With Google Data Studio, anyone can create custom dashboards that integrate data from multiple sources, such as Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Search Console, and other Google products. These are referred to as connectors, or data sources, plugins, integrations, etc.
Furthermore, third-party connectors will pull from other platforms such as Microsoft Ads, Facebook Ads, Linkedin, Twitter, and more.
Six easy steps to create a Google Data Studio dashboard
In this guide, we will explain step by step how to create a dashboard to have an overview of website traffic. We will be using two Data Studio connectors, Google Analytics and Google Ads for this dashboard.
Example of our dashboard:
Step 1. Log in and create a new report
To start, go to datastudio.google.com and sign in with the account which should be the same account as the Google Analytics & Google Search Console you want to create the dashboard for.
Log in to Google Data Studio with your Google Analytics account.
Now that you have signed in and accepted any Terms of Service notices, we are ready to create our blank report. Choose "Blank Report" for the report template and click "+.". You can choose from other pre-built templates, but we will create a blank report for this example.
Set up a blank dashboard.
You can name your dashboard so you can find it easily, and Google will automatically save your dashboard as you use it.
Step 2: Connect Data Sources
For this dashboard, we will use two data sources, Google Analytics & Google Ads.
First, click on the “Add data” button.
Find the Google Analytics connector and select it. As you will see, there are many other connectors available. All these data sources can be used in a report. But for now, we will stick with our current dashboard.
Select Google Analytics and authorize the connection.
After selecting Google Analytics, we must select the property and then the view. This should be the main view that you use when viewing your data in Google Analytics.
To finish this step, click the “Add” button to connect to this data source.
Click on “ADD TO REPORT” button.
Congratulations, you have added your first data source.
Now we can edit fields and add calculated fields if needed. Currently, all the fields for our dashboard are set up correctly.
Now, let’s add another data source - Google Ads.
Again, we click on the “Add Data” button, select Google Ads, and authorize the connection. Next, we choose our account and click the “Add” and “ADD TO REPORT” button.
To see our data sources we just click on “Resource”, and then “Manage added data sources”.
We can see that both of our data sources have been added.
Notice that data sources can be added from this window as well.
We can rename our Google Analytics source from “1 Master View” to something like “Demo Google Analytics”, by clicking on “EDIT” and changing the data source name in the upper left corner.
Step 3: Inserting Elements
Now that all our data sources have been set up, it's time to build out our dashboard. The Google Data Studio package includes several types of elements that can be inserted into your report, such as line graphs, pie charts, tables, geographies, scorecards, scatter charts, and more.
You can add your elements to a dashboard by clicking on the “Insert” button and selecting the type of chart or table you wish to add.
Or by clicking on the “Add a Chart” button, and selecting the desired chart.
Line Graphs / Time Series
The first element we want to include in our dashboard is a time series line graph. Time series shows the performance of a metric over time. As such, we should add a time dimension (e.g. date, month, day of the week), along with a metric. We can do this by clicking on the time series element and dragging a graph into the top left half of the dashboard.
The next step is to select the data source, dimensions, and metrics.
We'll start by selecting a data source. You may find that your graph defaults to Google Ads because that was the last data source we added. We can change this by clicking on the data source in the panel on the right of the dashboard and choosing Google Analytics to be our data source.
To represent our time dimension, we will have to segment this data by date. You may browse other options if you wish. We will use "Date" in this example dashboard.
This type of graph allows you to use multiple metrics, which will show up as different colored lines on the line graph. Let's choose "Users" and "Unique New Users" for our example.
Take note of the line graph in your dashboard as you choose these dimensions. You will see your changes immediately reflected on the graph.
Let’s add another time series chart to show the “Goal Conversion Rate”. Set dimensions and metrics.
And there we have it.
Pie Charts
A pie chart may be used to visualize the acquisition channels. In the blank space below the graph charts we created earlier we will add our pie chart.
The pie chart will be automatically populated with default dimensions and metrics. In order to reflect our top acquisition channels, we must update these. Just set your metric to "Users" and change your dimension to "Default Channel Grouping".
Adding elements to your dashboard also allows you to play with their styles. So, we go to the "Style" section from the "Data" section.
You can style your elements in any way you like. Edit the colors, the text, the labels, and more. As an example, we created a pie chart with a "hole" in the middle.
Let’s change the layout of our dashboard and put all these charts in one row to have a better overview. Also, let’s move by dragging a pie chart on the left side.
Scorecards
Scorecards allow us to present raw metrics in an attractive manner. As an example, let's insert a scorecard element above our line graphs.
For this scorecard, we want to measure “Users”, Sessions” “Pageviews”, “Bounce Rate” and “Avg Time on Page”. So we will add all of these and select the metrics for each one.
