Business Intelligence & Visualization

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Overview

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Learn how to transform marketing data into dashboards, reports, and visual stories that support better business decisions. In this course, you’ll build data models and KPI frameworks that connect marketing objectives to measurable outcomes while learning how to design dashboards that are accurate, visually clear, and useful for stakeholders. You’ll use Looker Studio and spreadsheet tools to create interactive reports that combine data from platforms such as GA4, Google Ads, and CRM exports. Along the way, you’ll learn dashboard design principles, data visualization best practices, and storytelling techniques that help communicate insights effectively to executive audiences. You’ll also evaluate dashboard usability, compare alternative visual layouts, and refine reports based on stakeholder feedback. By the end of the course, you’ll be able to create professional marketing dashboards, automate recurring reporting workflows, and present data in ways that support strategic marketing decisions.

Syllabus

Data Models: Architect Marketing Schemas

In this module, you will explore how fact tables and dimension tables organize campaign, channel, geography, and audience data into reliable reporting models that replace fragile flat-file workflows. The module focuses on schema design fundamentals, primary and foreign keys, normalization, and semantic layers that standardize KPI calculations across dashboards. You will build a complete star schema capable of connecting ad spend, sessions, conversions, and CRM revenue into a unified reporting environment. By the end, you will create structured marketing schemas that support scalable, multi-channel analytics and explain the tradeoffs between star and snowflake approaches for marketing reporting use cases.

KPI Frameworks: Map Objectives to Metrics

This module enables you to design KPI frameworks that connect marketing objectives directly to measurable business outcomes across the funnel. The module emphasizes distinguishing vanity metrics from value metrics and building KPI matrices that stakeholders can interpret consistently without ambiguity. You will also create a multi-stage KPI framework for a product launch campaign that aligns business goals, reporting definitions, and performance targets into a structured dashboard planning system. By the end, you will be able to build technically implementable KPI frameworks that support trustworthy reporting, campaign optimization, and executive decision-making.

Marketing Dashboards: Executive Dashboard Creation

Learners will master the foundational skills needed to transform raw marketing data into compelling executive narratives by selecting appropriate KPIs, designing clear visual hierarchies, and integrating multiple data sources into cohesive performance stories.

Marketing Dashboards: A/B Testing Visualization Impact

Learners will master systematic approaches to testing visualization effectiveness, designing controlled experiments that measure how different dashboard designs impact user understanding and decision-making speed.

Looker Studio: Data Connection and Visualization Setup

Learners will master the foundational process of connecting marketing data sources to Looker Studio and understanding the platform's interface to prepare for creating professional marketing visualizations.

Looker Studio: Chart Creation and Sharing

Learners will master creating time-series marketing charts with appropriate filters and sharing mechanisms, enabling professional team collaboration and stakeholder communication.

Visualize and Chart Marketing Data Fast: Recognize BI Tools and Foundations

Learners will develop foundational awareness of industry-standard BI tools used in marketing analytics and understand their core capabilities for transforming marketing data into visual insights.

Visualize and Chart Marketing Data Fast: Apply Data Visualization for Basic Charts

Learners will gain hands-on experience connecting data sources and creating functional bar charts using professional BI tools, demonstrating practical skills needed for marketing dashboard creation and performance reporting.

Data Storytelling: Data Presentation Frameworks

Learners will master structured narrative frameworks like SCQA to transform Google Analytics data into compelling visual stories that drive strategic alignment and business outcomes.

Data Storytelling: Feedback Integration & Improvement

Learners will systematically analyze audience feedback to strengthen data presentation effectiveness, implementing iterative improvement cycles that balance subjective preferences with actionable insights.

Spreadsheets: Translating Analysis for Stakeholders

This module enables you to turn complex analysis outputs into stakeholder-ready spreadsheet deliverables. You will work with functions such as XLOOKUP, PivotTables, and Power Query to merge data, structure summaries, and clean platform exports for business use. The module also focuses on translating technical outputs into formats that executives and cross-functional teams can understand quickly and act confidently. By the end, you will be able to build clear, professional spreadsheet reports that support communication, decision-making, and operational workflows.

Spreadsheets: Scenario Planning and Budget Communication

This module enables you to use spreadsheets to support forecasting, budget tracking, and scenario planning for business stakeholders. You will build pacing models, ROI frameworks, and automated budget trackers that help teams evaluate tradeoffs and monitor performance without relying on BI tools. The module also focuses on creating models that are structured, auditable, and easy for stakeholders to update and interpret independently. By the end, you will be able to design spreadsheet-based planning tools that support faster decisions and clearer budget communication.

GenAI Module: AI-Assisted Visualization

Data analysts rarely struggle to find insights — the harder challenge is communicating them in a way that moves an executive audience to act. This module explores how GenAI tools can accelerate that translation, from selecting the right chart type for a specific audience and decision to reframing raw data findings into executive headlines that pass the "so what" test. Using realistic BI and analytics scenarios, learners work through the full human-AI collaboration workflow: constructing prompts with enough specificity to produce useful outputs, evaluating AI-generated visualizations and narratives critically, and applying the editorial judgment that turns a fast draft into an accurate, audience-ready story. The module makes clear where AI adds genuine speed and range — and where data accuracy, narrative honesty, and audience knowledge remain irreducibly human responsibilities. By the end of this module, you will be able to apply AI prompting techniques to improve chart selection and data storytelling, and use generative AI features in BI tools to produce more effective, executive-ready visual narratives.

Project Module: Marketing Insights Dashboard

When a large-scale omnichannel campaign ends, the data rarely tells a clean story on its own — it arrives fragmented across platforms, each with its own naming conventions, metric definitions, and export formats. This project module places learners in the role of a Senior Analyst tasked with building the single source of truth a CMO needs before the next planning cycle begins: a multi-page Looker Studio report that connects platform spend to CRM-verified ROI and presents the findings in a form an executive can act on in under five minutes. The work spans the full analytical pipeline — standardizing and validating source data in Excel, constructing an accurate blended data model, designing a platform performance detail view, and applying the five-second rule to an executive summary page that leads with judgment, not just charts. By the end of this module, you will be able to build a multi-page executive dashboard with accurate data architecture, a well-structured visual hierarchy, and a written narrative that interprets campaign performance and makes a defensible recommendation for what comes next.