Marketing hides a truth that almost no one talks about: It’s all the paperwork that needs to be organized before writing a report, especially in small businesses or agencies.
Between Excel spreadsheets, report tables and PowerPoint presentations, reporting has never been easy, so much so that we sometimes end up spending more time “working” on it than analyzing real information.
- But concretely what is Google Data Studio?
- What are its advantages for a company ?
- And how to use Google Data Studio ?
These are some of the questions to be developed in this article to help you discover how to use Google Data Studio to optimize your reporting.
Chapter 1: Google Data Studio – Definition and Benefits
Before we show you how Google Data Studio could help you, we need to agree on a clear definition of what it is first.
1.1. What is Google Data Studio?
The best way to think of Google Data Studio is as a free tool that allows you to visualize multiple data directly in a single space.
The tool connects to all your data sources to extract the information you find most useful for a unique reporting experience.
Source : Moca Interactive
This information can then be directly visualized on your Google Data Studio dashboard in the form of curves, diagrams, tables… in order to monitor the observed changes in real time.
This is the ideal service for professionals to create interactive reports with informative and easy to interpret dashboards.
It must be said that the Google Data Studio program was first launched in beta during 2016 before making all its features available to the general public in 2018 in the final version.
Today, you can not only create visual and attractive reports with Google Data Studio, but you can also share them with collaborators, team members or customers.
They will either be able to access the reports as simple readers or make changes according to the access rights you have granted them.
In addition, the tool provides a list of ready-to-use reports that you can quickly copy and contextualize by adding your own data.
Whether it’s the reports themselves, the graphs or even the performance charts you choose, Google Data Studio offers you an almost infinite possibility to customize them and bring them back to your taste.
1.2. Who is Google Data Studio for ?
At first glance, you might think that Google Data Studio is a great reporting tool reserved only for digital marketers, yet the tool is accessible to a much broader community.
It’s a suitable solution for anyone already using specialized digital platforms or even simple spreadsheets to produce reports.
This can include, for example, financiers, service providers, traders … in short, all those who in the course of their business use tools for the presentation of data in general.
And even within a given corporation, Google Data Studio can be used at various levels.
Whether you are a freelancer, consultant, analyst or part of a corporate staff, if you feel the need to centralize data to better track it and share it with others, you can use Google Data Studio well.
But if you’re already comfortable working with traditional reporting tools like spreadsheets, for example, it’s likely that you think the tool isn’t really for you.
Well, think again, Google Data Studio is full of benefits that could help you optimize your work.
1.3. Benefits of using Google Data Studio
No matter what tools you already use to create your reports, here are 6 benefits you get by adopting Google Data Studio :
1.3.1. Synchronize with different data sources
As explained earlier, Google Data Studio is a tool that allows you to centralize information from multiple sources.
By default, you have 18 native connectors from which you can import data namely:
To make it easier for its users, Google anticipates and offers by default data sources that are frequently used in professional environments, which it commonly calls “native connectors”
- Google Ads
- Google Sheets
- BigQuery
- Google Analytics
- Google Ad Manager 360
- File Upload
- PostgreSQL
- TV Attribution
- Cloud SQL for MySQL
- Cloud Spanner
- Extract Data
- Campaign Manager
- MySQL
- Search Ads 360
- Search Console
- YouTube Analytics
- Display & Video 360
- Google Cloud Storage
Source : PorterMetrics
But that’s not all, Google goes even further by offering the ability to import information from 352 other external data sources called “partner connectors.”
Among these partner connectors, we have :
- Adobe Analytics ;
- LinkedIn Ads ;
- Facebook Ads ;
- Bing Ads ;
- Ahrefs ;
- And many more.
The idea is to really take the hassle out of checking each of your accounts to analyze the data separately.
Now you can quickly look at your Google Analytics traffic, check your Facebooks Ads conversions, and see how your ActiveCampaign account is doing right in one window.
Il vous suffit de vous rendre sur votre dashboard Google Data studio pour visualiser instantanément toutes ces métriques depuis des sources que vous aurez choisies vous-même.
And speaking of dashboard, what makes the Google Data Studio dashboard so special?
1.3.2. A highly malleable dashboard that you can easily customize
Not only does Google Data Studio allow you to choose the data you find most useful to build your dashboard, but you can also customize its design and bring it back to your liking very easily.
