Client Overview
A UK-based national retail chain partnered with YellowInk Digital to build a real-time marketing dashboard that consolidated data from Google Analytics 4 (GA4), Meta Ads, and email platforms.
Before the project, leadership teams relied on weekly Excel reports that were time-consuming and lacked campaign visibility. A centralized dashboard was needed to eliminate manual work, enable faster decisions, and align performance metrics across departments.
The Challenge
The client’s reporting workflow was disconnected and heavily manual. Key issues included:
- Data silos across GA4, Meta Ads, and email systems
- Over 5 hours per week spent on manual spreadsheet reports
- No high-level dashboard for channel performance or ROAS
- Difficulty identifying underperforming campaigns in real time
- This setup created operational bottlenecks and limited strategic agility.
The Strategy: Building a Real-Time Marketing Dashboard
Our team developed an integrated dashboard in Looker Studio with multiple data source connections and auto-refreshing widgets for near real-time insights.
1. Multi-Source Integration
- Connected GA4, Meta Ads, and email platform APIs via Zapier
- Standardized and unified data across channels
- Created a single data layer for consistent reporting
2. Custom Looker Studio Dashboard
- Designed audience-specific views for marketing, leadership, and finance teams
- Included filters for campaign type, traffic source, and region
- Visualized ROAS trends, budget pacing, and top-performing assets
3. Auto-Refreshing Reports
- Set up real-time data sync and update intervals
- Enabled campaign filtering by geo, product line, and spend tier
- Provided updated views daily and weekly for different stakeholders
4. Cross-Functional Enablement
- Created department-specific dashboards with tailored KPIs
- Provided onboarding for internal teams to reduce support dependency
- Replaced static reports with interactive, self-serve access
Tools Used
Visual representation of the Klaviyo lifecycle automation flow, integrating welcome series, product recommendations, cart abandonment, and winback campaigns.
Results Achieved (Within 30 Days)
- Reporting time: reduced from over 5 hours per week to under 30 minutes
- Cross-department visibility: improved from limited access to full reporting for marketing, product, and finance
- Data accuracy: increased from 71% to over 96%, enabling more confident decision-making
Key Takeaways
- A real-time marketing dashboard improves reporting speed, accuracy, and usability across teams
- Looker Studio paired with GA4 and Meta Ads enables centralized marketing insights
- Retailers can reduce reporting overhead by automating data sync and visualization
Ready to Build a Real-Time Dashboard?
This real-time marketing dashboard gave teams a single source of truth for campaign insights and faster ROAS evaluations.
YellowInk Digital helps brands like yours go from spreadsheet chaos to decision-ready dashboards in 30 days or less. Let’s talk about your custom solution.
