Power BI for Marketing: Case Study

Marketing generates huge amounts of data, but having access to data doesn't always mean you have access to answers.

Many businesses use Google Analytics to monitor website traffic, Semrush to track keyword rankings and a variety of CRM or form systems to record enquiries. Each platform provides valuable information, but they rarely tell the complete story on their own. As a result, marketing teams often spend hours comparing reports, exporting spreadsheets and manually piecing together what has happened.

We recently assisted Bark Street Digital, a marketing company based in Bolton, who wanted to understand why their website enquiries had started to decline.

Traffic hadn't disappeared overnight, rankings hadn't collapsed across the board and enquiries were still coming in. The challenge was understanding exactly what had changed and where marketing efforts should be focused to reverse the trend.

To answer these questions, we built a comprehensive Power BI for marketing reporting solution that brought together multiple data sources into a single, interactive platform.

The challenge

Like many marketing agencies, Bark Street Digital already had access to a significant amount of information. Their website performance was tracked using Google Analytics, keyword rankings were monitored through Semrush and website enquiries were captured using Divi Form Helper.

Individually, each platform worked well. Google Analytics showed website traffic and user behaviour. Semrush tracked keyword positions, visibility and estimated search traffic. Divi Form Helper recorded every enquiry submitted through the website.

The problem was that none of these systems communicated with each other. If enquiries dropped, they couldn't immediately determine whether this was because:

• Organic traffic had declined.
• Keyword rankings had fallen.
• Visitors were landing on different pages.
• Certain marketing campaigns were underperforming.
• Landing pages were no longer converting as effectively.

Answering these questions meant exporting raw data from multiple platforms before attempting to combine everything manually in Excel. Not only was this time consuming, but it also made it difficult to identify trends quickly enough to react. They essentially wanted a genuinely data driven reporting solution that delivered insights rather than simply presenting numbers.

Choosing Power BI

Microsoft Power BI Desktop offered them the flexibility they were looking for. Rather than producing another spreadsheet, they wanted us to build professional Power BI reports capable of combining several different data sources into one central model.

Power BI allowed us to connect every data source, clean and organise the information through data transformation, and create interactive dashboards that answered business questions rather than simply displaying statistics. Once developed, the report could be published through Power BI Service, allowing authorised users to access live dashboards from anywhere. Instead of checking three or four different systems every morning, everything would be available within a single dashboard and report.

Bringing multiple data sources together

One of the biggest advantages of Power BI is its ability to connect to almost any marketing platform. For this project we imported data to Power BI from three primary systems.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provided information such as:

• Website sessions
• Users
• Landing pages
• Traffic sources
• Device types
• Engagement metrics
• Page performance

This enabled the company to understand how visitors were reaching the website and which pages they viewed before making an enquiry.

Semrush

Semrush supplied detailed SEO information including:

• Keyword rankings
• Visibility scores
• Search volumes
• Ranking movements
• Estimated organic traffic

This data allowed them to compare changes in search performance against enquiry trends.

Divi Form Helper

Divi Form Helper contained every enquiry submitted through the website. This meant the company could analyse enquiry volumes by date, landing page and form, providing a much clearer picture of which pages were actually generating new business.

Transforming raw data into business intelligence

Simply importing data is rarely enough. Marketing platforms all store information differently, meaning significant data transformation was required before meaningful data analysis could begin.

Power BI's Power Query tools allowed us to clean the information, standardise page URLs, remove duplicate records and build relationships between each dataset. Once complete, we created a central data model linking every enquiry with website traffic and search performance. This transformed disconnected raw data into valuable business intelligence. Instead of asking three different systems the same question, the company could now analyse everything from one place.

Building the dashboards

The next stage was developing a series of interactive Power BI dashboards designed specifically for marketing decision making. Rather than overwhelming users with hundreds of charts, each dashboard focused on answering a particular business question.

Executive dashboard

The first dashboard provides an overview of overall marketing performance. It includes:

• Website sessions
• Organic traffic
• Website enquiries
• Average keyword rankings
• Top performing landing pages
• Traffic trends over time

This immediately shows whether overall marketing performance is improving or declining.

SEO performance dashboard

This dashboard combines Semrush data with website enquiries. Rather than looking only at rankings, we can now identify which keyword movements actually affect new enquiries. A page dropping from position three to position eight may have very different commercial implications depending on how many enquiries it generates. This allows SEO priorities to be based on business outcomes rather than rankings alone.

Landing page dashboard

Every important landing page is analysed using multiple metrics including sessions, enquiries, engagement, ranking performance and traffic source. This makes it easy to identify pages receiving significant traffic but generating very few enquiries. Those pages become immediate optimisation opportunities.

Campaign performance dashboard

Understanding campaign performance is essential for any marketing agency. Traffic can be filtered by channel and campaign, allowing us to compare how organic search, paid advertising, referrals, social media and direct traffic contribute to overall enquiry numbers. Rather than judging campaigns purely on clicks or impressions, we can see which marketing channels actually support business growth.

Making data easy to understand

One of the strengths of Power BI is its ability to present complex information through effective data visualisation. Instead of scrolling through spreadsheets, users can filter information instantly using interactive visuals. Simple KPI cards highlight key performance indicators, while trend graphs reveal long term changes in traffic and enquiries. A bar chart compares landing page performance, helping identify which pages deserve further investment. Interactive tables allow users to drill into individual pages, keywords or campaigns without creating additional reports. The result is faster analysis and significantly better decision making.

Real time marketing insights

Traditional reporting often relies on monthly spreadsheets that are already out of date by the time they reach decision makers. Publishing reports through Power BI Service allows dashboards to refresh automatically as new information becomes available. This provides near real time visibility into marketing performance, allowing trends to be identified much earlier. Instead of waiting until the end of the month, issues can often be identified within days, helping marketing teams react much faster.

The outcome

The completed solution gave Bark Street Digital something far more valuable than another reporting dashboard. It provided answers. Instead of spending hours manually comparing reports, the business can now understand how SEO performance, website traffic and enquiries relate to one another. The report highlights where rankings have fallen, which landing pages have stopped generating enquiries and which marketing activities deserve further investment. Most importantly, it enables genuinely data driven marketing decisions based on evidence rather than assumptions.

Why Power BI for marketing?

Many businesses already collect vast amounts of marketing data but never fully use it. Power BI bridges the gap between disconnected systems by bringing everything together into a single reporting platform. Whether you're looking to create report dashboards for SEO, monitor campaign performance, combine Google Analytics with third party platforms or improve overall business intelligence, Power BI provides a flexible solution that grows with your organisation.

For Bark Street Digital, integrating multiple marketing platforms into one reporting environment has transformed the way marketing performance is measured and analysed. Instead of asking "What happened?", the team can now answer the far more valuable question: "Why did it happen, and what should we do next?"

If you'd like to explore what a similar solution could look like for your marketing team, take a look at our Power BI consultancy and dashboard design services, or get in touch for an informal chat.

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