And for that, you have several features all equally important, so you can really create attractive reports and bring your presentations to life during your business meetings.
There’s literally no limit to the changes you can make to your Google Data Studio dashboard, like this Google Search Console display that’s almost unrecognizable :
Source : Internetrix
Here are some interesting changes you can make with your Google Studio Data dashboard :
- Harmonize the colors of your reports with those of your brand ;
- Change the style of your text ;
- Choose chart types to customize your data display ;
- Customize your reports with the possibility to print them, share them by email or save them in PDF format ;
- And much more.
1.3.3. A tool for team building
One of the benefits that makes Google Data Studio so popular is also its ability to bring multiple people together around the same document for more collaborative work.
You can add people to your reports while defining a specific access right for each of them. Each invited person will then be able to participate in the elaboration of the report according to the permissions that have been assigned to them.
Unlike Google Analytics where you can sometimes feel inundated with a flood of data, Google Data Studio is meant to be less cluttered.
And for that the tool offers everyone the possibility to choose the information that really interests them to better find themselves and work more easily.
But if you don’t want others to make changes to the look or content of your reports, you can simply finish your report on your own and save it to your dashboard.
Then, as explained above, you have the option of sharing this saved version of the report with the people you choose.
1.3.4. Monitor your data accurately and in real time
Each time you log in to your Google Data Studio space, all the data you have access to is updated automatically. Ce qui est très pratique et vous fera gagner un temps précieux.
You can even take advantage of this spontaneity of the tool to make reports as regularly as possible and without much difficulty.
Moreover, you have several filters to refine the analysis reports and access more accurate data.
The tool offers you, for example, the possibility to filter the analysis reports on a given time range, or according to a specific user type and many other filters.
1.3.5. A well-organized data display
If you use Google Analytics often, you’ll probably remember those times when the tool displays so many rows that it compresses them to fit on one page.
It must be said that even though this is all important data, in terms of display, it is a bit difficult to read results broken up into such small lines.
The advantage with Google Data Studio is that these reading difficulties can be avoided since you have the ability to merge cells of some of the data on your pages for easier reading.
You can also control the display of your data by injecting formulas, a bit like in Excel, and eliminate some unnecessary styles such as capital letters for example.
1.3.6. A free service
In its early days, Google Data Studio was not really free. L’outil offrait juste 5 rapports à générer gratuitement.
But today, we can say that the tool is completely free with the ability to generate as many reports as you want and imposes no limit on the number of users.
If you had abandoned the tool before because of the 5 reports offered, now you have no excuse not to start using Google Data Studio again.
And for those who have never used Google Data Studio, why deprive yourself of such a handy tool and a free one at that?
Even if you’re already comfortable with your current reporting tool, there’s nothing to lose by trying this one. Faites l’expérience d’utiliser Google Data Studio et vous m’en direz des nouvelles.
Chapter 2: Some basics and 7 steps to create a report with Google Data Studio
In this chapter, we will discover the basics of Google Data Studio and especially the different steps to create a report.
2.1. Some basics to succeed in your first steps with Google Data Studio
Let’s face it, there are a few essential basics you need to get familiar with so you don’t miss your first Google Data Studio report.
This includes :
- Plan the dashboard ;
- Choose a report template ;
- Connect data sources of your choice ;
- Select the metrics deemed important for the creation of the report ;
- Share the report with other users if possible.
2.1.1. Plan the dashboard
Before you start planning your dashboard on Google Data Studio, it’s important to consider these two points :
- What kind of data do you want to display? Is it sales data? Performance data from a blog? Or is it general site metrics? Either way, it’s important to have an idea of the story you’re trying to tell.
- Who can read your dashboard? It is also important to think about your audience and especially how things should be organized to be useful to them.
Although you are a first-timer and don’t know the structure of a report on Google Data Studio, it would be easier for you to get by if you already have an idea of what data to display and the profile of your audience.
It is agreed that if you need to produce a report for an e-commerce site, for example, it will basically be about presenting the sales performance of the store. Some examples of this are:
- Sales numbers;
- Lists of the best products in a category;
- The different points of sale ;
- Etc.
The metrics and graphs that are useful in this context will be quite different from those used to create a report for a blog for example. Typically, a report for a blog will include data and graphs that reflect visitor engagement such as :
- Most visited pages ;
- The conversion rate ;
- Calls to action ;
- Traffic sources ;
- Etc.
