Geckoboard Review: How to Get Your Team Focused on Metrics and Goals

Imagine the scene in the kitchen of a restaurant on their busiest night.

Every individual is working on separate tasks, but all are working towards the same goal: Bring good food to the people.

Now, imagine if those individual workers didn’t clearly understand how their jobs affected the overall goal of the kitchen.

What would happen if each individual only saw their own tasks, and couldn’t see how those tasks worked in relation to the rest of the team?

What if they didn’t even know what dishes they were trying to put together?

In short, the meals coming out of that kitchen wouldn’t be very good. Some might even be inedible!

The same sort of disaster can befall any content marketing team.

When your individual team members don’t clearly see how their actions affect the overall goals of the team, their job productivity and efficiency is immediately compromised.

So, how do you make sure that your team members are all focused on the ultimate goal?

The answer is a metric called KPI, or Key Performance Indicator. This type of metric makes team performance measurable, allowing you to see how well your team is progressing in relation to your goals.

Even more importantly, KPIs help every individual team member to see the part that they play in achieving those goals.

So, how do you organize and display your KPIs for the whole team to keep track of?

Today, we’re going to talk about Geckoboard, a software devoted to helping your team stay focused on their goals through a unique KPI dashboard.

Let’s see exactly what this tool offers you, and how it can benefit your content marketing team.

Who Is Behind Geckoboard?

Founded in 2010, this company has always had the goal of making your team work smarter.

Although it was originally based in London, Geckoboard is now an international company, spanning eight time zones.

This KPI dashboard software is now used by well-known brands such as Skyscanner, Hootsuite, Marketo, G2Crowd, Slack and more.

Geckoboard does more than just compile data for your team. Instead, it makes that data accessible on a dashboard meant for a TV screen, full of intuitive charts and graphs. This allows your whole team to focus on the right tasks to reach your goals.

Geckoboard Features

Integrate with Over 60 Data-driven Apps for All the Data You Need

Almost any third-party app or software your team might use can be integrated into Geckoboard. This allows you to draw data from all of your most important places and input it into Geckoboard’s intuitive dashboard widgets.

For example, you can draw third-party data from places such as Google Analytics, Basecamp, Google Calendar, MailChimp, Jenkins, PayPal, Shopify, Zendesk, Mention, Hubspot, Excel, Google Sheets and more. You’ll also be able to integrate data from all the top social media networks.

Is there some third-party tool you’re using that can’t be integrated into Geckoboard yet? Well, with their Datasets API, you can actually code your own widgets and create exactly what you need. Problem solved!

Completely Customize the Look of Your Dashboards

It’s time to make your data stand out.

What’s great about the Geckoboard dashboards is that they allow you to see exactly the data that you need to see, with none of the fluff.

You choose exactly which widgets are displayed from the third-party integrations using a drag-and-drop system, or code your own as mentioned above.

Then, you can customize exactly what information is shown within that widget, as drawn from the integrated tool. You can even set goals for certain metrics, and watch as your team works towards those goals.

Once you’ve set up your widgets, you can customize colors and themes. On some plans, you can even include your own branding as part of the dashboard design.

Use Datasets API to Create Custom Widgets with Minimal Coding

Being able to build you own custom widgets is actually an option with Geckoboard’s Datasets API.

In other words, Geckoboard actually allows you to take raw data from any source whatsoever and transform it into easy-to-read visualizations.

All you have to do is source your data and send Geckoboard a dataset using their well-documented process and some minimal coding.

Then, try out the user-friendly interface to create visualizations from that raw data, and voila. You have your own custom widget for the Geckoboard dashboard.

Set Up the KPI Dashboards That You Need

Trying to figure out how to cram all of your necessary data into one dashboard? Don’t worry, Geckoboard allows you to create more than one.

The kind of dashboard that you create will depend on your own needs. You can take a look at Geckoboard’s example dashboards if you’re looking for inspiration.

As a content marketing team, it’s important to see website analytics. For example, you could add widgets to your dashboard that showed you metrics such as:

• Current visitors on your website
• Your website bounce rate
• Average click rate from your mailing list
• Top pages within your site
• New vs. returning viewers

If your team is in charge of social media channels, you create see widgets such as:

• Websites visits via social
• Most recent Twitter mentions
• Current social media followers

For a content marketing team that also specializes in SEO, you might want to see:

• Top keywords
• Organic search clicks
• Website visits via organic search

For these separate parts of your content marketing team, you could create a separate dashboard.

Then, either present these dashboards on separate TV screens, or use one single screen and cycle through your selected dashboards at a speed selected by you.

Get All of Your Data in Real Time

Every single one of the widgets on your Geckboard dashboard updates automatically at regular intervals.

This means that not only will you have extremely useful information right in front of you and your team: The information you’re seeing is live.

Whenever there are changes, either good or bad, you’ll be able to watch the effects on your dashboard in real time. With every widget updating at most every few minutes, you’ll know exactly what’s happening in the moment that it happens.

This can help you prevent mistakes from becoming disasters by reacting quickly. It also allows you to take action in the right moment in order to take advantage of opportunities for your business.

The Good and the Bad

Pros

• Mobile app available. Looking for your data on the go? Get the iPhone app and you can see your KPI dashboards wherever you are.

• Extremely user-friendly design. Turning raw data into easy-to-read visualizations is Geckoboard’s specialty. You’ll see no distractions, only the data you need in a user-friendly dashboard.

• Integration for nearly everything you need. Geckoboard has over 60 third-party integration options, meaning you’ll have all the data you need right at your fingertips.

• Share links with non-users. If you want someone who isn’t a user on the account to see your dashboard, simply send them a shareable link.

• Slide through multiple dashboards on one screen. To ensure all members of your team are seeing the data they need to, create several dashboards and flip through them at set intervals.

• Extremely responsive customer support. Having trouble with something, or need help understanding a certain part of the software? Geckoboard’s support team are always ready to help you out via chat, or draw information from a community of Geckoboard users and coders.

Cons

• Not every third-party integration is available. Obviously, not every single app or tool you might be using is available for integration. However, with a little bit of coding knowledge, you can integrate data from any source.

• Customized widgets only available for those who can code. As we mentioned above, you can create custom widgets and input datasets from other tools. However, while only minimal coding is needed, you’ll need to be able to code in order to do this.

• Spreadsheets may need editing in order to integrate correctly. Integrating spreadsheets from Excel or Google Sheets can be done, but you’ll probably need to change their format in order to fit Geckoboard’s layout.

Geckoboard Pricing

This KPI dashboard software starts at just $25 per month for one dashboard and one user.

If you’re looking for a little more, the Growth plan is $149 per month, and allows you five dashboards and unlimited users.

For unlimited dashboards and users, you’ll be paying $599 per month.

With all of these plans, there’s a 30-day free trial that you can take advantage of in order to test the software out.

Who Can Really Benefit from Geckoboard?

Both small and large teams get their work done more effectively with Geckoboard, as it allows them to focus on their goals and see exactly how their individual work affects the whole team.

To make sure you can really get the most from this software, though, check to make sure the tools you use can be integrated into Geckoboard.

Also, those with some coding skills will get the most use from Geckoboard’s customizable widgets, allowing them to fully optimize their dashboard for their specific needs.

Geckoboard: Orienting Your Team Towards Goals

It’s no surprise that a team with their goals clearly in front of them can get more done in a day than teams that are unsure how their tasks affect their goals.

It’s time to organize your content marketing team into the best version of itself, giving each individual the ability to work towards the success of the entire team.

 

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