5 KPI scorecard templates to keep your business on track

Have you tried setting big goals like “growing enterprise sales by 10x by the end of the year” to motivate your team? 

 

But it’s been 6 months, and your metrics aren’t looking like you’re hitting those ambitious numbers soon. 

 

Argh. What went wrong? 

 

Maybe you set the goal when you felt inspired and never looked at it again. Or your team didn’t feel the goal was achievable and felt demotivated. 

 

Having goals and clear expectations leads to more productive employees and improves company growth rate. Tech employees who know their company goals also work in companies with a 3x year-over-year growth rate, according to research by Hypercontext. 

 

If you’ve made this project management mistake, you’re not alone. 

 

One way to avoid these mistakes is by tracking and consistently reporting on your company’s key performance indicators (KPIs). 

 

We’ll introduce you to the KPI scorecard, a simple tool that helps you track and communicate your KPIs effectively. You’ve got templates to quickly create one for your business, and a step-by-step tutorial to help you. 

 

• What is a KPI scorecard
• - How to use KPI scorecards to manage and improve business performance
• KPI scorecard examples
• - The traditional scorecard
• - The balanced scorecard
• How to create a valid KPI scorecard
• KPI scorecard templates

 

Let’s get going.

 

What is a KPI scorecard (and why it’s useful) 

 

Think of the KPI scorecard as a magnifying glass for your business.

 

It zooms in on a specific area of your business or zooms out to analyze the business's overall performance, monitoring and presenting performance metrics in an easy-to-read manner. 

 

Teams and business executives use the KPI scorecard to measure progress on business goals, understand how teams or individual employees are performing, and make business decisions backed by data.

 

How to use KPI scorecards to manage and improve business performance 

 

• Department performance monitoring: Are teams accomplishing team objectives according to business priorities? Every team, from finance and HR to technology, will benefit from precise progress measurement. 
• Manage employee performance: Track individual output and results to hold employees accountable. Employees can learn how their roles and output contribute effectively to business goals. 
• Data-backed strategic planning and communication: Analyzing performance trends across all departments helps management make informed decisions, forecast performance effectively, and communicate with clients, investors, or people in the company.

 

2 KPI scorecard examples and their functions

 

The traditional scorecard

 

Dashthis’s interactive KPI dashboard

 

The traditional performance scorecard answers the “how are we doing on X initiative against our target” question.

 

It’s the performance management approach familiar to most organizations. Each scorecard provides a set of metrics analyzing a department's or employee's performance (think of that yummy bonus that awaits you if you exceed all your KPIs) and compares actual performance against goals.

 

While KPI scorecards use tables and numbers to represent information, some add interactive dashboards as data visualizations to visualize KPIs in context and spot trends over time.

 

The balanced scorecard (BSC) 

 

Created by Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton, this strategy map is a management tool looking at organizational performance from 4 different perspectives. 

 

1. Financial perspective: Metrics evaluating financial performance like revenue, profit margins, and income targets 
2. Customer perspective:  Metrics assessing customer satisfaction and overall customer retention scores. A KPI example measuring the customer perspective - net promoter scores (NPS) 
3. Internal processes: How smoothly the company operates and delivers its products and services. For example, business processes at an e-commerce business can be merchandising, order management and logistics.
4. Learning and growth: Companies who actively invest in employee growth and training naturally lead to more engaged and skilled employees, allowing them to do their jobs better. How much time and money do you invest in employee growth and training? 

 

 

Image source: Balanced Scorecard Institute

 

A key strength of this approach is seeing how investing in internal capabilities like employee training and improving internal processes improves key business metrics like customer satisfaction and financial performance. 

 

Use a balanced scorecard template to get a holistic view of your company's performance and visualize company strategy. You’ll also get a clear picture of which areas are doing well in your company and where you can improve, speeding up your strategic planning and task management processes.

 

How to create a valid KPI scorecard in 4 steps: 

 

1. Decide what you’re trying to achieve with this scorecard 

 

Are you tracking the performance over time of your marketing department? Perhaps you’ve deployed a series of campaigns and need a closer eye on how they’re doing. Or are you looking at the health of your business as a whole? 

