The reason people can’t connect with your numbers in sales performance, business development, or marketing meetings is primarily because they are having a hard time processing the information. So, you need a simple but effective way to present the data to them.

The first thing to note is that the problem often isn’t the data itself—it’s how it’s presented. That’s where a Marimekko chart (or Mekko chart) comes in. It helps you present complex data in an actionable, easy-to-understand way, helping your data tell a story.

Marimekko charts uncomplicate complex data by stacking information across different categories. Instead of getting buried in spreadsheets or multiple documents, you can use a Marimekko chart to visualize various subcategories of data, especially marketing data, all in one chart to identify trends.

But here’s the thing: Marimekko charts can easily go wrong if you don’t represent your data well. It can end up confusing your audience instead of helping them make better decisions. So, how do you create Marimekko charts that are simple, easy to understand, and effective for visualizing data? And how can they help you gain insights to build action plans and strategies?

What Is a Marimekko Chart?

Marimekko charts, or Mekko charts, get their name from the Marimekko company, known for its bold and blocky fabric designs. Unlike a bar chart, where you compare items side by side, a Mekko chart stacks segments on top of each other and adjusts widths to represent different weights. You then color-code them to highlight differences between categories and subcategories.

Marimekko lets you visualize multiple categories and subcategories without needing separate plots like spider charts, radar charts, or bar charts. This makes analysis much easier. However, there’s a learning curve—you’ll need to take time to understand the chart’s structure before using it effectively.

Since Mekko charts pack a lot of information into one space, you’ll need time to get comfortable reading them. They also work best when you have nested categories—for example:

• Comparing market share for fashion, beauty, and cosmetics across different sales platforms, e.g, Shein, Temu, Aliexpress, and Jumia
• Tracking budget allocation by department and sub-team over time.

Pro Tip: It’s not as simple as a bar chart. There’s a learning curve because you’ve got to read both the height and width of the blocks. Once you get it, though, it’s way faster than flipping between a bunch of pie charts or spider plots.

Why Use Marimekko Charts?

The main advantage of a Marimekko (or Mekko) chart is that it lets you visualize multiple layers of data and compare them to spot trends easily: you can use it to display market share across different product lines and regions in a single view. So, instead of relying on separate spider charts, radar plots, or stacked bars, you get a clear, consolidated snapshot.

Another major benefit of using Mekko charts is their power to display market share across various locations in a single, integrated view.  Instead of saying, “Here’s our share in Singapore, the US, and South Africa,” you can see everything in one place. It also enables you to illustrate both the proportion and distribution of different products or categories, allowing you to spot your company’s strengths and weaknesses. 

Marimekko charts are especially useful for comparing products across different markets or customer segments within a region. For your marketing and sales teams, this means:

• Better strategy decisions to position your brand more effectively in the market.
• Stronger proposals: You can use Merimekko charts in sales pitches or marketing reports to showcase performance.
• Clearer customer insights: It helps you compare products and ensure they reach the right audience.

Plus, it reduces brain fatigue for your audience. Instead of flipping through endless slides with disjointed data, you present everything at once—discuss it, analyze it, and move forward. When people see multiple charts over time, they struggle to recall or prioritize key points. But with a Marimekko chart, all the information is in one place, making it easier to digest and act on.

Importance of the Marimekko Chart

Here’s why you should use a Mekko Chart:

• Multidimensional Insights at a Glance – it allows you to analyze data across different products, categories, or items simultaneously. For example, you can create a competitive analysis of your audience engagement across different social media platforms against competitors.
• Easy Analysis & Comparison – Instead of juggling multiple charts, stacked charts help you get a consolidated view of your company’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. You can use this insight to create a data-driven go-to-market strategy or product positioning plan and successfully dominate the market.

Business Strategy Uses

• Marketing & Business Strategy – Instead of having to analyze multiple slides or screens of marketing performance analytics or market share numbers, Mekko Chart helps you identify your product’s strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities at a glance. You can use this information to adjust your marketing and product management efforts to fit your consumers’ preferences and generate more revenue.
• Product Positioning & Rebranding – Insights from the Mekko chart can also help you identify how to market hidden opportunities and launch new products or reposition existing ones for different audience segments.
• Resource allocation – Mekko charts can help you evaluate different departments’ employee performance, which can help you find improvement opportunities for them. You could even use the insights from the chart to foster cross-department collaboration to complement the strengths and weaknesses of each department.

