Reporting & Analysis · Field note

A dashboard should tell you what to do next.

The RMBI project began with business questions. The dashboard came after the measurement plan.

By Iyke Abel · Published 13 September 2026 · Updated 21 September 2026

RMBI Care Co. had basic traffic reporting. But sessions and pageviews could not explain which content supported the care journey, where visitors were searching for care, or which interactions indicated stronger intent.

Begin with the decision

The project started with a measurement plan. Business questions informed the events, parameters, and dimensions that needed to be collected. Only then did implementation and reporting follow.

That approach connected care searches, enquiries, content engagement, report downloads, and other meaningful behaviours to a dedicated Looker Studio reporting environment.

Give events context

Knowing that someone searched for care is useful. Understanding the region they searched and the content they engaged with beforehand can make that action more informative.

The reporting design included geography, content, forms, FAQs, and campaign-tagged traffic. Those views reflected the questions the organisation needed answered.

A dashboard cannot answer a question if the measurement system was never designed to capture the answer.

A practical starting point

Before adding another chart, write down the decision it should support. Then ask whether the underlying data captures the relevant action and enough context to interpret it.

If it does not, the next improvement belongs in the measurement plan.

Design one decision before adding another chart

For an illustrative lead-generation dashboard, start with the question: which acquisition sources produce useful opportunities? Show spend, accepted enquiries, reviewed leads, qualified leads and cost per qualified lead, with explicit date and attribution definitions.

Place unreviewed leads alongside the quality metrics. Otherwise a delay in sales follow-up can look like poor marketing quality. Add a drill-down for the channel, campaign or region only when the team can take action at that level.

The handover should define each metric, its source, refresh timing and known limitations. A chart that changes unexpectedly should lead to a checkable source record, not a debate over undocumented calculations. A useful next action could be to investigate a missing stage mapping, review a low-qualification campaign or wait for a recent cohort to mature.

Begin with the measurement foundation and read about connecting form leads to later outcomes.

Explore the project behind this note.