To perform and make good decisions for your business, you need to know and have access to your data. Don’t waste more time to find them, Looker Studio allows you to connect and visualize easily all your data.
In this tutorial, we will see how to set up a beautiful dashboard in Looker Studio.
Looker Studio, also known as Google Data Studio or Google Looker Studio, is a free Google platform for data visualization that allows you to create beautiful reports easily with data from multiple other platforms. Looker Studio also allows you to blend various data sources and to bring all your important data in one place.
Once you have created your account on Looker Studio, you will access this interface:
The main elements you'll use are the following:
In this lesson, we’ll show you how to obtain the following dashboard:
Before anything and to create a good and intuitive dashboard, you may answer some questions:
We advise you to list the dimensions and metrics you have to use and classify them.
Example:
Metrics used: Spend, click, impressions.
Dimensions used: Date, Platform, age, gender.
To classify these data, you should add the global information on the first page and make one page per category: 1 for the information about customers and another for the information about the platform.
So, you will know which data you need, what you want to highlight, and how you will organize your report. Now you can start creating!
ℹ️ On Looker Studio, you can find two types of data: dimensions and metrics.
Dimensions: qualitative data is used to describe and classify data. They are often in text format.
Metrics: quantitative data that allow dimensions to be measured.
Let’s start to add a data source. For that, click on the "create" button on the top left, then “data source”:
ℹ️ When you start with a data source (instead of a report), the connected source will be available for all your future reports.
Now, you can choose the source you want. For this example, we use the Facebook Ads Catchr’s connector. For that, research “Catchr” and select “Facebook Ads”:
ℹ️ Actually, Google Looker Studio suggests 24 basic connectors, but you can use partner connectors to access a large choice of data sources. Discover all Catchr’s connectors.
Then, authorize the connector to access to your data:
A Google connection page will appear. Connect using the email address associated with your Catchr account.
Then, you can go back to your Looker Studio page and repeat the same process to authorize access to Facebook ads data.
A window to the Catchr application will open. Wait until it has finished loading (it may take 2 minutes) and click on “continue”:
When it’s done, you can close the previous tab and return to Looker Studio. Now, you’re on this view:
Choose your Facebook Ads account and the options you want. You could create your report from a template by ticking the box at the bottom.
Then you can click on the "connect" button on the top right.
Now, you can change the field type and the aggregation.
For example, you can choose the currency type for the spend field:
Don't worry if you want to change the type and aggregation later, you can do it at any time!
ℹ️ You can also transform a number in percentage or duration, and transform a URL in image. Read more about changing data type on Looker Studio.
When it’s done, you click on the "create a report" button on the top right.
In the end, you should have the following view:
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To rename your Looker Studio report, click on the name on the top left, currently named “Untitled report”. You can also delete the default chart.
On this view, you can find multiple elements, such as:
To visualize the data, you will use charts.
There are 17 types of charts:
The choice of charts depends on what you want to highlight and the data used.
To add a new chart to your report, you can click on the "add a chart" button and select the chart you want by clicking on:
For example, we choose the scorecard with compact numbers.
You can change metrics and dimensions by dragging and dropping from data to chart information:
In this report, we want to have total advertising spend, so we drag and drop the spend data in the metrics place.
You can also add a time series. With these charts, you will be able to compare 2 or more metrics over time.
Moreover, checking the “Drill down” option, allows you to visualize your time series by month, quarter, or year.
Here we choose a pie chart to highlight the advertising spend relative to the publisher platform.
After all, we discovered that this chart doesn't provide enough information, so we want to modify it while retaining the same dimensions and metrics.
To change the chart, click on the chart and then select "chart" on the right. Choose a new chart type, such as a bar chart.
Now, you can easily add scorecards, time series, pie, and bar charts, and modify them without altering the dimensions and metrics.
Maybe you want to know the spend for a period or one specific publisher platform, so controls are made for you.
Various controls are available to improve the precision of your dashboard and allow you to filter some information:
Now that you're familiar with the different possibilities offered by controls, let's see how to add them to a page and apply them to the whole report.
Let’s click on the "add a control" button and select a control. For this tutorial, we will use “Date range control”:
By clicking on it, you can choose a date range!
If you want to create a report with multiple pages, You'll probably want your controls to appear on all your pages and follow the same conditions.
To do that, right-click on your control and click on “make a report-level”:
Now, when you add a page, your control will appear in the same place. If you move it on a page, it will move on the others too.
Then, if you want to apply the same filter on all your date range controls, choose a date range on one page, and will be the same on the others!
ℹ️ You can also use right-click and “make a report-level” on charts and design elements.
Now you have the charts and controls you need. Your report could end here, but you want to make it more reader-friendly and adapt it to your corporate or customer colors.
Google Looker Studio suggests some themes, you can see them in the top menu by clicking on the "theme and layout" button:
You can choose one of them or customize yours. For that, click on the "customise" button.
There are various elements that you can change, don’t hesitate to test and modify them!
Finally, you can “Extract theme from image” (bottom right) and let Looker Studio suggest themes based on your image.
You've probably noticed the "layout" tab next to "theme". This allows you to adjust the position of the navigation window, the size of your pages, or even display grids on it.
Looker Studio allows you to customize charts individually.
Click on a chart, and style tab at the right:
Here, you can:
After modifying charts, you can copy and paste the style on others.
ℹ️ The appearance of all graphics can be modified.
To make a report easier to understand, you need to add headings and give context to the data.
For that, you have two options:
After that, you can personalize the text:
You'll probably want to add some shapes, to highlight specific elements for example, or give your report more color.
Shapes are available by clicking on the square or line button in the main menu:
Then, place the shape where you want it. In this example, we're adding a line and a rectangle.
ℹ️ A content is masked by another? You can right-click on your shape, then order, and bring or send to the back or forward.
At the end, adding images is possible.
Click on the image button, and select the method to import.
Choose your image and place it on your page. You can also adjust its size.
ℹ️ You also can drag and drop images directly on your report.
Now you've finished your report and want to share it!
You can check our article about sharing a Looker Studio.
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