This guide takes you through seven performance reporting tools perfect for marketing, user experience (UX), and product teams. Choose the right tool to help you collect, analyze, and display qualitative and quantitative insights that drive company-wide growth.
What is performance reporting software?
Performance reporting software is a tool that lets you collect data and create dashboards of business insights, so you can identify areas for optimization and share progress with clients, teams, and stakeholders.
What performance reporting software measures
You can measure almost any business metric or key performance indicator (KPI) with reporting software, but your focus should be primarily on the KPIs most relevant to your role.
For example, marketing, UX, and product teams may use performance reporting tools to measure and understand:
Website and search engine optimization (SEO) traffic: organic sessions, keyword rankings, and backlink acquisition
User and customer behavior: navigation patterns, clicks on specific page elements, and satisfaction rates
Ad campaigns: profitable keywords, click-through rates, and conversions
A/B tests: winning variations and statistically significant results
Conversion rates: purchases, subscriptions, and sign-ups
Churn and retention rates: lost and loyal users and customers
The software and tools below help marketers and UX and product teams collect and showcase performance data so that valuable insights rise to the top, making it easier to spot opportunities and report on what’s really driving results.
Some of these tools help you integrate data from multiple sources (data connectors), while others create dashboards and visualizations for you (dashboard tools), and the rest have built-in performance reports. You don’t need to use them all: pick the ones that suit your budget and business goals and look for a free trial to get started.
1. Hotjar
The Hotjar Dashboard helps you visualize user experience performance by combining quantitative and qualitative data
What it is: Hotjar (that’s us 👋, hi there!) is a freemium behavior analytics platform with website tracking tools that measure how real visitors and customers use a website or product, including:
Heatmaps: see where visitors click, scroll, and move on any page
Recordings: watch real users navigate your site from page to page
Surveys and Feedback: capture in-the-moment opinions on a specific page or via email
Interviews: talk to customers about their needs 1-on-1
How to use Hotjar to create performance reports: once you add the tracking code to your website, Hotjar starts tracking user behavior across your pages. You can integrate data from other sources using the Events API, custom User Attributes, and integrations with other popular tracking and reporting tools like Google Analytics, Segment, and Optimizely.
You can then go to the Dashboard to view performance reports that combine Hotjar’s user behavior insights with any other data you’ve integrated. By customizing and filtering your dashboard, you can report on your website’s top pages, quantify users who might be experiencing an issue via rage clicks and u-turns, and monitor user sentiment over time.
This visual overview helps you spot UX trends, quickly identify areas for improvement, and share your wins with clients or stakeholders.
2. Looker Studio
A Looker Studio dashboard created by Aro Digital pulling in live data from Google Analytics
What it is: Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio until late 2022, is a free business intelligence data dashboard that lets you connect data and transform it into interactive reports and visualizations.
How to use Looker Studio to create performance reports: Looker Studio connects with other Google properties (like Google Ads, YouTube, and Google Sheets), SQL databases, BigQuery tables, and over 700 third-party apps like Mailchimp, Shopify, and Matomo. You can use Looker Studio’s free performance report templates to get started.
3. Ahrefs
The Ahrefs dashboard showing a summary of SEO performance over time
What it is: Ahrefs is a premium SEO platform with various tools that measure and report on SEO performance. You can even use the Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to access Ahrefs’ Site Audit and Site Explorer tools for free if you verify website ownership first.
How to use Ahrefs to create performance reports: the Ahrefs Dashboard generates an overview of any website’s SEO performance, including the number of backlinks, estimated organic traffic, and organic keyword rankings.
There’s not much to customize, but if you’re tracking custom keyword rankings, these will show up in the dashboard overview. You can also pull additional data from Google Search Console and visualize it within Ahrefs.
4. Segment
Data sources and destinations in Segment
What it is: Segment, also known as Twilio Segment after its 2020 acquisition, is a freemium customer data platform for marketing, product, and engineering teams. Segment makes it easier to connect tools to your product or website and send data to any destination for analysis, reporting, and personalization.
How to use Segment to create performance reports: on its own, Segment is not a reporting tool, but it does help you collect data from multiple sources and send it to performance reporting software like Serenytics, SegMetrics, and Cruncher for analysis.
For example, the product team at Hotjar used Segment in-house to pull responses from Hotjar Surveys and the Feedback widget, and combined them with product analytics data to focus on feedback from the ideal customer profile (ICP). The team also used Segment to report on customer acquisition costs (CAC) by pulling in data from Google and Facebook ads.