As you can see, these are two different stories that each need different data and presentations to be told.
Also, constantly keeping your audience in mind will help you better your dashboard.
Do you have a supervisor to whom you need to report? Does he or she need that much in-depth data? Or are small, clear and important metrics already enough for him to measure the performance of your work?
Also, if you’ve launched a campaign, are these reports the only way your team can measure the success of your strategies?
Answering all of these questions will help you better guide your choices when planning your Google Data Studio dashboard.
In addition, before closing this first part, I think it is interesting to quickly show you what the Google Data Studio interface looks like.
You can start creating a report from this tab. This is also where your previous reports already created will be listed, including the ready-to-use templates proposed by Google.
This tab contains all the data sources you can use to import your existing information from other reporting tools into Google Data Studio.
The tab also allows you to add new data sources other than the default ones offered by Google. But it must be said that you can also connect data sources directly when creating the report.
Templates : This is the list of templates proposed by Google with a usable template if you don’t want to start everything from scratch.
Reports : Find all your already created reports here. To easily find your way around, make sure you name your reports properly.
This is a button with a “+” symbol that allows you to create a new dashboard on Google Data Studio.
Now we can continue with the second basic concept.
2.1.2. Choosing a report template
The first thing you need to learn is how to choose a template for your report creation and for that, nothing too complicated.
As mentioned in the advantages of the tool, you have a wide variety of predefined templates that you can choose and customize.
It is important to remember that no matter which template you choose, you have the same editing possibilities, so you are free to choose the template you really like.
And where this can be even more interesting is that you can add multiple pages to your reports.
It’s true that I’ve been telling you that with Google Data Studio, everything is done on a single page.
Well, the platform also offers you the possibility to add other pages to your report if needed. The idea is to satisfy also those who find that their whole marketing story can’t fit legibly on one page.
Personally, I start with a blank report, this gives me a free field to organize my data story as I wish.
And if you’re a service provider, each of your clients probably has different needs and it would be nice to create original reports tailored to each client.
To make it easier for you, you can prepare your own templates based on the elements that are common to all your clients;
Thus, depending on specific needs you can quickly customize these templates for something truly unique.
2.1.3. Connecting data sources of your choice
This is an important step for successful report creation report creation: manually choose a few already available data sources and the tool takes care of synchronizing them to your Google Data Studio dashboard.
The addition can be done either at the very beginning of the creation of a new report, or a little later by clicking on the “Add Data” button located in the toolbar.
You already know that you have a list of native connectors that are offered by default by Google Data Studio, but also partner connectors that import your data mainly from CRMs or your social network accounts.
However, the problem with these third-party connectors is that, since they are supplements:
- They can sometimes slow down the reports;
- The data can sometimes be outdated and for this reason it may be necessary to check some metrics yourself and update them as they become available.
In addition, some users prefer to create a Google Sheets file with all their company data and connect it to Google Data Studio as a data source.
The idea is to not have to pay fees or solicit API services because effectively using partner data sources on Google Data Studio is often subject to additional fees:
- A single partner connector like Facebook, Adobe Analytics or AdRoll for example can be worth anywhere from $10 to $40 a month. This payment entitles you to a direct API connection to access the source data on multiple dashboards.
- Partner connectors are often not sold individually, meaning you buy them in bundles. A batch of 30 to 200 connectors can be sold for example between $80 and $300 per month.
- You can find the list of all the partner connectors on the official Google Data Studio page.
If, despite the available partner connectors, you want to have your own connector, adapted to the realities of your niche, you can always create it or ask for the services of an expert.
And for those who don’t want to shell out the money to pay those extra fees, you can try the Google Sheets trick.
If you are already used to using Google Suite products in your company, you should have no trouble creating a complete dashboard on Google Sheets, tailored to your reporting needs.
And since Google Sheets is a native connector and not a partner, connecting to Google Data Studio will be free of charge with no additional fees.
2.1.3. Select the metrics that are important for reporting
Who better to decide what data really matters to you than yourself. That’s why Google Data Studio gives you the freedom to choose the metrics that seem useful to you.
And let’s face it, clients can sometimes feel inundated when you present them with a report full of metrics here and there.
The beauty of Google Data Studio is that, although its reports are almost infinitely customizable, you don’t have to show all the statistics offered.
Obviously, not all clients will be interested in purely technical metrics.
