CASE STUDY: Building a Global Marketing Performance Executive Dashboard
At a glance
Organisation: Mintel
Sector: Market intelligence and consumer research
Data environment: Dynamics 365 CRM, Microsoft Fabric and Power BI
Solution: Global Marketing Attribution Dashboard, scalable data model and pipeline/revenue target reporting
The challenge
Mintel wanted a much clearer view of the commercial impact of its marketing activity.
The VP of Marketing needed to provide a much stronger view of where marketing is influencing pipeline and revenue, and where investment and campaigns are having the greatest commercial impact.
The challenge was that the information needed to answer those questions sat across different areas of the Dynamics 365 CRM and needed to be brought together in a way that could support consistent global reporting.
The requirement went beyond a traditional marketing dashboard. Mintel wanted to understand questions such as:
How much pipeline has marketing influenced?
How much closed revenue can be attributed to marketing activity?
Which campaigns, channels and sources are contributing the most?
How is marketing performance changing across regions and business segments?
How does actual performance compare with pipeline and revenue targets throughout the fiscal year?
How are Leads progressing from initial marketing engagement through to MQL, sales acceptance, Opportunity and Closed Won?
The end result needed to work not only for the Marketing team, but also provide a clear executive level view that could be used globally across Mintel.
The solution
Memberlytics worked with Mintel to build a connected marketing attribution data model using Dynamics 365, Microsoft Fabric and Power BI.
The first stage was understanding how Mintel's existing Dynamics environment represented the marketing and sales journey. This meant bringing together Leads, Opportunities, Campaigns, Marketing Interactions and Opportunity Attribution records, while also understanding how Mintel defined stages such as MQL, Sales Accepted, Value Building and Closed Won.
A structured data architecture was then built in Microsoft Fabric.
Raw Dynamics data was retained in a Bronze layer before being cleaned and enriched through Silver. This included resolving Dynamics metadata, statuses, option sets and classifications into usable business information.
A Gold reporting layer was then created around a dimensional model designed specifically for Power BI.
Rather than building the dashboard directly over CRM tables, this created a reusable analytical layer that could continue to grow as Mintel's reporting requirements evolved.
Connecting marketing to commercial performance
One of the most important parts of the project was separating the overall value of an Opportunity from the value actually attributed to marketing.
The model was designed around the underlying Opportunity Attribution records so the dashboard could report the portion of pipeline and revenue actually associated with marketing activity.
This allowed Mintel to analyse marketing-attributed performance by:
Campaign
Marketing Channel
Marketing Source
Region
Business Segment
Sale Stage
Fiscal period
Pipeline reporting was aligned to Mintel's sales process, with marketing-attributed pipeline measured from the Value Building stage onwards while keeping Closed Won revenue separate.
Pipeline and revenue targets
Mintel also wanted the dashboard to show performance against targets throughout the fiscal year.
Monthly Pipeline and Revenue targets were incorporated by Region and Segment and connected into the same reporting model.
This allowed actual marketing-attributed performance to be compared directly against target at monthly, quarterly and full-year level.
Rather than maintaining separate calculations for each period, the target model was designed around the same Date, Region and Segment structure as the rest of the dashboard, allowing the reporting context to determine the appropriate target automatically.
Built to adapt with the CRM
A key part of the solution was making sure the dashboard did not become another reporting process that needed constant manual maintenance.
Dynamics 365 contains a large number of configurable fields and option sets. The Fabric model was therefore designed so that changes to relevant CRM options and classifications could flow through the data layers and into Power BI without requiring those values to be repeatedly hard-coded into reports.
This created a much more scalable foundation for the dashboard and reduced the ongoing reporting dependency on manual intervention.
The results
The completed dashboard gives Mintel a much clearer view of how marketing activity translates into commercial outcomes.
Rather than looking at marketing performance in isolation, the business can now follow activity through to pipeline and revenue and understand where marketing is having the greatest commercial impact.
The dashboard provides visibility across the fiscal year, against targets, and allows users to analyse performance across campaign, channel, source, region and segment.
It has been designed for use globally by Mintel's Executive Leadership Team as well as teams across the organisation.
Handover and ownership
The solution was designed to be fully owned and maintained by Mintel after delivery, rather than creating an ongoing dependency on Memberlytics.
The complete data model, reporting logic and supporting documentation were handed over to Mintel’s technical team, alongside training sessions and video guides covering the structure of the solution, how the data flows through Microsoft Fabric and how the Power BI semantic model and dashboard can be maintained and extended.
The underlying architecture, documentation and intellectual property created as part of the project remain with Mintel, giving the internal team the ability to develop the solution further as reporting requirements evolve.
This also means the structured Microsoft Fabric data model can continue to expand as new requirements, data sources and reporting questions emerge.
The wider impact
The project moves marketing reporting beyond campaign activity and engagement metrics and connects marketing performance directly to the commercial outcomes that matter to the wider organisation.
The Marketing teams can better understand where activity is influencing pipeline and revenue, while senior leaders have a clearer view of performance against targets and where investment is having the greatest commercial impact.
For Memberlytics, the project demonstrates the value of bringing marketing, sales and commercial data together around a shared analytical model, rather than treating marketing reporting as a separate view of organisational performance.
Technologies
Dynamics 365 | Microsoft Fabric | Power BI | Power Query | DAX | OneLake