5. Tableau
A combined Google Ads and Salesforce dashboard built in Tableau
What it is: Tableau is a premium business intelligence and data visualization software for creating interactive dashboards, charts, and graphs that help teams spot trends in data and product usage.
How to use Tableau to create performance reports: Tableau imports data from many third-party tools and software—think Google Analytics, Salesforce, and Google Ads. You can also pull in data from documents like Microsoft Excel, PDFs, and Google Sheets, as well as databases and any web or product data that’s accessible over HTTP.
From this data, you can build charts and custom dashboards. The Tableau Exchange marketplace has expert-built dashboard templates, automatic data connectors, and extensions to make performance report creation a whole lot easier.
6. Supermetrics
A paid channel performance report in Microsoft Excel, created using Supermetrics
What it is: Supermetrics is a premium marketing data integration platform that syncs data from several platforms and sends it to popular reporting and analytics tools.
How to use Supermetrics to create performance reports: Supermetrics pulls data from around 100 sources, including SEO, web analytics, social media, email, advertising, ecommerce, sales, and review tools. While many popular tools (like Mixpanel, Airtable, or Hotjar) aren’t officially integrated with Supermetrics, new integrations are frequently added. Check out their product roadmap to see which tools might be coming soon.
To create reports, Supermetrics sends data to reporting apps (including Looker Studio, Monday.com, and Snowflake) and documents like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. The Supermetrics API can also create custom output formats that work with Microsoft Power BI, Tableau, and Qlik.
7. Analytics Canvas
Sending GA4 data to Looker Studio using Analytics Canvas
What it is: Analytics Canvas is a premium analytics data connector and reporting tool that specializes in importing Google Analytics UA (Universal Analytics) and GA4 reports.
How to use Analytics Canvas to create performance reports: Analytics Canvas reads data to and from popular tools and documents, including Google Analytics, AdWords, Looker Studio, CSV, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, Google BigQuery, and Google Sheets.
Analytics Canvas’ workflow builder allows you to extract data, combine data sets, and clean and transform data before sending it on to the tools we mention above. Its drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to design workflows, and you can automate your routine data tasks to save time.
Analytics Canvas also integrates with Tableau to create data dashboards and visualizations, and sends data to Google Sheets, BigQuery, or Looker Studio to create reports.
Choose performance reporting software that tells the whole story
Traditional performance reports are key to deciding where to invest resources and what projects to prioritize—but even the most polished dashboard leaves plenty of room for assumptions, guesswork, and leaps of faith. Whichever reporting tools you choose, make sure your data always paints a complete picture—not just of what is happening on your website or product, but why.
And that’s why (!) we recommend adding qualitative insights—from tools like session recordings, survey responses, and feedback ratings—to your performance dashboards. These insights add color to your data and come directly from your most important business asset: your customers.
FAQs
Which dashboard reporting tool would you recommend and why? ›
Some of the best dashboard reporting tools for staying on top of your business are Datapad, Dundas BI, YellowFin, Whatagraph, Octoboard, Inetsoft, Infor Birst, Knowi, QlikSense, Domo, and Looker.
Is Tableau a good reporting tool? ›Ans: Tableau is the leading reporting software used for effective data visualization and analytics. Most of the organizations are implementing this technology to reach their business heights and are considered as one of the best reporting tools to appeal visualization.
What is the most frequently used tools for company analysis? ›Excel. Microsoft Excel is the most common tool used for manipulating spreadsheets and building analyses. With decades of development behind it, Excel can support almost any standard analytics workflow and is extendable through its native programming language, Visual Basic.
Is SSRS a good reporting tool? ›SSRS allows better and more accurate decision-making mechanisms for the users. It allows users to interact with information without involving any IT professionals. It is an intensified tool compared to other crystal reports. It provides a host of security features.
What is the best KPI dashboard? ›Some of the best KPI dashboard software for KPI tracking are Datapad, Klipfolio, Geckoboard, Databox, Mixpanel, Arena Calibrate, Zoho Analytics, Mode, InetSoft, Tableau, Praxie, Smarten Augmented Analytics and DashThis.
