As a business owner, you know how important it is to stay on top of data and analytics, but you may not have the time or inclination to spend hours poring over detailed reports. Luckily, there’s a way to check your key performance indicators at a glance in real time.
Learn about the different types of KPI dashboards, how to create an effective dashboard, and common mistakes to avoid.
What is a KPI dashboard?
A KPI dashboard is a visual representation of a business’s most important data. It consolidates key metrics in one place, allowing executives and stakeholders to focus on high-level insights and gauge their business’s health at a glance.
KPI dashboards often include different types of visualizations, such as scorecards, period-over-period comparisons, and trendlines. Just like the dashboard of a car, a KPI dashboard tells you what you need to know, so you can make data-driven decisions without going under the hood.
Types of KPI dashboards
Every business and team tracks different KPIs, so customize your dashboard based on what’s important to you. Here are four KPI dashboard examples:
Executive dashboard
An executive dashboard includes only the most crucial metrics of a business’s health. A strong executive KPI dashboard gives business leaders immediate visibility into financial performance.
Here are some common executive dashboard KPIs for ecommerce companies to consider:
- Sales revenue growth
- Net profit margin
- Average order value (AOV)
- Customer lifetime value (CLV)
- Customer retention rate
- Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
If you use Shopify, the Analytics overview in your Shopify admin functions as your executive dashboard. By default, your Analytics overview displays metrics like total sales, AOV, sales by channel, sales by traffic channel, top-selling products, and online store sessions, but you can customize your overview to include the metrics that are most important to you.
Marketing dashboard
A marketing dashboard can help you understand individual campaign success or overall marketing channel effectiveness.
Rembrant Van der Mijnsbrugge of Shopify Partner agency Mote uses Shopify’s built-in marketing analytics dashboard to get a holistic view of channel performance: “The Shopify marketing panel is going to really highlight your strengths and weaknesses between channels,” he says. By default, the Shopify marketing dashboard highlights sales attributed to each channel, but you can also compare the number of sessions per channel.
If you want to know more about the performance of specific campaigns, most marketing channels have their own built-in analytics dashboards—like Google Analytics, TikTok Analytics, X Analytics, and Instagram Insights. These options do have limitations, however. “You can only track the individual platforms,” Rembrant says. “You can’t really track the delta between each one.” That’s why it’s important to have a centralized data hub.
Here are some marketing dashboard KPIs for ecommerce companies:
- Sessions by traffic source
- Online store conversion rate
- Sales by traffic source
- Social media engagement
- Email engagement
Sales dashboard
Whether you’re a B2B company with a dedicated sales team or a solopreneur, you need a way to keep track of sales. Sales KPI dashboards allow you to track your revenue and sales pipeline at a glance.
The best sales metrics for ecommerce merchants are:
- Average order value
- Sales by channel
- Sales by traffic source
- Top-selling products
- Total sales
Shopify’s built-in sales dashboard automatically tracks all of the above, and if you have a physical store, you might add other metrics, like retail sales by point-of-sale (POS) location and retail sales by staff at the register.
If you’re in B2B sales, you might focus on slightly different metrics, like:
- Closed (won) sales over time
- Win rate
- Lead conversion rate
- Pipeline value
- Individual sales rep performance
Customer relationship management (CRM) or sales enablement software can help you visualize these KPIs.
Operational dashboard
An operational KPI dashboard helps businesses manage day-to-day operations to improve operational efficiency. These usually include a mixture of departmental KPIs, such as:
- Fulfilled orders over time
- Customer satisfaction score
- Bounce rate
- Total sales
- Inventorysell-through rate
How to create a KPI dashboard
- Choose a platform
- Select KPIs to track
- Identify data sources
- Choose visualizations
- Determine a standard date range
- Anticipate missing questions
Review your dashboard every 12 months to refine your metrics and visualizations. Here’s how to create a user-friendly KPI dashboard with a clear view of performance:
1. Choose a platform
You don’t have to build your KPI dashboard from scratch. If you use Shopify, you already have a variety of prebuilt dashboards and reports you can easily customize.
