25th March, 2026
Exporting Dashboards for Marketing Use: A Practical Challenge
Columnist(s): Haroon Mirza | Editor(s): Muhammad Ali Zakaria
While working on a dashboard recently, we needed to convert it into image formats suitable for a Google Ads campaign. What initially seemed like a simple task turned out to be more involved than expected.
The dashboard was originally designed for internal use, a widescreen layout displaying KPIs, trend graphs, and detailed breakdowns for easy viewing on desktop. However, Google Ads requires fixed image formats such as 1:1 (square) and 1.91:1 (landscape), which did not align with the dashboard’s structure.
The Challenge
Dashboards are typically designed to be flexible and responsive. They adapt to screen sizes and allow users to explore data interactively. However, exporting them into fixed image dimensions introduces a different set of constraints.
When we tried to fit the dashboard into these required formats, several issues appeared:
Layouts that worked well in widescreen became compressed or unbalanced.
Key information lost its visual hierarchy.
Standard screenshot methods resulted in poor image quality
The core issue was that screen-based capture is limited by display resolution. Scaling those images to meet platform requirements led to blurred text and unclear visuals, which is not suitable for a paid campaign.
The Approach
At this point, it became clear that the limitation was not just with the tools, but with the approach itself.
Instead of relying on screenshots, we shifted to a programmatic method by rendering the dashboard directly into an image. Using a DOM-to-image approach, we were able to generate high-resolution outputs independent of screen limitations.
To make this work effectively, we adapted how the dashboard was rendered during export, ensuring each format maintained clarity and balance without affecting the main dashboard experience.
This allowed us to produce clean, high-resolution images that maintained both clarity and structure across different formats.
Key Takeaways
A few important lessons came out of this process:
If a dashboard may be reused for marketing or reporting, export requirements should be considered early in the design.
When multiple tools fail, it often indicates the need to rethink the approach rather than try more tools.
Adapting output for different formats requires deliberate structural thinking, not just resizing
Closing Note
This was a small but practical reminder that the way something is built for internal use does not always translate directly to external use. Adapting systems across contexts often requires a different way of thinking, not just a different tool.
25th March, 2026
Exporting Dashboards for Marketing Use: A Practical Challenge
Columnist(s): Haroon Mirza | Editor(s): Muhammad Ali Zakaria
While working on a dashboard recently, we needed to convert it into image formats suitable for a Google Ads campaign. What initially seemed like a simple task turned out to be more involved than expected.
The dashboard was originally designed for internal use, a widescreen layout displaying KPIs, trend graphs, and detailed breakdowns for easy viewing on desktop. However, Google Ads requires fixed image formats such as 1:1 (square) and 1.91:1 (landscape), which did not align with the dashboard’s structure.
The Challenge
Dashboards are typically designed to be flexible and responsive. They adapt to screen sizes and allow users to explore data interactively. However, exporting them into fixed image dimensions introduces a different set of constraints.
When we tried to fit the dashboard into these required formats, several issues appeared:
Layouts that worked well in widescreen became compressed or unbalanced.
Key information lost its visual hierarchy.
Standard screenshot methods resulted in poor image quality
The core issue was that screen-based capture is limited by display resolution. Scaling those images to meet platform requirements led to blurred text and unclear visuals, which is not suitable for a paid campaign.
The Approach
At this point, it became clear that the limitation was not just with the tools, but with the approach itself.
Instead of relying on screenshots, we shifted to a programmatic method by rendering the dashboard directly into an image. Using a DOM-to-image approach, we were able to generate high-resolution outputs independent of screen limitations.
To make this work effectively, we adapted how the dashboard was rendered during export, ensuring each format maintained clarity and balance without affecting the main dashboard experience.
This allowed us to produce clean, high-resolution images that maintained both clarity and structure across different formats.
Key Takeaways
A few important lessons came out of this process:
If a dashboard may be reused for marketing or reporting, export requirements should be considered early in the design.
When multiple tools fail, it often indicates the need to rethink the approach rather than try more tools.
Adapting output for different formats requires deliberate structural thinking, not just resizing
Closing Note
This was a small but practical reminder that the way something is built for internal use does not always translate directly to external use. Adapting systems across contexts often requires a different way of thinking, not just a different tool.