To help you, I would advise you not to forget the data that customers are most interested in, such as those related to the expenses incurred and the profits recorded.
In addition, it can be interesting to import data that gives an idea of the overall awareness of your company or your customers, including statistics related to clicks such as:
- CTR ;
- Impressions;
- The number of clicks;
- and many others.
By focusing on these basic but important data to evaluate the success of the strategies used, you show the client that you are particularly interested in his case and that you are listening to his needs to achieve his objectives.
2.1.4. Share the report with other users as needed
When you are about to share reports with colleagues, clients or stakeholders, it is important to understand some parameters that define the sharing options:
- Invite via email: This type of sharing works if the invited user has a Google account linked to the email. Once this is done, the user can be added to the report as a simple “reader” or an “editor”.
- All added users, both editors and readers, have a link that allows them to access the report, much like Google Docs works.
It must be said that all these options were available since the beta version of Google Data Studio, but after the final version, new sharing features were added, mainly to limit the scope to the added people, such as:
- Not allowing editors to change the access of the report and invite new people to it ;
- Or preventing the ability to download the report or print it. Preventing the possibility to make a copy of the report at all.
All of these settings allow you to have control over the parameters and protect your report data in some way.
Now that the basics have been established and you’ve probably become quite familiar with the Google Data Studio interface, we can move on to actually creating your first dashboard.
2.2 How to create your first dashboard on Google Data Studio ?
Throughout this tutorial, we will create a simple dashboard based on the data of my Twaino site. And for that, we will use two native connectors of Google Data Studio:
- Google Analytics ;
- And Google Search Console.
Why did you choose these two data sources? Well, my Twaino site is essentially a blog, and as I had to mention a little bit above, a dashboard for a blog needs to understand visitor engagement.
In my field, Google Analytics and Google Search Console are undoubtedly among the most reliable tools to evaluate the performance of a blog.
And no matter which data sources you use to create a Google Data Studio report, the process is pretty much the same.
So whether you don’t have a blog or your business is in a different niche than mine, this tutorial will be just as useful.
But enough of the chitchat, let’s start without further ado with the first step:
2.2.1. Step 1: Connect to Google Data Studio and generate a blank report
In this first step, we will go to the official website of the tool and connect with our Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts.
To do this:
- Go to Google Data Studio;
- Click on “Use it for free”:
- Then enter the Gmail account corresponding to the accounts
Once the connection is successful, the creation of the report can begin.
In this tutorial, we will use a blank report template:
- Click on the “+” symbol:
- Then fill in your country and company name;
- Check the box for notices and terms of use and then click on “Continue”;
The configuration wizard will offer you a second panel to finalize the configuration.
- Check the “Yes” or “No” bullets to answer the questions and then click on the “Continue” button:
After the configuration, the tool will redirect you to the home page where you will have to start again, i.e. :
- Click the “+” symbol again to generate an empty report:
2.2.2. Step 2: Add a first data source
The tool will then offer you to add data sources.
As agreed for our dashboard, we will be satisfied with the Google Analytics and Google Search Console source accounts.
- So look for the Google Analytics connector, then click on it:
You will then need to authorize the connection to your Google Analytics account.
To do this click on the “Authorize” button:
Click on the “Authorize” button located in the pop-up window:
Once access is authorized, we can now choose the Google Analytics account as well as the property and view.
To do this:
- Choose the Google Analytics account you wish to use and then the corresponding Property and View;
- Then click on the “Add” and “Add to Report” buttons to finalize the addition of the data source to the report:
You have now added your first data source.
And as you can see, my Google Analytics data is indeed imported:
We can now move on to adding the second data source, but before doing so it is important to remember one important detail.
I would advise you to rename your dashboard at the same time at the risk of not recognizing it afterwards. The fact is that Google Data Studio works in automatic backup.
So without even defining a name, Google suggests a name for your dashboard by default. This name is not explicit enough and may be difficult to distinguish later.
To rename your report:
- Just click on the name to bring up the slider;
- Delete the old automatically generated name and enter a new name;
- Click outside the input field to save the name.
For our example, we won’t bother with a complicated name, “My Dashboard” will do:
2.2.3. Step 3: Add the second data source
To add a second data source, the procedure will not be the same with the first one since at least one source has already been added and the appearance of the screen has also changed.
To add this new data source:
- Click on the “Add Data” button located in the toolbar :
Or:
- Pull down the “Resources” module;
- Click on the “Manage New Data Sources” option:
You will be directed to a page where you can see our first source that has been added.