If you don’t have Shopify, you can manually pull data into spreadsheet software like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. Or connect to third-party data management and visualization platforms like HubSpot, Amplitude, Triple Whale, or Looker Studio.
2. Select KPIs to track
A KPI dashboard is only as effective as the KPIs it displays. If you’ve already identified KPIs that align with your business objectives, great. If not, you may want to start with your software’s default metrics and adjust as your business grows.
For example, if you want to increase revenue, track average order value (AOV). If improving marketing efficiency is important, track customer acquisition cost (CAC). If your goal is to improve customer relationships, consider customer lifetime value (CLV).
3. Identify data sources
Once you’ve determined your metrics, consider which data sources you’ll need to integrate with your dashboard.
For example, if you want to measure traffic from Google search, you need to connect to Google. For revenue metrics, you need to integrate with your ecommerce platform.
4. Choose visualizations
Choosing how to present your KPIs is just as important as choosing what to track. A KPI dashboard should provide actionable insights at a glance.
The right combination of charts and graphs can make all the difference in the reader’s interpretation speed. For example, a trendline shows year-over-year revenue growth more effectively than a pie chart. Other visualizations to consider include:
- Progress bars
- Tables
- Bar charts
- Scorecards
5. Determine a standard date range
Choose a date range that aligns with your reporting cadence. For example, operations teams may choose short date ranges, like daily or weekly, to identify inefficiencies quickly.
Marketing teams may choose monthly or quarterly cycles to review trends over time. Executives may choose yearly dashboards to understand long-term progress toward strategic business goals.
Whichever you choose, allow the flexibility for users to change date ranges to analyze specific time periods as needed.
6. Anticipate missing questions
A KPI dashboard won’t answer every question, but it should answer the most frequently asked ones. When building your dashboard, try to anticipate potential gaps that may come up during analysis.
Consult with stakeholders to identify the questions they ask monthly. For example, if your marketing director wants to know which campaigns drive the most conversions, include campaign-specific metrics like click-through rates.
Mistakes to avoid when designing a KPI dashboard
Creating a KPI dashboard is an exercise in design and restraint. Here are four mistakes to avoid when creating one:
1. Including too many KPIs
It can be easy to fall into the trap of wanting to report on all the metrics possible. After all, more data feels like more insights.
However, this can overwhelm your dashboard and dilute what’s important. Focus on only the critical KPIs that align with your goals and save secondary metrics for drill-downs.
2. Neglecting design
Building dashboards is a user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) design challenge. A well-designed dashboard is easy to understand almost instantly and intuitive to use.
Avoid cluttered dashboards with overlapping graphs and charts, inconsistent fonts, or vague labels. If users have to perform additional calculations to understand your dashboard, the design needs refinement.
Interactive elements like filters, dropdown lists, and hovers can improve usability without overpowering the initial design.
3. Building from scratch
Building a dashboard from a blank page might seem appealing for full customization, but it often wastes time. It can also lead to mistakes like inconsistent layouts.
Many ecommerce platforms like Shopify and business intelligence tools like Looker Studio offer predesigned KPI dashboard templates that follow dashboarding best practices.
Start with a KPI dashboard template that closely matches your goals, then customize it to meet your needs.
4. Lack of context
It’s challenging to make decisions when numbers are presented in isolation. For example, you may report that your company made $50,000 in sales last month, but without a comparative relation, the user is left guessing whether this is good or bad.
To avoid this, add historical data like period-over-period comparisons, trendlines, and benchmarks to give your data context.
KPI dashboard FAQ
What does KPI mean?
KPI stands for key performance indicator. It is a measurable value marketers use to facilitate data-driven decision-making.
What tools are best for creating KPI dashboards?
There are several tools for creating KPI dashboards, depending on your needs. Shopify is an excellent tool for creating ecommerce KPI dashboards. Other popular tools include Looker Studio, HubSpot, Tableau, Triple Whale, Salesforce, PandaDoc, and Power PI.
What is the difference between a KPI dashboard and a KPI report?
A KPI dashboard is a visual tool summarizing key performance goals. A KPI report is a static document with detailed data that usually requires further analysis. KPI dashboards are high-level, while KPI reports provide deeper context beyond what a KPI dashboard offers.
