In a digital-first world, successful marketing teams aren’t just fueled by creativity—they’re driven by data. But the bigger challenge isn’t collecting the data. It’s making that data usable, shareable, and actionable across departments. Pendo, a leading product experience platform, found itself at this crossroads. Their marketing team needed a better way to track campaign ROI, enable real-time collaboration with sales, and justify content investments.
Instead of investing in a complex, expensive BI solution, they turned to a surprisingly accessible tool: Looker Studio.
While Pendo is a fast-growing company with enterprise-grade tools, its story proves a powerful point for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs): You don’t need a massive budget or data engineering team to get value from your marketing data. Looker Studio is a low-cost, high-impact solution that even the leanest teams can use to deliver real-time insights and drive growth.
✅ Key Takeaway: Why SMBs Should Pay Attention to Pendo’s Looker Studio Strategy
Pendo’s Looker Studio Strategy shows that powerful marketing dashboards aren’t just for enterprises. SMBs can replicate the same real-time visibility, cross-team collaboration, and ROI clarity without needing a big budget or technical team.
Low-cost, high-impact: Looker Studio is free and integrates with tools like Google Sheets, BigQuery, and Salesforce.
Real-time collaboration: Pendo built dashboards that automatically notify sales teams via Slack when new campaigns go live.
Measurable ROI: Marketing teams can prove the direct impact of content and campaigns using attribution metrics from connected CRMs.
Whether you're running a five-person startup or a growing mid-market agency, Looker Studio gives you the power to visualize what’s working, collaborate faster, and make decisions based on facts—not gut feelings.
🚀 The Challenge: Campaign Visibility and Content ROI
Pendo’s marketing team had two key pain points that many SMBs will find familiar:
No central place to track campaigns in real time
Difficulty proving the value of customer stories and content assets
Campaigns were often planned and launched, but feedback loops with sales were slow and unstructured. Sales development reps (SDRs) didn’t always know which campaigns were active or where to find key assets. On the content side, marketing had a library of customer stories, but had no idea how they influenced sales or product usage.
The stakes were high. Pendo needed a better way to track performance and justify where their marketing dollars were going.
💡 The Solution: Two Custom Dashboards in Looker Studio
Pendo partnered with their RevOps team to build two mission-critical dashboards using Looker Studio:
1. Campaign Activation Dashboard
This dashboard helped unify marketing and sales by giving real-time visibility into:
Active campaigns
Pipeline influenced
Leads generated
Campaign-level ROI
The dashboard pulled data from Salesforce campaigns, enabling filters for:
Campaign name
Target industry
Region
Lead stage
The standout feature? Pendo integrated this dashboard with Slack, using Slackbot alerts to notify SDRs when a new campaign is launched. This real-time nudge improved sales enablement overnight.
SMB takeaway: You don’t need a custom app or engineering team to do this. With Looker Studio + Google Sheets + Zapier or Slack’s webhook features, you can build a similar real-time alert system.
2. Customer Stories Dashboard
This dashboard measured how individual customer stories performed across:
Sales pipeline influence (from Salesforce)
Usage metrics (from Pendo’s product analytics)
Website engagement
The goal was to tie qualitative content to quantitative outcomes.
Now, when an SDR asked for a relevant case study, they could filter by:
Industry
Customer segment
Deal stage
…and see which story was performing best in influencing deals.
SMB takeaway: If you have a library of PDFs, video testimonials, or blog articles, you can use Looker Studio to track clicks, shares, and deal attribution—proving ROI even for “top of funnel” content.
🔄 The Tech Stack: Surprisingly Simple
While Pendo had access to tools like Salesforce, Pendo analytics, and Slack, the core dashboarding layer used free or low-cost tools:
Looker Studio – The central visualization tool
BigQuery or Google Sheets – Depending on the data source
Salesforce – For campaign and CRM data
Slack – For notifications
Everything was kept modular. If one team didn’t have Salesforce access, they could still use filtered views embedded in shared Google Slides or Confluence pages.