- Click on the “Add a data source” button to add a new one:
No matter which procedure you choose, you will be taken to the same page for adding connectors. But this time:
- Find the Google Search Console connector and then click on it to select it:
Just like when adding the Google Analytics connector,
- Also click on the “Allow” button to allow the addition of the Google Search Console connector:
- Then choose your site and a table. In this example, we will choose the option “Impression associated with the site” as a table;
- Click on the “Add” and “Add to Report” buttons to finalize the addition:*
As you can see, the number of our sources is effectively increased to 2:
2.2.4. Step 4: Adding the dashboard elements
Now that we have chosen and added the data sources we are interested in, we can start creating our dashboard.
To do this, Google Data Studio provides us with a graphic palette with several elements that we can use to enhance our dashboard.
These are, among others:
- Line graphs ;
- Pie charts;
- Tables ;
- Geographic maps;
- Scorecards;
- And much more.
2.2.4.1. Time series line graphs
The first element that we will insert into our dashboard is a time series line graph. The idea is to show in the report the traffic of the Twaino site over time.
To do this, we will :
- Click on the “Insert” button:
- Then choose the “Time series graph” option:
Automatically, the item you have chosen will be associated with your cursor.
- Click on an empty space in the report to add it or drag and drop it:
Once the graph is added, we will need to select the right data source so that the representative curve is in line with the data on our site.
Since the last data source we added was Google Search Console, our time graph loaded the Search Console data by default.
But what we want to show through this graph is the number of visitors registered on the site, and this metric is provided by Google Analytics.
To change the Search Console data, shown on the graph, into Google Analytics data, we will :
- Click once on the graph in question to select it.
The idea is to make this panel appear on our right:
- Next, pull down the list of data sources:
- And click on the Google Analytics source::
Indeed, we can notice that the shape of the curve has changed:
To refine this graph, you can:
- Unroll the “Dimension” field and choose the filter that suits you:
For our report, we will keep the “Date” filter.
Moreover, what is interesting with the time series line graph is that you can add several metrics, differentiated by sets of colors.
Here, for example, we will choose the metrics “Active users” and “New users”.
To do this,
- Scroll down the “Statistics” field and choose the “Active users” metric:
Indeed, we can notice that during working days, the number of active users who connect to the Twaino.com site is close to 20,000.
- Next, we click on “Add a statistic” to complete our second metric;
This time,
- We will choose the “New Users” metric:
As you can see, we now have two different colored curves on our graph.
2.2.4.2. Pie charts
We continue the creation of our dashboard, this time creating a pie chart to display the different sources of Twaino traffic.
To do this:
- Click on “Insert” and then on the “Pie Chart” option;
- Click on an empty space in the report to add the chart or drag and drop it:
- Click on an empty space in the report to add the graphic or drag and drop:
Just like what we saw when we added the line graph, the pie chart also extracts data by default.
But we’re going to change it again and show the sources that generate traffic for the Twaino site.
To do this, we will:
- Change the value of the “Dimension” field to “Source” and the value of the “Statistics” field to “New Users”.
On this pie chart, we can clearly see that Google represents the largest part with 85.2% of the pie share.
For the sake of interpretation, this would simply mean that almost all the traffic of the Twaino site comes from Google search results, organic traffic in other words.
Then comes direct traffic, traffic from social networks and a little bit from emailing, but no ads.
As an SEO agency, it seems normal to me not to pay for ads to improve my SEO to give the example that a 100% SEO approach can well achieve great performance on his site.
Going back to our Google Data Studio dashboard, you can have fun changing the style of each element you drag and drop.
To do this:
- Simply switch from the “Data” tab to “Styles” :
To illustrate this, we will change the style of our pie chart by cutting a “hole” in the middle.
To do this, simply adjust the hole using the scale at the bottom:
You can go even further by changing the colors, the style of the texts, the labels and many other things.
2.2.4.3. Data tables
Line graphs are an interesting element for reporting, but they do not provide the exact value of the metrics.
To overcome this problem, we are going to add a new element to our graph, a data table, right at the bottom of the line graph to help our audience to have a better understanding of the report.
To do this, remember the procedure:
- Click on the “Insert” button and drag and drop the “Data Table” element right below the line graph :
But this time, we can say that the new element we dropped loaded by default an absent Google Analytics metric, it would probably be the metrics related to advertising campaigns.