If you want to speed up the process, you can create your first scorecard, style it, and then copy/paste the additional scorecards. By doing so, you are able to change the metric on these scorecards and have a more uniform appearance.
Most often you or your stakeholders will want to compare this metric to previous times. By selecting the previous period from the scorecard, we can easily compare the current period with the previous one. It shows what percent increase/decrease you had from the previous period.
Tables
Tables are the most effective way to embed lists of data. Tables can be scrolled and paginated. We will make a table to display acquisition, behavior, and conversions.
First, we will click on the “Insert” button and choose a table.
The next step is to set dimensions and metrics.
Here we can also add scorecards above the table so we can have a better overview of the acquisition and conversions that we are presenting in the table.
Column chart
Column charts are typically used to compare several items within a specified range of values. They can be vertical or horizontal. You can use column charts to compare one category of data with one or more sub-items. We will use a column chart to present engagement by age and gender.
Following the process described above, we will insert the bar and set the dimension to “Age”, the breakdown dimension to “Gender” and the metric to “Pageviews”.
Geo chart
Geographic charts allow you to see how a measurement differs across a particular area. In our dashboard, we will use a geo chart to display what are the top countries by session.
So let’s insert the geo chart and set the dimension to “Country” and metric to “Session”.
Here's a table of top-ranking countries so that we can see where the countries are at. We will set the metrics to “Sessions” and “Pageviews”, We can style our table and set the “Pageviews” column to be displayed as a bar chart.
Scatter chart
A scatter chart shows how data points are affected by each other along a horizontal and vertical axis. We will use it to show the relationship between the “Bounce Rate” and “Sessions”, by the “Affinity Category”.
Let’s also add the table below this chart.
Step 4: Apply a date range filter
At this point, all the elements added to our dashboard use "Auto" as the date. When this is initially pulled, it shows the data from the last 28 days, but we can adjust it to show us data from a different period of time.
Data Studio offers a feature known as the "Date Range" filter. The same method is used to add this element. From the menu bar, select the date range filter and drag it to the desired place.
You can now switch to view mode and see the filter in action. A date range can be selected for your dashboard here.
Any comparison elements you select to compare to the previous period, including scorecards, will compare whatever date range you select to that period. As an example, if your date range has 60 days, the comparison will include 60 days before that date range.
There is also an option to set a default date range in the "Data" tab. The default setting is usually the last 30 days. The date selector popup can also be customized via the “Style” tab.
Step 5: Adding Text Headers and Images
Having added elements, you probably noticed that there were no headings. This can be a bit confusing for users. We may also wish to incorporate some branding or images to help users understand our newly created dashboard.
Text Headers
Text headers can be added very easily with Google Data Studio's "Text" element. You can insert text by selecting "Text" from the dropdown menu. To create the desired look, we can change the size, color, and font weight in the text properties.
Inserting Images
Adding an image to a dashboard might be useful for several reasons. Business owners usually include their company logo.
On the "Data" tab, select the "Select a file" button. Then drag a box to your dashboard. Select the image you wish to upload from your computer.
Our company logo has been added to this report, for example. Images on your dashboard can be resized or moved around.
Step 6: Formatting
We have all the data we need to see, but our dashboard does not look very appealing. Google Data Studio allows you to make very simple style edits.
Global Styles
Normally, the Layout and Theme sidebar appears if no elements are selected. Our dashboard and all elements of it can be customized in this sidebar.
Under the theme tab, we can click on Customize and edit the theme,and after that we can edit:
Primary styles where we can change the background of the whole dashboard and primary text styles, as well as borders.
In Accent styles we can change the background color and text style of each component.
Textbox styles allows us to change the background of your text components, and also you can customize link color and visited link color.
Data styles include a chart palette, which represents the order of colors used across all charts. Every theme has its own default colors. The theme we are using for our dashboard has blue, red, yellow, green, etc. Our dashboard pie chart uses these same colors but in descending order. If you have brand colors, you might want to change them to your brands. Just ensure the colors are different enough to let you know which colors represent which data.
Last but not least, canvas size is under layout. Depending on your needs, your dashboard can be scaled to any size you require. The dimensions can be changed to fit all elements on one page or you can select 16:9 to use it on a widescreen TV.
Element Styles
With Google Data Studio, you can customize each element's style. Each element will be styled based on the global styles, but you can even override them.
A large number of elements also contain additional elements that can be styled. You can change the color of the alternating rows and the header of a table, for instance. Using pie charts, you can change the alignment and position of the legend. Styles vary from element to element. Take your time to explore each element.
Time for redesign
OK, so we've built our dashboard, we've added the data, we've learned a bit about styling, and now it's time to make our dashboard look good. Your dashboard is yours, so make it unique to you. Here is what our before and after looked like when we applied our branding.
