For businesses navigating volatile markets, moving beyond static spreadsheets is a must. Practically, in Nexalab, we see how businesses struggle to spot trends quickly just because they do not have a proper sales analysis dashboard. For example, a retailer missing a shift in buying patterns before the Christmas rush. Or how agricultural businesses are slow to react to changing weather impacts.
Too many teams are still relying on disconnected systems and manual reports that take days to compile. And even then, they’re out of date. Having worked closely with businesses facing these hurdles, we get how vital clarity and speed are. Fortunately, we built Octobits to turn that mess into meaningful insights. And in this guide, we break down what that looks like and how you can do it too.
What Metrics Should Be in a Sales Dashboard?
Metrics typically fall into categories like pipeline health, sales performance, and activity/efficiency. However, a solid sales reporting dashboard should pull together the right data and present it in a way that makes sense to the people who need it.
The real power comes from seeing how metrics relate to one another. Say your team’s logging loads of calls and meetings—on paper, that looks like momentum. But if your win/loss rate isn’t shifting, that could be a red flag. A good sales analytics dashboard helps you connect those dots, so you’re not just measuring effort, but understanding impact. So, here are the fundamental metrics of the sales dashboard.
| Metrics | Category | What it Measures |
|---|---|---|
| Leads by Source | Pipeline | Origin of leads (e.g., website, referral, event) |
| Pipeline Value | Pipeline | Total potential revenue of opportunities currently in the sales funnel. |
| Conversion Rates | Pipeline | Percentage of leads moving between stages (e.g., Lead to Opportunity, Opp to Win). |
| Win/Loss Rate | Performance | Percentage of proposed/quoted opportunities won. |
| Total Sales / Revenue | Performance | Total value of closed deals within a specific period. |
| Average Deal Size | Performance | Average revenue generated per closed deal. |
| Sales Cycle Length | Activity | Average time taken to close a deal from initial contact. |
| Sales Activities | Activity | Volume of key actions (calls, emails, demos, meetings) logged by reps. |
| Sales vs. Target/Quota | Performance | Actual sales performance compared to predefined goals. |
Sales Analytics Dashboard Examples
To make those explanations above more concrete, let’s look at some practical sales analytics dashboard examples. The examples below focus dashboards on specific goals to enhance relevance and adoption.
- Sales Performance Dashboard: Provides a helicopter view for managers and executives. Here, you can track total revenue, progress towards targets, win rates, and regional comparisons.
- Lead Generation Dashboard: Focused on the top of the sales funnel, this dashboard is crucial for marketing and early-stage sales teams. It visualises metrics like leads generated by source, lead conversion rates (e.g., MQL to SQL), and the cost per lead.
- Sales Campaign Analytics Dashboard: Designed to evaluate specific outbound or digital campaigns. It measures campaign-level performance. Let’s say like email open rates, CTRs, and conversions.
- Sales Pipeline Dashboard: This provides a visualisation of your entire sales funnel. It tracks the number and value of deals at each stage, how quickly deals move through (pipeline velocity), and where things might be getting stuck.
- Sales Activity Dashboard: Typically used by sales reps and their managers, this dashboard tracks the volume and types of sales activities being performed.
- Product Sales Dashboard: If you sell multiple products or services, this dashboard breaks down sales performance by item or category. It can spotlight your bestsellers, flag underperformers, and help analyse profitability per offering.
7 Best Tools for Building a Sales Analytics Dashboard
The 7 best tools for sales analytics dashboards listed below depend heavily on your business’s internal factors. Let’s say, like existing technology infrastructure, technical skills available within the team, budget constraints, and the desired level of analytical complexity. The good news is, many modern BI tools are becoming more user-friendly, putting serious analytical power within reach of sales managers, not just data specialists.
HubSpot Sales Hub
If you’re already running on HubSpot CRM, the HubSpot Sales Hub gives you built-in dashboards focused on deal progress, rep performance, and contact engagement. It’s built for ease, especially handy if you want reliable sales analytics without jumping into complex BI territory. HubSpot Sales Hub is best for Businesses already in the HubSpot ecosystem who want integrated analytics with minimal setup.
Pricing & Plans
- For Individual & Small teams:
- Free tool: CRM and basic reporting.
- Sales Hub Starter: $15/user/month
- Starter Customer Platform: $15/user/month
- Sales Hub Professional: $90/user/month
- For business & enterprise:
- Sales Hub Professional: $90/user/month
- Sales Hub Enterprise: $150/user/month.
Key Features
- Customisable sales reporting dashboards tracking deals, activities, and rep performance
- Sales forecasting and pipeline management tools
- Integration with Marketing and Service Hubs for a holistic view (plan dependent).
Salesforce
Salesforce is a powerhouse for sales analytics when paired with Tableau CRM (formerly Einstein Analytics) or Tableau. It blends CRM data with external sources seamlessly, making it a go-to for businesses needing deep insights. Salesforce is best for medium to large businesses with complex sales processes.
Plans and Pricing
- Sales Cloud Enterprise starts from $165/user/month
- CRM suite for small businesses starts from $25/user/month
- Salesforce Einstein needs a quote-based approach.
Key Features
- Pre-built and highly customisable dashboards within Salesforce
- AI-powered insights and recommendations (Einstein features)
- Ability to analyse data from various external sources alongside CRM data.
