We all know that visualizing data can make it easier to understand, share, and explore. But creating the right chart for the right scenario isn’t always easy.
You might not know what visual representation is most effective when working with your data. And if you don’t have a design background, it can feel like an uphill battle to create engaging charts that help you communicate complex ideas.
Thankfully, Looker Studio is here to help! This article will walk you through how to create charts on Looker Studio.
Before we start, did you know you can create marketing reports in less than 5 minutes using any of our report templates?
Yeah, you read that right. Our report templates have been proven to capture the right metrics to impress your clients and bosses.
Best part? They are all free. So, visit our templates gallery to make your free report today. With that out, let’s learn how to create charts on Looker Studio.
Types of Charts
Before we proceed, Let’s know what’s possible with Looker Studio. What kinds of charts can you truly create with Looker Studio? Let’s examine them.
1. Scorecard
A scorecard represents your data project’s key results, KPIs, and other metrics. It can visualize progress over time and provide a quick snapshot of key indicators.
To create a scorecard on Looker Studio, click “add a chart on your dashboard.” On the dropdown menu, click scorecard.
You can easily change the dimensions or metrics you want to be visualized with scorecards.
2. Bar Chart
Bar charts display data similar to graphs. They are used to compare the relationship between two or more variables using rectangular bars, as shown below.
On Looker Studio, there are different types of bar charts that can be used to visualize your data. Let’s examine each of them.
1. Column chart
This is exactly like the chart you saw above. They are the simplest type of bar charts. They compare the relationship between two variables.
2. Stacked column chart
The stacked column chart works similarly to the column chart. The difference is that you compare data points or variables for a stacked column chart. In this case, a series of bars are stacked on each other, as shown below.
3. 100% stacked column chart
Similar to the stacked column chart, all categories on each column equal 100%. That’s the key difference between a stacked column chart and a 100% stacked column chart. Check out the chart below.
This chart shows the relationship between page visits and countries from traffic. Each column for each page equals 100%. The 100% stacked column chart helps identify top-performing metrics on the spot on bar charts.
From this chart, we can easily deduce that we have more views from the United States for almost all the page categories compared to other countries.
3. Area Chart
Area charts are used to see how your data trends over time. These charts allow you to visualize a single dimension and metric plotted over time.
On Looker Studio, there are three ways you can visualize data using area charts.
1. Area chart:
This is the simplest type of area chart. This chart is a variation of a line chart or time series chart. As shown below, it uses a shaded area to represent the volume of data represented in the chart.
The area charts help identify trends in your data and are commonly used for comparative analysis.
2. Stacked area charts:
This type of area chart has their dimensions values stacked one over the other, as shown below:
3. 100% stacked area charts:
Like the stacked area chart, they have their dimension values stacked over the other, but each category contributes to each dimension in terms of percentages.
4. Pie Chart
The next type of chart on Looker Studio is the pie chart. They are a popular means of visualizing data. Pie charts are circular charts that show the percentages of data represented in the chart.
On Looker Studio, pie charts are visualized in two ways; regular pie charts and donut pie charts.
This is a regular full pie chart.
This is the donut pie chart. These pie charts can be used to visualize your data as they give the same information about your data. So, if you’re thinking of which to use, feel free to use any of them.
5. Tables
This list wouldn’t be complete without tables. They are the most popular and straightforward method of data visualization.
Looker Studio allows you to create simple tables like the above and other complex types. For example, you can create a table with a heat map or bar chart.
This type of table takes tabular data visualization to the next level. The table below shows a table with a heat map;
This simple table shows the return on ad spending for hardware devices—the heat map visualizes devices with the highest ROAS to the lowest ROAS.
At a glance, we can easily spot the device with the least ROAS and not apportion lots of budget for that device. The table below is another way to visualize tabular data on Looker Studio;
This table has a bar chart that visualizes the same data- Device vs. ROAS. This time, the ROAS is visualized using a bar chart.
Just like the heat map example, we saw earlier, at a glance, we can quickly identify the devices that bring in good ROAS.