Which tool is best for data visualization? ›Some of the best data visualization tools include Google Charts, Tableau, Grafana, Chartist, FusionCharts, Datawrapper, Infogram, and ChartBlocks etc. These tools support a variety of visual styles, be simple and easy to use, and be capable of handling a large volume of data.
What are the four 4 methods of reporting? ›Weekly reporting for activity reports. Monthly reporting for result reports. Quarterly reporting meetings for ROI reports.
Is Excel A reporting tools? ›Excel is a great tool for data management and analysis, but it is not an effective reporting tool. Connecting Excel to a report software like Databox will allow you to create effective reports using your data from Excel and whatever other tools your team uses.
Is there something better than Tableau? ›Power BI. Microsoft provides one of the best user-friendly alternatives to Tableau. Power BI vs. Tableau comparisons are common.
Which is better Tableau vs Cognos? ›Key Differences between Cognos vs Tableau
Data can be continuously checked for new information and hence more insights are gained through Tableau. On the other hand, Cognos does not help in looking more into the data, and reports generation is really tough. This makes the users to move to Tableau.
What are the 4 analysis tools? ›
Consequently, organizations spend a lot of resources on improving the quality of data before using different types of Data Analysis techniques — Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictive, and Prescriptive Analysis.
What is the most useful business tool? ›- Project Management Tools. Project management software is a great option if you're juggling multiple tasks at a time. ...
- CRM software. ...
- Workplace communication software. ...
- HR Software. ...
- Workforce management. ...
- Work reporting tools. ...
- Cashflow software. ...
- Invoicing software.
- Predictive data analytics. Predictive analytics may be the most commonly used category of data analytics. ...
- Prescriptive data analytics. ...
- Diagnostic data analytics. ...
- Descriptive data analytics.
Power BI Report Server (PBIRS) is the successor of SSRS and has more features than SSRS. For one, it can use and render both interactive PBIX and analytical XLSX reports which SSRS cannot. PBI now has Cortana integrated for AI-based natural language, Q&A about your data and reports in Power BI.
Is Microsoft discontinuing SSRS? ›Discontinued functionality in SQL Server 2022 Reporting Services. These features are discontinued and no longer available in SQL Server 2022 Reporting Services and Power BI Report Server September 2022.
Is SSRS outdated? ›Deprecated features in SQL Server Reporting Services - SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) | Microsoft Learn. This browser is no longer supported. Upgrade to Microsoft Edge to take advantage of the latest features, security updates, and technical support.
What are the 7 key performance indicators? ›- Engagement. How happy and engaged is the employee? ...
- Energy. ...
- Influence. ...
- Quality. ...
- People skills. ...
- Technical ability. ...
- Results.
- Customer Satisfaction,
- Internal Process Quality,
- Employee Satisfaction, and.
- Financial Performance Index.
- Revenue growth.
- Revenue per client.
- Profit margin.
- Client retention rate.
- Customer satisfaction.
Types of dashboards (and how to choose the right one for you) There are three types of dashboards: operational, strategic, and analytical.
Is Tableau good for dashboards? ›
Building dashboards with Tableau allows even non-technical users to create interactive, real-time visualizations in minutes. In just a few clicks, they can combine data sources, add filters, and drill down into specific information.
Why is Tableau so popular? ›People learn faster
Tableau is built on the work of scientific research to make analysis faster, easier, and more intuitive. Analyzing data in a quick, iterative way that provides immediate feedback makes our products engaging, fun, and easy to learn.
Azure Data Explorer integrates with various visualization tools, so you can visualize your data and share the results across your organization. This data can be transformed into actionable insights to make an impact on your business. Data visualization and reporting is a critical step in the data analytics process.
What software application is the most effective tool to create charts of data? ›Google Charts is a powerful, free data visualization tool that is specifically for creating interactive charts for embedding online. It works with dynamic data and the outputs are based purely on HTML5 and SVG, so they work in browsers without the use of additional plugins.
What are the 7 kinds of report? ›- Long Report and Short Reports: These kinds of reports are quite clear, as the name suggests. ...
- Internal and External Reports: ...
- Vertical and Lateral Reports: ...
- Periodic Reports: ...
- Formal and Informal Reports: ...
- Informational and Analytical Reports: ...
- Proposal Reports: ...
- Functional Reports:
Informational versus Analytical Reports
Informal reports and formal reports have two major categories: informational and analytical reports.
- Report Types: Top 8 Types of Reports.