And as I had to say before, Twaino does not use any advertising strategy to generate its traffic.
As far as our data table is concerned, we will update it with data from the “Users” metric.
To do this, we will:
- Click once on the data table to select it;
- Then scroll down to the “Statistics” field and choose the “Users” option:
But this time, we can say that the new element we dropped loaded by default an absent Google Analytics metric, it would probably be the metrics related to advertising campaigns.
And as I had to say before, Twaino does not use any advertising strategy to generate its traffic.
As far as our data table is concerned, we will update it with data from the “Users” metric.
To do this, we will:
- Click once on the data table to select it;
- Then scroll down to the “Statistics” field and choose the “Users” option:
We can see that our table has been effectively updated. In addition, your stakeholders may want to compare the metrics recorded on today’s date to a later date to get an idea of the progress achieved.
And this is where the data table can be interesting since it allows you to display the data for a metric over a given date range with a percentage of progress or regression displayed at the bottom.
In our case, we will try to compare the number of visitors obtained on Twaino over a range of 30 days.
To do this:
- Unroll the “Comparison Period”* field;
- Define a date range and click on the “Apply” button;
You can notice that now our data table is completed with a small mention that takes a green color to designate a progression and a red color for a regression observed during the defined period.
Having several of these dashboards with different metrics on your report would make it even more interesting and this is what we will try to do with our example.
To do this, we will complete the following metrics:
- Page Views;
- Clicks;
- Average position ;
- Bounce rate;
Referring to the method we used to add and update the first table of data, you can repeat it to add other tables.
To go faster, it is possible to copy and paste the first table several times and just modify the data.
Now we will add one last element to our dashboard to make it a little more complete.
2.2.4.4. The tables
Tables are an interesting element when it comes to adding data lists to your report. Moreover, a table can be spread over several pages with a pagination system that makes it easier to read the data from one page to another.
For our example, we’ll add a table to take up about two-thirds of the large space below our first charts.
Also, as you may have noticed, right at the beginning of our report creation, Google Data Studio dropped in a default table to start customizing our report.
Well, now is the time to use this table, but if you didn’t get it on your screen, that’s okay, here’s the procedure to add it:
- Click the “Insert” button and drag and drop to add it to the report ;
Now we would like to organize our table so that we have:
- Pages;
- The number of clicks obtained on each of the pages;
- The entries;
- And the bounce rate.
To do this:
- Click on the table to select it;
- Then add the value “Page Title” in the “Dimension” field;
- And in chronological order, add the values “Clicks”, “Entries” and “Bounce Rate”.
Once these data are added, your table should update automatically.
Once these data are added, your table should update automatically.
We could stop adding items here, but why not complete one last table that pulls in queries from Search Console.
To do this, we’ll simply:
- Drag and drop a new table next to the previous one;
- Set Google Search Console as the data source;
- Choose the value “Query” for the “Dimension” field;
- And choose “Impressions” and “clicks” as values for the “Statistics” field:
Now we can say that our report is anything but empty. We can move on to the next step.
2.5. Étape 5: Ajouter un sélecteur de plage de dates
All of the items we have inserted so far on our dashboard are set to “Auto” as the default date. Technically, this would mean that most of the data that makes up our dashboard has been extracted over the last 28 days.
But what if you want to display values from a range of dates, other than those 28 days?
Well, Google has thought about that too and offers the “Date Range Selector” element that you can add just like all the other elements we have added so far:
- Click on “Insert” and then on “Date Range Selector”;
- Drag and drop onto your dashboard;
Once the date range filter has been added,
- Click on it to switch to display mode and define a date range:
- Apply the defined date range by clicking the “Apply” button :
As you can see, the data stored in the various added elements has been effectively updated:
Clearly, for our current report, we have defined a date range that has 30 days, so the comparison will be the 30 days before this range.
Google also offers you the possibility to change the appearance of the date picker by switching to the “Style” tab
Well our table is now more or less complete with the important features to present the performance of my site.
However, I find it less attractive for my taste, so we will take the last two steps especially to improve its appearance and make it more attractive.
2.6. Step 6: Inserting text headers and images
With a little hindsight, you will probably realize that our elements do not have a title. This can be a bit confusing for a newbie trying to read our dashboard.
