As a marketing analyst, you know the power of data-driven insights. Looker Studio, formerly Google Data Studio, provides a robust platform to visualize your marketing data, uncover key trends, and share impactful reports with your team.
In the Business Intelligence category, Looker Studio has a market share of about 3.1%. However, with so many features and capabilities, it can be easy to miss some of the more advanced functionality. This article provides a few hacks to take your Looker Studio skills to the next level and become a power user.
Custom Calculations and Metrics in Looker Studio
To gain deeper insights from your data in Looker Studio, you can create custom calculations and metrics. These allow you to analyze your data in new ways that the default metrics do not cover.
You have two options for creating new metrics:
Calculated fields - Compute a new metric from existing metrics, dimensions, and constants in your data. For example, you can calculate the conversion rate as Conversions / Sessions.
Custom SQL - Write SQL queries to pull new metrics directly from your data source. This option provides the most flexibility but requires SQL knowledge.
Using custom metrics, you can gain valuable insights, such as:
● Conversion rate by traffic source to optimize marketing spend.
● Average order value to analyze purchasing trends.
● Churn rate to evaluate customer retention.
● Cost per acquisition to calculate ROI on campaigns.
Advanced Dashboard Features to Improve User Experience
To provide an optimal user experience, employ some of Looker Studio’s advanced features in your dashboard design.
Customized Tooltips
Tooltips are notes that appear when a user hovers their cursor over a dashboard element. You can create customized tooltips to provide helpful details, descriptions or insights. For example, you might include one on a metric to explain how it's calculated or the data source.
URL Filters
URL filters allow users to dynamically filter dashboard data by entering a URL. For instance, you can create a URL filter for a web page so that when a user enters a page URL, the dashboard filters to show data only for that page. This makes dashboards highly interactive and useful for analyzing specific pages or content.
Conditional Formatting
Apply conditional formatting to highlight important insights or outliers in your data. You can set conditions like "if greater than" or "if in the top 10" and choose custom formatting like changing the text color, adding an icon, or applying a color scale. Conditional formatting helps draw attention to significant values, trends, and anomalies in your data that users might otherwise miss.
Integrating Other Data Sources for a Complete 360 View
Integrating additional data sources into Google Looker Studio can provide a 360-degree view of your marketing data and unlock valuable insights. By connecting this tool to your other data platforms, you gain a comprehensive understanding of how your marketing strategies are impacting key metrics across channels.
Connect to Additional Google Products
If you use Google Ads, Google Analytics, YouTube, or Search Console, connect these data sources to Looker Studio for a complete view of your Google product data. Under the “Connect a new data source” option, select the Google product you want to connect and authorize Looker Studio to access your account. Your data will then appear as a new data source, which you can then add to your reports.
Bring in Third-Party Data
Looker Studio also integrates with many popular third-party tools like Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, Mailchimp, and more. Follow the same process to connect these external data sources by selecting the data platform under “Connect a new data source” and entering your account credentials. These additional data sources will provide metrics on how your marketing strategies on other channels are impacting your key audiences.
Custom Data Connectors
For data sources not natively integrated into Looker Studio, you may need to build a custom data connector. Data connectors are simple apps that let you pull data from a source into Looker Studio. You'll need to work with a developer to build custom data connectors. They require technical skills like API usage, data extraction, and OAuth implementation. However, custom connectors open up Looker Studio to almost any data source with an API.
Final Thoughts
Whether you're an independent consultant or an in-house analyst, you know how important data-driven insights are to success. It’s no surprise that around 17% of companies utilize this tool predominantly within the marketing sector. With advanced features like calculated fields and custom formatting, you'll uncover hidden trends, shape strategies, and become invaluable to your organization. The future of marketing lies in data, so keep honing your craft.
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