9 Must-Have Charts On Your Marketing Dashboard

dentifying which Salesforce marketing campaigns have generated the most number of sales ready leads is critical to improving marketing effectiveness.

So here’s 9 charts that we think should be on the Leads & Marketing Salesforce dashboard for sales and marketing alignment.

For full insight, combine these charts with our recommendations on tracking lead conversion metrics.

 

1. Leads by Lead Source

The Leads by Lead Source is a simple chart that gives good information on where new Leads are coming from. The underlying report is based on a standard field on the Salesforce Leads page layout called Lead Source.

Don’t confuse Lead Source with the Campaign. There may have been multiple trade show Campaigns for example, with the number of Leads generated for each trade show shown on the Campaign. The Lead Source tells us how many Leads we generated from all Trade Shows compared to other sources.

The dashboard data is displayed as a doughnut chart in the example above. It could alternatively be represented as a pie chart or stacked bar chart, summarised by month. Don’t forget to include the time period in the chart footer – Leads Created this Financial Year in this example.

Drilling down from the dashboard to the underlying report gives the user more information. In this case we’ve grouped the report by Lead Status but other summary options might include Country or Lead Rating. Incidentally the report shown above is a Matrix rather than Summary report. Here’s why it’s better to use a Matrix rather than a Summary report,  “When is a report not a report? Matrix versus Summary reports”.

 

2. Number of Leads created by Lead Status

The Lead Status chart tells us how many Leads have been created each month and what has happened to them. This includes information on the number of Leads that have been converted to Accounts, Contacts and Opportunities each month (shown in orange on the chart below).

This is valuable information in telling us about the quality of Leads that are being generated and how effective we are in following them up.

 

3. Leads by Lead Owner

Tracking the number of Leads by Lead Owner means we can understand how effective different sales people are in converting Leads to Opportunities. Be sure to analyse this in conjunction with other factors. Some people may be allocated Leads from better quality sources for example.

The report might also highlight sales people that are overloaded with Leads. This in turn may explain why some sales people have a disproportionately high number of ‘Not Contacted’ Leads. Or perhaps some sales people are much quicker at following up new enquiries than others.

The chart above is based on current Lead Owner – this may be different to ‘Created By’. If information is needed on the number of Leads created by different users then track this in a separate chart and report.

 

4. Opportunities by Lead Source

When a Lead is converted, the Lead Source is automatically carried through to the equivalent field on the Opportunity. This means the number and value of Opportunities by original Lead Source can be measured.

This chart tells us how productive our various Lead Sources are in generating sales pipeline and Won deals. We’ve created a separate blog post “10 Sales and Pipeline Charts that should be on your Sales Dashboard” for that explains to to gain visibility of sales performance and the sales pipeline.

5. Campaigns with Campaign Members by Type

The Campaigns with Campaign Members chart tells us how many people (Leads and Contacts) are associated with each Campaign. Of course a Lead or Contact may be associated with multiple Campaigns and will therefore be included within the report multiple times i.e. once for each Campaign with which the Lead or Contact is associated.

You may want to filter the report to include only certain types of Campaign e.g. events such as trade shows, seminars and conferences. Bear in mind the report shows the total number of Leads and Contacts associated with each Campaign. It doesn’t tell us whether these people responded positively to the Campaign. This is covered in subsequent reports.

 

6. Campaigns with Campaign Members by Status

This report gives essential information on whether people are responding to our Campaigns. The Campaigns with Campaign Member report tells us the respective Status of all the people (Leads and Contacts) associated with our Campaigns. As such it’s a fundamental indicator of how well our Campaigns are performing.

In the example above, the green bar shows the number of people that have ‘Responded’ to each campaign, compared to those with a ‘Sent’ status. Control the Campaign Member values that can be created for each Campaign by clicking the Advanced Setup button on the Campaign page layout.

 

7. Campaigns with Opportunities

The majority of Campaigns are run with the direct purpose of generating additional revenue – so the number and value of Opportunities generated from each Campaign is a key metric we want to measure. The underlying report uses the Primary Campaign Source field on the Opportunity page layout to identify relevant Opportunities.

This field is automatically populated when a Lead that is associated with a Campaign is converted to an Opportunity. It can also be manually populated if the Opportunity is created without an originating Lead.

A key challenge with this report is ensuring the integrity of the Primary Campaign Source field on the Opportunity. In many organisations, sales people are expected to ‘self generate’ Opportunities from customers and prospects, not just rely on marketing Campaigns. Setting the Field History Tracking for the Primary Campaign Source field is one way to identify if the Campaign Name has been changed or removed subsequent to Lead conversion.

An additional issue relates to the fact that multiple Campaigns may have influenced the decision makers within the customer organisation. How do we know which Campaign was the most influential in generating or concluding the deal? To resolve this, use the Primary Campaign Source field to record the Campaign that led to the Opportunity being initiated. Then use the Campaign Influence report to track those additional Campaigns that are associated with relevant Contacts. You’ll find the option ‘Campaigns with Influenced Opportunities’ under Campaigns when you click New Report.

 

8. Campaign Return on Investment (ROI)

Most Campaigns have a cost associated with them. Even an email Campaign may have a small delivery cost or expenses associated with template design by an external agency. And the cost of trade shows can be very substantial indeed. This means we need to measure Return on Investment (ROI) of the various Campaigns.

The chart shows two metrics. Firstly the ROI %. Second, the Value of Won Opportunities. Both are taken from the respective standard fields on the Campaign page layout.

Strictly speaking of course the total revenue associated with a Campaign isn’t the ROI. It’s the total revenue associated with the Campaign. Accurately calculating the ROI would require the profit or margin on the Opportunity to be determined and for this value to be compared to the cost of the Campaign. This might be difficult to achieve in some organisations so we’re going to settle for calculating the ROI based on the revenue value of Won Opportunities in our example here.

 

9. Why are Leads being Closed?

Not every new Lead will convert to a successful Opportunity – far from it. So collecting information on why Leads are set to Closed by sales people gives us valuable feedback on the quality of Leads being generated.

To implement this chart, create a custom picklist field called Closed Reason on the Lead. Make the field mandatory and link it to the Lead Status using the dependent picklist function.  Only the ‘Closed Not Converted’ value in the Lead Status should have any dependent values – this way the mandatory Closed Reason field will not be applicable if the Lead Status has any other value.

Summary

These 9 Lead and Marketing Charts will give your salesforce dashboard powerful visibility of the effectiveness of your salesforce Campaigns. Use these reports and charts as starting points – modify, adjust and enhance them to meet the specific needs of your organisation. And don’t hesitate to give us any feedback – on either the charts in this blog or ideas you have for other marketing and lead generation charts.

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