There are many software programs that include a “dashboard” function—for example, Salesforce.com. This gives you a quick, at-a-glance summary of where you stand with regards to your key performance indicators, or KPIs. Here are some tips on creating a customized marketing dashboard.

Because each business has completely different KPIs, there is no one-size-fits-all marketing dashboard. I’ve partnered with Rick Creamer, a database guru from Lititz, PA, to offer dashboard development services. I’ll help you determine the sources of your specific KPIs, and Rick will build an easy-to-read Word document that assimilates all data sources for you. No need for custom software or programming skills.

Here are some sources of information that you can use for your marketing dashboard:

Google Analytics: can’t beat the price—it’s free. Analytics provides detailed insight into your website’s traffic. This information can help improve all marketing initiatives, both on- and off-line, and helps create higher-converting websites. Here’s just a small sampling of the KPIs you can glean from Google Analytics.

• Visitor Information: including total visits, unique visits, total pageviews, bounce rate (how many visitors came to one page then immediately left your site), map overlays (showing where they live), visitor loyalty, length/depth of visits, what browsers or operating systems they use, the size of their screens, and more.
• Traffic Sources: what percentage of visitors came directly to your site, or clicked through from another site; which search engines were used, and what keywords were they using; and more.
• Content: which pages were most popular; what were the top landing pages and top exit pages; how much time was spent on each page; and more.
• Goals: which pages have you identified as most important for converting  a visitor to a desired action? This will tell you how many met your goals and how they got there.
• Segmentation: isolate and analyze subsets of your traffic; apply segments to current or historical data and compare performance side-by-side.
• Benchmarking: find out whether your site underperforms or outperforms those of your industry vertical.
• Ecommerce Tracking: trace transactions to campaigns and keywords; identify your revenue sources.

Email Performance: there are dozens of email marketing programs available—I use and recommend Listrak. Whichever product you use, identify the KPIs in your email campaigns, and adjust your behaviors based on what you’re seeing. Here are just a few of the measurables you should track in your dashboard:

• Deliverability: it’s critical to understand which emails aren’t delivered, and why. Click here to read an excellent whitepaper on email deliverability best-practices.
• Unsubscribe Rate: monitor this to learn what works and what doesn’t (A/B split tests of subject lines, frequency, offer, etc.)
• Read Rate: I don’t bother with the Open Rate—I only care if they READ my email. This tells you who opened and read your message for a certain length of time.
• Click-through Rate: the results of this KPI can provide action triggers for your sales team to follow-up on those who clicked-through to a certain page.
• URL Tracking: this tells you which links within the email were clicked-on.
• Geo Tracking: this tells you where your visitors live.
• Bounce Rates: both soft and hard bounces. Helps you monitor the hygiene of your list, and tells you who filed the dreaded abuse complaints.

Annual Calendar: do you disappear from your audience’s radar for long stretches of time? By creating an annual marketing calendar as part of your dashboard, you can step back and view the entire year—allowing you to spotlight serious gaps in your communications. Some of the key activities that could show up on your annual marketing calendar could include:

• Event Marketing: from national tradeshows to local lunchbox meetings, event marketing can provide an excellent ROI despite its often high cost.
• Advertising Impressions: when your ads hit the media, are they aligned properly with the other marketing communications activities?
• Publicity Impressions: the calendar can help you schedule the optimal timing of news releases.
• Direct Marketing Schedule: whether direct mail, email, or telemarketing, you should be able to easily see the best time to launch a direct marketing initiative. For example, if you know a major trade show takes place on a certain date, postpone a telemarketing effort since a portion of your audience might be away at the show.

Budget Monitor: how quickly are you burning through your budget—and are the right line items being properly funded?

Sales Monitor: many SFM (sales force management) programs, such as SalesForce.com, have robust reporting features that can be easily incorporated into your marketing dashboard. This will show you at-a-glance whether a scheduled marketing activity has reaped the benefits of closed sales within a certain length of time—and if not, why not.