Zoho Analytics
Zoho Analytics is a versatile BI tool that can stand on its own. It’s known for being able to connect to a massive range of data sources. Zoho strikes that sweet spot between power and usability for creating comprehensive sales analysis dashboards. Zoho Analytics is best for Businesses needing strong data visualisation without the high-end BI price tag. Especially if you’re already using Zoho tools.
Pricing & Plans
- Always Free Plan: For small-scale reporting needs
- Standard Plan: Starts at $24/month for 2 users.
- Higher-Tier Plans: Scale up to $455/month for up to 50 users.
Key Features
- Extensive library of data connectors (Zoho apps, Salesforce, HubSpot, databases)
- Drag-and-drop report builder with diverse visualisation options
- AI-powered assistant (Zia) for natural language queries.
Pipedrive
Pipedrive is famous for its visual pipeline management. So, naturally, its reporting and dashboard features are geared towards tracking sales activities, how deals are progressing, and team performance. All are directly linked back to that sales funnel. Pipedrive is best for sales teams prioritising a highly visual pipeline with simple activity tracking report.
Pricing & Plans
- Essential: $14/seat/month
- Advanced: $24/seat/month
- Professional: $49/seat/month
- Power: $59/seat/month
- Enterprise: $79/seat/month.
Key Features
- Visual dashboards focused on pipeline stages and activities
- Customisable reports on sales performance and forecasts
- Real time tracking of key sales metrics dashboard within the CRM interface.
Looker Studio
Looker Studio is a solid data analysis dashboard for teams who live in Google’s ecosystem. It’s perfect for visualising data from tools like Google Analytics or Sheets. And you can connect third-party data with partner connectors. Looker Studio is best for teams, marketers, or analysts who want control over dashboard design without a price tag.
Pricing & Plans
- Standard version: Free
- Enterprise edition & Embed platform: You need to contact the Looker Studio sales team.
Key Features
- Intuitive drag-and-drop interface for building reports
- Excellent connectivity with Google products, plus partner connectors
- Easy sharing and embedding capabilities for dashboards.
Octobits
Octobits is something we built right here at Nexalab, with Aussie small and mid-sized businesses firmly in focus. We’ve kept it user-friendly, affordable, and it fits neatly into the day-to-day realities of how local businesses operate. Octobits is best for sales, marketing, finance, or the IT team who are looking to keep a closer eye on performance and spend.
Pricing & Plans
We’re currently offering a full-featured free trial. No catches, just jump in and see what it can do. Just reach out to the team, and we’ll get you sorted. And if you need help plugging Octobits into your existing systems, we’re here for that too.
Key Features
- User-friendly drag-and-drop dashboard builder
- Pre-built templates to get you up and running quickly
- Integrations specifically relevant to Australian businesses (Xero, MYOB, etc.)
- Secure data handling with local hosting options.
Power BI
Microsoft Power BI is the big gun when you need detailed analytics, modelling, and integration across your whole business. If you’re already using Microsoft tools, it ties in beautifully. Power BI is best for businesses of all sizes, especially those using Microsoft products.
Pricing & Plans
- Power BI Desktop: Free
- Power BI Pro: $14.00 per user/month
- Power BI Premium Per User: $24.00 per user/month
- Power BI Embedded: Variable, and you need to contact the Power BI sales team.
Key Features
- Vast library of built-in and custom visuals
- Powerful data connectivity and transformation capabilities
- AI features like natural language queries and automated insights.
How to Build an Effective Sales Dashboard?
Creating an effective sales analysis dashboard requires strategic planning. It’s less about the tech itself and more about the planning that goes in beforehand.
A sales dashboard that truly helps you make better decisions follows a few key steps:
- Define Objectives & Audience: Start by defining objectives and audience: Who needs this dashboard? What questions must it answer?
- Identify Key Metrics (KPIs): Based on those objectives, choose several KPIs. Never track everything. Focus only on the sales metrics that directly measure progress towards your goals. Less is often more.
- Gather & Prepare Data: Figure out where the data lives. For us, it’s often in CRM. But maybe also marketing tools, accounting software (your Xero or MYOB perhaps), or even spreadsheets. The crucial part here is making sure the data is accurate, clean, and consistent. Please note, rubbish in, rubbish out.
- Choose the Right Tool: Now dashboarding tool that fits technical skills, budget, and required customisation. Check the options above.
- Design & Visualise: This is where data visualisation for sales comes in. Pick the right chart type for each KPI. Keep the design clean, consistent, use colour wisely, and avoid complexity.
- Test & Iterate: Before you roll it out wide, get feedback from the people who’ll use it. Double-check, triple-check the data accuracy. Be ready to tweak the design, change metrics, or adjust visualisations.
Choose the right partner for sales dashboard
The process to create sales analytics dashboard is complicated, so it’s normal to seek an expert partner. And engaging partners, like Nexalab, can streamline this process. We help businesses avoid dashboard fatigue by building tools that fit how people work.
Whether it’s via Octobits or broader integrations, the focus stays on usability, local relevance, and real-world impact. You can consider Nexalab as your partner by checking our expertise. Book your checking sessions with us here. No sales. Just sharing sessions.
Your Next Steps
It’s clear how a sales insights dashboard helps make sense of what’s happening across your pipeline, teams, and goals. What is not clear enough is how to choose the suitable tools and building strategy. This is why, if you’re ready, let’s talk about how to turn your ideas into reality.