Also, maybe you would like to add your brand logo to make it more “original” or a particular image more message to your audience. That’s why I thought it would be useful to show you how it all works.
2.6.1. Text Header
Adding a header on Google Data Studio is still pretty simple:
- Click the “Insert” button;
- Drag and drop the “Text” element;
- Enter a text to designate the header of an element;
You also have a “Text Property” section on your right to improve the appearance of your text:
2.6.2. Adding images
As previously mentioned, there are several reasons why you may want to add an image to your dashboard. The most common is to brand your company for more professionalism and visibility.
To add an image to your report:
- Click on the “Insert” button;
- Choose the “Images” item;
- Drag and drop to a location of your choice on the report;
- Click on the “Select File” button in the “Data” section;
- Browse your computer’s disk to choose the image you want to add to the report:
In our example, the image I added is a logo from my agency Twaino. I added a “Text” element with the words “Twaino SEO Agency” to remind me of my brand name.
I have to admit that the image didn’t fit well on the first try, I had to resize it several times. You can also resize your images to give them a good size.
Now let’s move on to the last step of this tutorial.
2.7. Step 7: Enhance the style
Google Data Studio gives us the ability to do great things with simple styling changes.
2.7.1. Global Styles
When you click in the blank on your report, the sidebar you will have on your right will be this one with the title “Theme and Update” :
This section allows you to control the overall structure and theme of the entire dashboard and all elements.
For your convenience, Google Data Studio offers a selection of several ready-made themes that you can quickly apply to your entire dashboard.
And even if you apply a theme, you can always add small tweaks to further refine it.
These are essentially small tweaks available in the “Layout” tab that you can make to the font and color of your text.
In addition, you have a chart palette to enhance the appearance of your charts.
The thing is, Google defaults to a color order when you add curves to your charts.
By default, here’s the order in which some colors are sequenced as you complete graphs on your report:
- Blue;
- Red;
- Green ;
- Etc.
Sometimes it can happen that these colors are not in harmony with your brand. In this case, it is important to change these colors to colors that fit well with your brand.
But when making these changes, don’t forget to use different colors to easily distinguish the graphs in your report.
You also have the option to change the background color of your dashboard as well as the borders.
Finally, you can also control the size of the canvas to adjust the whole dashboard.
I would recommend 16:9 if you want to present your report on a wide screen. In any case, you have several tools at your disposal to adapt all the elements of your report to the size of your choice.
To access these tools, click on the “Customize” button:
Google Data Studio will then offer you a wide range of tools that you can try as you wish:
2.7.2. Element styles
Even if you can change the global style of your dashboard, it is also possible to adjust the style of each added element.
By default, each element inherits the global style of the dashboard, and it is up to you to modify this style on each element if you consider it necessary.
It should also be said that most elements have a few elements dedicated specifically to modifying their style.
For example, we have the dashboards which offer the possibility to assign a color to the lines and another to the headers.
Or the pie charts that allow you to control the shape of the legend. In short, each element has its own styles that you can explore and make beautiful designs.
2.7.3. The makeover
At this point, we can say that our dashboard has all the important data that we wanted to display to reflect the engagement of our visitors and the performance gained on the Twaino.com site.
Finally, I feel that our dashboard needs a little bit of a makeover to be truly presentation-ready.
Here is the current version of our report:
But after the makeover, this is what we have:
2.3. Use a Google Data Studio template to create your reports
You also have the possibility to create your reports from predefined templates to go faster.
To do this:
- Go back to the home page of the tool and click “Template Gallery” :
- Choose a template of your choice and click on it;
- The template will load, click on the “Use Template” button in the upper right corner to use it;
You will then be prompted to select a source or sources you wish to use:
- Once, the data source(s) have been selected, click on the “Copy Report” button.
The tool will then generate a copy of the template with your own data that you can modify:
You can refer to the different sections previously discussed to customize the chosen template and don’t forget to rename it
Conclusion
Our tutorial is coming to an end, if you have successfully completed all the steps presented so far, then you have just created your first Google Data Studio report and I congratulate you.
With a little practice, all this will become easier and you will be able to create even more attractive reports than what we have just created together.
As you may have noticed yourself, Google Data Studio is a handy tool with some interesting features that I encourage you to explore.
If this tutorial has helped you, please let me know in the comments, or if you have encountered difficulties at any point in the process, please let me know in the comments as well.
I will be happy to help you.
Thanks and see you soon!