SMB insight: You don’t need to mirror Pendo’s infrastructure. Start with a Google Sheet and build your dashboard iteratively. You can always add BigQuery or CRM connectors later.
🧠 Organizational Impact: Better Collaboration, Faster Insights
The results were felt across teams:
Sales reps got visibility into what campaigns were running—no more guesswork.
Marketing proved ROI with numbers, not anecdotes.
Leadership could prioritize what campaigns and stories were worth doubling down on.
Even better, this empowered a data-driven culture, where content wasn’t just created and forgotten—it was measured, iterated, and championed.
🛠️ How SMBs Can Build a Similar Dashboard Strategy
You don’t need a large team to replicate Pendo’s success. Here’s how a small or mid-sized business can do the same:
Step 1: Start Simple
Use Google Sheets to manually enter campaign performance data (start small!)
Connect to GA4, Facebook Ads, or HubSpot using native connectors or Supermetrics
Step 2: Build Core Dashboards
Campaign Tracker
KPIs: Leads, ROI, campaign spend
Filters: Region, product, funnel stage
Content Performance
Track views, shares, CRM influence
Use UTM parameters to tie content to conversions
Step 3: Add Collaboration Tools
Use Slack alerts for new campaign launches or lead milestones
Embed dashboards in Notion, Confluence, or shared drives
Step 4: Measure and Iterate
Review dashboards weekly
Add calculated fields for ROI, conversion rates
Get feedback from sales and execs
🌱 Small Team, Big Impact: Why Looker Studio Is Built for SMBs
Let’s be clear—Pendo’s dashboards weren’t flashy gimmicks. They were practical tools designed to solve real communication gaps and track ROI.
That’s why they’re relevant for any SMB looking to:
Track which campaigns are working
Share performance data with other departments
Move away from scattered spreadsheets and siloed tools
Looker Studio offers the sweet spot between power and simplicity.
✅ Free for most users
✅ Easy to connect with Sheets, CRMs, and ad platforms
✅ Scalable from basic reports to robust data ecosystems
Even if you don’t have a RevOps department or a Salesforce admin, you can replicate 80% of Pendo’s Looker Studio Strategy with just a marketer, a spreadsheet, and an hour of time.
📌 Final Thoughts
Pendo used Looker Studio to bring marketing and sales into alignment, showcase the ROI of content, and make real-time campaign performance visible across teams.
But the real win here isn’t Pendo’s sophistication—it’s their practical approach. And that approach is within reach for any SMB.
If your business is struggling with siloed data, reporting delays, or the constant question of “what’s working?”—it’s time to put Pendo’s Looker Studio Strategy to work for you.
❓ FAQ: Looker Studio for SMBs
Q1: Isn’t Looker Studio too basic for serious reporting?
Not at all. While it’s user-friendly, Looker Studio can handle complex reports by connecting to BigQuery, CRMs, and APIs. Most SMBs will find it more than capable.
Q2: Do I need to know SQL to use Looker Studio?
No. You can use built-in connectors, drag-and-drop charts, and calculated fields without writing code. SQL can help advanced users, but it’s optional.
Q3: How much does Looker Studio cost?
It’s completely free for most users. You might pay for third-party connectors (e.g., Supermetrics), but the base product is free.
Q4: How do I connect Looker Studio to my CRM or ad platforms?
Use native connectors for Google products (GA4, Google Ads), or use tools like Supermetrics, Zapier, or Google Sheets to sync with platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce, or Facebook Ads.
Q5: Can I set up Slack or email alerts, similar to Pendo's?
Yes. Tools like Zapier or Slack’s built-in webhooks can help you send alerts based on form submissions, campaign launches, or dashboard changes.
Q6: What’s the best way to get started?
Start with one KPI (such as campaign leads), create a simple Google Sheet, and connect it to Looker Studio. Expand from there.