- Type # 1. Formal or Informal Reports:
- Type # 2. Short or Long Reports:
- Type # 3. Informational or Analytical Reports:
- Type # 4. Proposal Report:
- Type # 5. Vertical or Lateral Reports:
- Type # 6. Internal or External Reports:
- Type # 7. Periodic Reports:
- PDF reports. PDF is the most appropriate format for printing. ...
- HTML reports. HTML Reports work on all systems and don't require an external PDF viewer. ...
- CSV/Excel reports. Use the CSV/Excel reports to access the data in plain text format.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are visual measures of performance. Supported by a specific calculated field, a KPI is designed to help users quickly evaluate the current value and status of a metric against a defined target.
Can you create dashboards in Excel? ›Let's be real, raw data and numbers are essential, but they're super boring. That's why you need to make that data accessible. What you need is a Microsoft Excel dashboard. Luckily, you can create both a static or dynamic dashboard in Excel.
Does Tableau have a future? ›
The data visualization tool has been gaining popularity in companies big and small, and hence, Tableau careers are uber-in. Looking at google trends, it seems there can be no better time than “now” to get certified in Tableau and build a career in Business Intelligence and Data Analytics.
What Microsoft product competes with Tableau? ›Microsoft Power BI
Part of the Microsoft suite of business tools, Power BI is built specifically for data analysis and visualization.
Salesforce has renamed Tableau CRM "Salesforce CRM Analytics," and along the way added new features and dashboards.
Do companies still use Cognos? ›We have data on 43,970 companies that use Cognos. The companies using Cognos are most often found in United States and in the Information Technology and Services industry. Cognos is most often used by companies with 50-200 employees and 1M-10M dollars in revenue.
Why is Python better than Tableau? ›A tableau is a tool for business intelligence and data visualization, while Python is a popular programming language that supports several statistical and machine learning techniques.
Is Google Analytics better than Tableau? ›Google Analytics has a broader approval, being mentioned in 15339 company stacks & 2445 developers stacks; compared to Tableau, which is listed in 67 company stacks and 38 developer stacks.
Why would someone not use Tableau? ›Tableau does not provide the feature of automatic refreshing of the reports with the help of scheduling. There is no option of scheduling in Tableau. Therefore, there is always some manual effort required when users need to update the data in the back-end. Tableau is not a complete open tool.
What can Tableau do that Excel Cannot? ›While Excel can also create different types of charts, with Tableau you have the ability to combine these types in order to maximize your findings' impact. Another benefit is its ability to present geographical data – something that Excel cannot do.
Why is Tableau preferred over Excel? ›Excel is suitable for customized sequential calculations; Tableau is a powerful tool for analyzing large, complex datasets through a user-friendly interface.
What is the best source of market data? ›- Factiva. Current and archived news, business and company information worldwide.
- Global Market Information Database: Reports. Search Euromonitor reports by industry or by country. ...
- MarketResearch.com Academic. ...
- CB Insights.
What is the best analysis tool? ›
- The Best Data Analytics Software of 2023.
- Microsoft Power BI.
- Tableau.
- Qlik Sense.
- Looker.
- Klipfolio.
- Zoho Analytics.
- Domo.
For the most part, a monthly marketing report is the best indicator of your marketing department's performance. Monthly reports use a solid data set and show how you're pacing towards your goals. The different frequencies of reporting give you different advantages.
What are the 7 major scope of marketing? ›The 7Ps of marketing are – product, pricing, place, promotion, physical evidence, people, and processes. The 7 Ps make up the necessary marketing mix that a business must have to advertise a product or service.
Who sells the most data? ›- Facebook.
- Google.
- PayPal.
- Oracle.
- Acxiom.
...
Some additional steps ideal to the analysis of big data are:
- Deep learning offshoot of data.
- Data mining.
- Streaming analytics.
- Predictive modelling.
- Statistical analysis.
- Text mining.
- Python.
- R.
- Jupyter Notebook.
- Apache Spark.
- SAS.
- Microsoft Power BI.
- Tableau.
- KNIME.
Python is one of the most powerful Data Analytics tools that is available to the user. It comes with a wide set of package/libraries. Python is a free, open-source software that can be used for a high level of visualisation and comes with packages such as Matplotlib, Seaborn.
What are the 4 most common types of reports? ›Formal or Informal Reports 2. Short or Long Reports 3. Informational or Analytical Reports 4. Proposal Report 5.