 

Consider which of your strategic objectives you’re trying to measure. Getting this part right ensures your scorecard remains focused in the next few steps. 

 

2. Narrow down metrics to track 

 

Tracking everything that moves is overwhelming, leading to cluttered reports and everyone frustrated. 

 

We don’t want that, so we recommend tracking 10-15 KPIs in one scorecard to keep them focused. Relook at your goals and choose KPIs with the highest impact on these goals. 

 

3. Define success criteria 

 

What does success look like for these KPIs? You may want to use the SMART methodology (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) to write easily understood KPIs with an appropriate timeframe for each goal. 

 

4. Decide which tool to use to create your scorecard 

 

While free tools like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel work when you’re first starting out, they aren’t the best choice if you’re trying to save bucketloads of time copying and pasting data for the twentieth dashboard you’re making. 

 

Take your KPI tracking to the next level and save time with software tools like DashThis with automated reporting, and interactive visualizations of strategic goals which your client or boss will understand at a glance. 

 

It’s faster than doing everything by hand and looks way slicker too.

 

5 helpful KPI scorecard templates to track business performance

 

Looking to build your own KPI scorecard template? 

 

Get inspired with these 5 templates for different business types and marketing functions to get a full view of how your teams and businesses perform. Feel free to customize and adapt these templates to suit your needs.

 

SEO report template 

 

Start building a KPI scorecard for your SEO campaigns with this template.

 

We’ve included all key SEO metrics in one dashboard from organic traffic, channel comparison, and landing page ranking, with headers to organize your metrics, making the reports easy to read for teams and stakeholders in real-time. 

 

An SEO KPI report template in DashThis. Grab this dashboard with your own data!

 

Digital marketing report template

 

You’ll love this template if you need to track multiple digital marketing campaigns KPIs.

 

Add as many sections as needed for each paid search campaign, with a simple overview on top summarizing key points and recommendations to steer meetings in the right direction. 

 

DashThis’s digital marketing report template 

 

Google Analytics report template

 

Millions of websites worldwide use Google Analytics, which lets you track over 200 metrics along the path to conversion. 

 

This report covers critical performance metrics like conversion and website bounce rates, allowing you to identify improvement points and track KPIs appropriate to your business without overwhelming the reader with irrelevant information. 

 

Tip: If SEO is a priority, try integrating this report with Google Search Console (GSC) data to see how your SEO efforts affect website performance. 

 

DashThis’s Google Analytics report template

Email report template

 

Email marketing remains an effective marketing channel. Yet 25% of marketers found using data effectively to make decisions challenging. 

 

Make the data analysis process easier by ensuring all key performance indicators are in one place. This template outlines all critical metrics in one report, including open/click rates, subscriber growth over time and deliverability ratings.

 

DashThis’s email marketing KPI report template. Grab this dashboard with your own data!

 

Ecommerce report template

 

DashThis’s e-commerce report template

 

E-commerce store owners, this template is for you.

 

Get an overview of your business health from website performance, marketing, and sales conversions over time. We’ve also included a table to help you identify top-performing channels and landing pages. Hence, you know which channels bring in the most sales and potential areas for improvement. 

 

How to automate your KPI scorecards with DashThis

 

Step 1: Sign up for an account with DashThis (your first 15 days are on us!)

 

Step 2: Connect your favorite marketing tools and data sources in seconds (we support over 40 integrations with top-rated content marketing apps and digital marketing tools 

 

 

Step 3: Select the KPIs you wish to track from DashThis’ preset widgets 

 

 

Step 4: Drag and drop as many data points as you desire to create your custom KPI dashboard. 

 

Sign up for your free 15-day trial of DashThis today.

 

Inspire your team and keep work on track with a handy KPI scorecard

 

Setting goals and KPIs aren’t just a way to keep your employees accountable for targets (or scare them during performance appraisal season, mind you.)  

 

Clear goals ensure transparency between organizational leadership and employees. They help leaders make decisions and keep everyone accountable for a healthy and efficient work environment. A thoughtful KPI setting motivates your employees to do their best work. 

 

If you’ve made mistakes setting KPIs in the past, don’t worry. 

 

Now is the time to turn it around with these tools.