Marketing is a creative field but it’s steadily becoming more data-driven. This means that savvy marketing departments now use detailed insights on consumer behavior to identify prospects and increase conversion. Your team may be creating the coolest ad campaigns, the most creative content, and the best design — but we all know that none of this matters unless you can check that they’re working.
Managers look at the bottom line. It may seem that the effectiveness of your marketing strategy is difficult to evaluate, but it’s now easier than ever to measure results, thanks to the abundance of available data.
KPIs – or key performance indicators – measure whether a business or organization is achieving its objectives. They should be highly-focused and limited to the most important metrics. Rather than trying to measure 50 different things, it’s better to focus on 10 or fewer.
Each marketing KPI should be SMART. This means:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
Marketing KPIs
Following these criteria, 10 KPIs for Email Marketing might include:
- The number of emails opened (#)
- The email open rate (%)
- The number of clicks (#)
- The click rate (%)
- The number of conversions ( #)
- The conversion rate (#)
- The number of forwards/shares (#)
- The unsubscribe rate (%)
The KPIs for other areas of your marketing strategy should be equally precise and measurable.
Once you’ve decided on which metrics you want to analyze, you can start tracking your KPIs. But what do you do with all this information and where do you store it?
Marketing analysis tools like Google Analytics are extremely powerful but a busy marketing team with a multi-channel strategy can quickly generate a vast amount of data. The challenge is bringing all of your marketing data together in one place for analysis. You might be surprised to learn that you can do this and create automated marketing KPI reports, in Google Sheets.
Track your SEO metrics in an automated dashboard:
Why use Google Sheets to track marketing KPIs?
- Flexible: Google Sheets enables you to manage and analyze all of your marketing channel data in the way that suits your team. Whenever you want to change the system you can simply adapt the spreadsheets — without expensive marketing software or coding.
- Accessible: Cloud-based and real-time, Google Sheets allows your team to access and transfer their data at any time, from anywhere in the world.
- Compatible with everything: All other software integrates with Google Sheets, so if your company has marketing data stored in other programs, you can easily import that information straight into Google Sheets.
- Easy to use: It’s likely that most of your colleagues already use spreadsheets and Google Sheets is user-friendly for those who don’t. Spreadsheets are easy to maintain and training your team is quick and simple.
What’s a spreadsheet-based workflow template?
Whereas a regular spreadsheet template is a single file containing pre-built charts and formulas, a Sheetgo workflow template is an interconnected system. It consists of multiple Google Sheets files that transfer data between them. This allows team members to work in their own private spreadsheet while sharing data with colleagues automatically. Marketing managers can keep an eye on all the KPIs in the dashboard, without having to gather and collate any data manually.A spreadsheet-based workflow template gives you:
- Organization and data privacy: Each spreadsheet is dedicated to one sole task, for better data governance and accuracy. Instead of storing and managing your team’s marketing data in large, shared spreadsheets, there’s a file for each channel. Data is exported from these files and merged in the manager’s master sheet automatically, reducing the risk of errors.
- Scalability: As your marketing department grows, you can expand the system by connecting more spreadsheets to the workflow. Plus you can make ad-hoc alterations without redesigning the system or switching to a new solution.
- Integration: Google Sheets is compatible with everything so you can easily import and combine data from other software and marketing tools such as Google Analytics. In a couple of clicks, you can also connect data from other parts of the company, such as accounting, to create a fully integrated system.
Keep track of all your marketing KPIs in the automated dashboard
What you get with this template:
When you install the Sheetgo Marketing KPIs template, five Google Sheets files with pre-built Sheetgo connections are saved to your Google Drive:
- Four Marketing channel spreadsheets. These are named SEO, Content Marketing, SEM, and Email Marketing but you can rename them and use them for other channels. Simply share these files with the team members responsible for managing this data.
- One Marketing Dashboard KPIs spreadsheet. This is the master sheet for the marketing manager. Data from the marketing channels flows into this spreadsheet, providing you with an automated analysis of all your key marketing metrics.
How to get the workflow template
- Click the blue button below to install the marketing KPIs template.
- Log in to Sheetgo with your Google account. As this template is based in Google Sheets, the files will be saved to your Google Drive.
- Click Install template. to initiate the template installation.
- Wait a few moments while Sheetgo installs the template and creates the connections.
How to use the marketing KPI template
Step 1: Share the marketing channel spreadsheets
Open one of the marketing channel files by clicking on Workflow or Files on the menu bar.
Each of these files contains an Instructions tab, explaining how to use the template. You will also notice that the files contain sample data, to show you how the template works. When you or your colleagues are ready to start logging your marketing data, you can simply delete or overwrite this information.
Go to the Tracking tab. In cell D1, enter the start date.
The gray cells contain pre-filled data so don’t try to alter this information. Start entering your data in the white cells.
If you have data stored elsewhere or you are using tools such as Google Analytics, you can import the data into this tab using add-ons such as Search Analytics for Sheets.
Click Edit in new to open the spreadsheet in a new tab in your browser and share it with your colleague(s) using the green Google Sheets Share button.
Step 2: Transfer the data
Once your colleagues have started entering data into their marketing channel spreadsheets, it’s time to import that information into the central master sheet. To do this, open the Workflow menu bar on the left-hand side and click Run. This will update all the connections in the workflow and pull the latest data from the 4 input sheets into the master sheet.
Step 3: Automate the workflow
To ensure you’ve always got the latest marketing data in your master sheet and dashboard, schedule automatic transfers. This will update the entire workflow at regular intervals, without you having to open a spreadsheet or open Sheetgo. Go to the left bottom corner of the screen and click Automate.
How to add an extra channel (optional)
If you have more than 4 marketing channels, it’s easy to add another file to the workflow.
Go to Google Drive > Sheetgo templates > Marketing KPIs.
Right-click on one of the input sheets > Make a copy.
Inside Sheetgo open your Marketing KPIs workflow and go to Connections.
You will see that this workflow contains one connection: Consolidate Tracking.
This connection pulls data from the 4 marketing channel spreadsheets into the master sheet.
Go to the 3-dots menu (â‹®) and click Edit connection.
Under Source data > Multiple files, you will see the list of the currently connected marketing channel spreadsheets.
Click +Add another source file > +Select file.
Locate the new file that you just created and click Done.
Important: under FILE TAB, select the Tab name “Tracking”. This ensures that the connection imports data from the correct source tab (sheet).
Click Finish and save and Sheetgo will create the connection.
Go to Workflow and you will see that the new marketing channel spreadsheet has been connected!
Create your own automated marketing system
By connecting Google Sheets, Sheetgo allows you to automate all your data processing tasks and generate automated reports and dashboards. You can also automate data inputs using Google Forms or by linking your Google Analytics data directly to your Google Sheets workflow.Â
If you’re looking for a more complex marketing solution or you need help customizing the KPI template for your business, book a meeting with our automation experts.
