Marketing Dashboard: Three Numbers, One Page

The free plan at Databox allows three data sources and one dashboard, and that limit is the best design brief a small business marketing dashboard will ever get. It forces the question most dashboards avoid: which three numbers would change what you do this week?

Without a cap, a dashboard collects whatever the tools can chart. Followers, impressions, open rates, page views, all of it side by side, none of it attached to a choice. Our reading is that the cap works as a filter: if a number cannot earn one of three slots, it is decoration. The rest of this piece shows how to pick the three, build the page in an afternoon, and review it in ten minutes a week.

Pick three numbers by the decision they change

Start from decisions, not data. For most owner-run businesses with paid or organic marketing, three decisions cover the ground: whether to keep paying for a channel, whether the website is turning visits into inquiries, and whether those inquiries become paying work. Each decision has one number that answers it.

Read the table as a chain: money in, inquiries out, jobs booked. If cost per inquiry falls while booked jobs stay flat, the leads got cheaper and worse, and no chart of clicks would have shown you that. The third number is the one most dashboards leave out because it lives in a different tool, and it is the one that keeps the other two honest. For a related argument about choosing a count that cannot be inflated, see pick one count you can already count.

Build it in an afternoon

1. Write the decisions down first. On one sheet, write each decision and what you would change if its number rose or fell. Done when: every number has an “if it drops, I will…” line. A number without one gets cut.
2. Count by hand for four weeks. One spreadsheet row per week, three columns. This shows you which numbers you can actually collect, before you pay anyone to automate them. Done when: you have four rows and no blank cells.
3. Connect only what feeds the three numbers. That is usually the ad account, the website analytics and the invoicing tool, which happens to fit a three-source limit. Done when: each connected source answers one of the three questions.
4. Put the three numbers at the top, each with its weekly trend line under it. Nothing else on the first screen. Done when: a person who has never seen the page can say what each number means in one sentence.
5. Set a fixed ten-minute review. Same day each week, and for each number, write one decision or “no change.” Done when: the decision column has been filled in three weeks running.

Tools and what they cost

Three real options, with prices read from each vendor’s own page on October 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm at checkout.

• Google’s Data Studio (the product many people still call Looker Studio): Google’s overview page describes it as free, with built-in and partner connectors. Best when your data sits mostly in Google tools or spreadsheets.
• Databox: a free plan at $0 with 3 data sources and 1 dashboard; the Analyst plan is listed at $71 a month billed annually, with 5 data sources. The page’s FAQ quotes higher figures for some other plans than its pricing table does, so verify before you budget.
• Geckoboard: no free plan, a 14-day free trial, and Essentials listed from $79 a month billed annually for 2 dashboards and 1 editor. Worth a look if you want the page on a wall screen for a team.

Our opinion: start with the free option and a four-week hand count. Paying $71 or $79 a month before you know which three numbers matter is paying for charts you will not read.

Where AI helps, and the prompt behind this post

The useful job for an AI assistant here is reading, not building. Each week, paste the three numbers (never customer names or contact details) into Claude or ChatGPT and ask it to describe what changed since last week and list two things to check before you decide. Claude’s free plan costs $0; Pro is $20 billed monthly or $17 a month on the annual plan. The assistant drafts the summary; you make the call.

This post began as a prompt called Marketing Metrics Dashboard in the BusinessPrompter library. It is filed under Marketing & Sales and is a Pro prompt behind an upgrade wall, so we could not read the prompt itself. Its public description, oddly, talks about operations managers matching staff and equipment to demand, not about marketing reporting, so we cannot tell you what the locked prompt does. Everything above stands without it, and you can look at the prompt’s page and judge for yourself.

Our opinion, and where this falls short

Three is a floor for most businesses, not a law. A company running one channel may need only two numbers; a seasonal one may want a year-over-year line beside each. What should not change is the rule that every number earns its place by naming a decision.

The limits are plain. The dashboard is only as good as your inquiry log: if calls are not written down, the second number is a guess. It shows what moved, never why. And a quiet week proves little for a business with a long sales cycle, which is why a forecast scored against easy guesses is a useful companion.

Next time someone suggests adding a chart, ask which decision it changes. If nobody can name one, leave the slot empty.