on when the lead interacted with them. Two of the most popular models are:
We believe both models are valuable and use them in our inbound dashboards. But neither captures the truth about most B2B deals – which is that they are influenced by a wide range of factors.
Instead, we use a “U-Shaped” attribution model which gives the first and last touch points 40% of the credit for a conversion – and the remaining 20% goes to every channel the lead interacts with between those two points.
Leveraging this model can be difficult, as it requires a wider range of metrics to gain the full picture. But fortunately, we’ve created a custom system within HubSpot that allows us to use multiple models simultaneously - so with the right dashboard setup, we can easily deploy U-Shaped attribution reporting.
The best way to build a comprehensive inbound dashboard is to break it down into three distinct phases:
Bottom of the funnel (BoFu) reporting shows how your inbound marketing contributes to actual pipeline and revenue generation. The ideal dashboard features data on total revenue and revenue that is attributable to inbound marketing – helping you understand how integral inbound is to your overarching revenue operations.
Key BoFu Metrics
Middle of the funnel (MoFu) reporting shows how inbound marketing helps move leads through the funnel. It uses a last-touch attribution model to show which channels prompt leads to request a demo or book a meeting.
Key MoFu metrics
Top of the funnel (ToFu) reporting shows which channels are generating leads – and whether those leads turn into customers. It uses first-touch attribution to understand where new leads come from and how those leads progress through the funnel.
Key ToFu metrics
Many marketers race ahead to start tinkering with their tracking systems, but this usually ends up a very messy waste of time. Before you do anything, answer a simple question: What am I hoping to achieve with this dashboard?
This ensures you:
The next step is to ensure you have the right mechanisms in place to generate all the data you need. There are two essential metrics every inbound marketer needs to track:
This will help you use first and last touch attribution – and ultimately provide most of the insight you need to inform your inbound marketing strategy.
Once your tracking is in place and the dashboard is available, we recommend marketers set up two regular cadences:
As a HubSpot platinum partner with expertise in RevOps, we have helped countless companies gain clarity, improve collaboration and drive higher inbound ROI with purpose-built dashboards designed around their specific business objectives.
Want to discuss your current challenges and how our team of HubSpot experts can help?