A marketing attribution dashboard puts revenue by source on one screen, so nobody needs to run a report before a meeting. This article answers how to build that screen in Reporting on the levelpartner.ai platform, which handful of widgets belong on it, and how to read it in the fortnightly or monthly review where budget decisions are made. The finished dashboard is something an owner can glance at on a Monday morning and know whether marketing is earning its keep.
What a good attribution dashboard shows
Most dashboards fail because they show everything. Twenty charts, all equal size, and no indication of which one matters. Nobody reads them after the second week.
An attribution dashboard for a firm of 10 to 250 people needs five things, in this order: won revenue by first source, new opportunities by source, conversion from lead to client by source, spend by channel where you track it, and the share of contacts with no source. That last widget is the health check. If it climbs, every other number on the screen is less trustworthy.
Before you start
- The attribution data underneath is already clean. If it is not, start with marketing attribution set-up and come back.
- Ad accounts connected from Settings, so spend appears alongside results.
- Pipeline stages agreed and used consistently.
- A decision on who sees the dashboard: owner, sales lead, marketing lead, finance.
How to set it up
- Go to Dashboard and open the Dashboard Selection Menu.
- Click + Add Dashboard and name it, such as "Monthly marketing review".
- Add Opportunity Revenue Over Time with First Attribution and Status Won.
- Group it by Session Source, then add Opportunity Counts by Status the same way.
- Add Lead Source Report from General to compare leads with won.
- Add Amount Spent from Meta Ads and Total cost from Google Ads.
- Add Contacts by Source and check how many have no source.
- Click Save Changes and set the last full month in the Date Picker.
- Open the Action Menu and use Manage permissions for review attendees.
- Remove any widget nobody has referred to after two reviews.
How to read it in a meeting
Start with the unknown-source count. If it is high, say so before discussing anything else, because the rest of the screen is incomplete. Then read won revenue by source, not leads. Leads are a leading indicator; revenue is the result.
Next, look for disagreement between the lead widget and the revenue widget. A source near the top for leads and near the bottom for revenue is producing the wrong people. That is a targeting conversation, not a budget cut. A source that is small for leads but large for revenue deserves more investment and a test to see whether it scales.
Imagine a monthly view showing an illustrative £9,500 of spend across three channels and £61,000 of won work. Paid search accounts for 60 leads and £14,000 won, partner webinars for 12 leads and £38,000, and unknown source for 9 leads and £9,000. On those figures, the sensible call would be to move a slice of search budget into a second monthly webinar and to find the form that let nine leads through without a source.
What it replaces
It replaces the slide deck someone builds the night before the review. It also replaces the debate about whose numbers are right, because everyone opens the same screen pulled from the same pipeline. The dashboard does not decide anything. It removes the preparation and the arguing so the meeting can decide.
Time it takes each week
Building it takes about an hour once the data is in good shape. Maintenance is close to zero, because widgets refresh from live data. The time cost is the review itself: 30 to 45 minutes once a month, or 15 minutes fortnightly for faster-moving firms. For a broader view that includes delivery and finance, see CRM dashboard examples.
The mistake most people make
Putting cost per lead at the centre of the dashboard. It rewards channels that produce cheap, unqualified enquiries and punishes channels that produce fewer, better clients. Put won revenue by source in the top left position, where eyes go first, and keep cost per lead lower down.
When not to use it
A dashboard is the wrong tool when you have fewer than about 20 new clients a quarter. With that few, a simple list of each new client and where they came from is clearer than any chart, and it keeps the context, such as who referred them. It is also the wrong tool while attribution data is still incomplete. A tidy chart over messy data gives false confidence.
Troubleshooting
Widgets show different totals for the same month. They are filtered on different dates, for example created date on one and won date on another. Decide which date each widget uses and label it in the widget title.
Spend widgets are empty. The ad account connection has expired. Reconnect it from Settings.
The dashboard is slow or cluttered. Too many widgets with long date ranges. Keep the default to one month and build a separate quarterly dashboard if you need trends.
People stop opening it. It has drifted from the meeting it serves. Cut it back to the five core widgets and review it in the meeting, on screen, every time.
Frequently asked questions
Can different people see different versions?
You can build separate dashboards for different roles, such as one for the owner with revenue only and one for the marketing lead with campaign detail. Keep the revenue figures identical across them so nobody quotes a different number.
Should spend sit on the same dashboard as revenue?
Yes, where you can track it. Revenue without spend tells you what worked but not what it cost. Offline spend such as print or radio can be recorded as a monthly figure and compared by hand. A wider marketing dashboard can hold the cost side if you prefer to keep this one lean.
How often should the dashboard be reviewed?
Monthly for most service businesses, fortnightly if you run several campaigns a month. Weekly reviews of attribution data tend to cause overreaction, because a single large deal can swing a week.
Which attribution model should the dashboard use?
First source for the main revenue widget, because that is the view budget decisions should rest on. Add a latest-source widget beside it if your team tunes campaigns from the same screen. The trade-offs are covered under last touch attribution.