Presentations & Leadership

• Executive Dashboards – The Mekko chart helps condense complex data into a self-explanatory, digestible format that you can present in strategy meetings and proposals. If you do this right, it can be all you need to secure approvals and resources for your projects or campaigns.

Limitations of Marimekko Charts

Marimekko charts have so many advantages and use cases, but they also come with some downsides. Here is why they are not always the data visualization:

1. Complexity and Fatigue – It is easy to visualize data with Marimekko charts when it’s just 3-4 categories, but when dealing with 7, 8, 9, or even 10 categories, Marimekko charts can easily become overly complex and cluttered.
2. Inefficient for Absolute Values
   Stacked charts work well for comparing proportions (like percentages) but are not efficient for comparing absolute values. For example, they’re great for analyzing market share percentages, but it would be difficult to use them to present exact numbers, such as subscription amounts or total sales figures.
3. Poor for Tracking Trends Over Time
   While Marimekko charts display distribution and relationships clearly, they can only do it for a single dataset. So, they are not the best choice for showing changes over time, such as market share changes over six months vs three months.
4. Risk of Misrepresentation
   It’s very easy to inaccurately represent proportions on Marimekko charts if you’re not using the right tool or improperly enter values under categories.

How to Interpret Marimekko Charts

Marimekko charts aren’t the easiest to use without some guidance, so here are some tips to help you properly interpret and create them.

1. Prepare Accurate Data First

Before creating your chart, ensure your spreadsheet contains accurate numbers and percentages for each category and subcategory. Calculate the correct proportions for height (representing one variable, like market share) and width (representing another, like product segments).

2. Select Only Relevant Data

A Marimekko chart can quickly become cluttered if you include too many categories or subcategories. Focus on impactful, meaningful data that directly supports your message. For example, if analyzing global market share, group data by country instead of individual cities, unless a deeper breakdown is necessary.

3. Limit Categories for Better Readability

Too many categories overwhelm the chart and make it hard to interpret. Stick to a few key ones to keep the visualization clean and insights clear.

4. Organize Categories Logically

Arrange categories in a meaningful order, e.g., by size, importance, recency, or another relevant criterion. This helps convey your message effectively.

5. Choose the Right Chart Size

The size of your chart should match the number of categories. Increasing the size of your chart can make it easier to see the difference between segments. However, if you’re using a small chart, it compresses the stack and can make it difficult for people to see the difference between categories.

6. Minimize Overlapping Segments

If segments overlap too much, the chart becomes hard to read. So, adjust segment proportions carefully to avoid confusion. 

Common Use Cases for Marimekko Charts

Here are some of the common use cases for Marimekko charts:

• Market segmentation analysis: Marimekko charts can help you visualize consumer groups by their size and their purchasing behavior. This helps you to tailor your marketing strategy according to their preference and even develop products/services that cater to your different customer segments.
• Product portfolio analysis: You can use Mekko Charts to display how various products are contributing to your revenues across various markets. You can use this information to decide whether or not to invest more resources in developing particular products, or launch new ones.
• Competitor benchmarking: You can also use Marimekko charts to compare your market share against other competitors.
• Resource allocation: You can use Marimekko charts to assess operational investments across various business units or geographies globally.
• Strategic planning: Marimekko charts also allow you to easily observe high-performing segments and areas of opportunities where your company can make more profits.

Great charts begin with collecting the right data. So, use any of our templates to create a form to collect the data you need, e.g., customer preferences, their location, product preferences, or collecting marketing and sales numbers from your team.  Here is the next step after collecting the data:

• Export and Create: Export your data directly to a spreadsheet program like Google Sheets, Excel, or Zoho Sheet. From there, you can create your Marimekko chart using their built-in chart or add-ons.
• Design Software Integration: Alternatively, you use our Zapier integration to connect your Formplus account to design tools and use them to create infographics or slides to add in your presentation or decks for proposals, performance reviews, stakeholder meetings, etc.