6. Time Series
Time series are used to visualize trends over a period of time. Looker Studio gives you options in using time series. The first option is the regular of the way as shown below;
Here, we can see how ROAS varies from September to November. Another way Looker Studio allows to use of time series is by creating a Sparkline time series as shown below;
Here, we kept the data consistent. The sparkline time series gives more profound insights into your trend at a glance. The next type of time series chart is the smoothed time series;
In this case, the trend isn’t represented by a sparkline; the lines are smoothed. There’s no rule as to which to use when creating your marketing reports.
You can use any of them to create your reports if it passes the intended message.
7. Line Chart
This is another type of simple chart found in Looker Studio. They are used to compare three or more variables.
You can create a line chart in four different ways. The first way is to create a simple line chart, as shown below;
Another way is the smoothed line chart;
You can also use a combo chart;
Or a stacked combo chart.
The line chart you choose to use depends on the type of data you want to visualize and to what degree.
8. Map Chart
Map charts are used in Looker Studio to visualize data across different locations. On Looker Studio, there are four types of map charts. The first one is the bubble map, as shown below;
This type of map chart uses bubbles to visualize data across various locations. The next type of map chart is a filled map. This map chart is very similar to the bubble map chart.
The difference is that instead of the use of bubbles to visualize, the filled map visually “fills” up dense data across various locations, as shown below;
The next type of Google map is the heat map. Here’s what it looks like below;
This map was created with Google analytics data. It shows the regions where conversions came from in a campaign.
9. Scatter Chart
If you’re a data analytics wiz, you should be familiar with scatter charts. They show the relationship between two variables by placing data points between them.
These data points are usually seen as bubbles scattered around the chart, hence, the name.
10. Bubble Chart
A bubble chart is a type of scatter chart. They are primarily used to determine if three variables share a pattern or are related.
11. Tree Map Chart
Treemaps are used to show hierarchical data on dashboards using nested rectangles.
12. Pivot Table
Pivot tables help summarizes your data in a condensed manner. They help you group your data so you can quickly draw reasonable inferences from them.
On Looker Studio, you can create the regular pivot table with bars and heat maps as shown below;
13. Bullet Chart
A bullet chart helps display a metric against a target. This thermometer-like chart displays several colour-coded columns.
14. Horizontal Bar Chart
This is a bar chart used to compare the relationship between two or more variables. Here’s an example below;
15. Geo Map
A geo-map visualizes a set of data across a geographical location. They are similar to Google maps on Looker Studio, except that you can drill down into smaller geographic regions with Geo maps.
Google Data Studio Chart Properties
Having learned about the different types of charts on Looker Studio, let’s learn chat properties. Chat properties give meaning to your reports. There are many of them, but let’s examine a few.
1. Adding Data
Before creating a chart on Looker Studio, you need data. You also need to connect your data to Looker Studio. This allows you to visualize every metric on your data source with ease.
2. Adding Source/Medium and Sessions
Depending on the type of data you want to visualize, you can add traffic sources, medium, and sessions if you’re visualizing Google Analytics data or Search Console.
3. Adding Date Ranges
Date ranges are essential in data visualization. If you want to visualize your data over a period of time via charts, a date range helps you achieve that.
4. Adding Filters
Filters are used to remove unnecessary data. They are also used to limit the types of information on your charts.
5. Adding Segments
Segments are vital when visualizing Google Analytics data. We can use segments to visualize different aspects of your audience. For Google Analytics data source, you can segment your chart by users, returning users, paid traffic, and organic traffic.
6. Adding Style
Styling is also another property of charts in Looker Studio. Styling is a simple term that defines how visually appealing your charts look. On Looker Studio, there are various customization options available to you.
How to Add a Chart on Data Studio
We’ve learned so much about charts on Looker Studio; let’s finally learn how to add a chart on Looker Studio.
The first step in creating a chart on Looker Studio is to connect your data source to Looker Studio. After connecting your data source, click “add a chart on your dashboard.”
Here, you are presented with the various types of charts we covered at the beginning of this article. We wouldn’t want to waste your time.
We will show you how to add about three of these chart types to your dashboard instead of doing all of them. For every other chart type, the process remains the same. Are you ready? Let’s go.
1. Adding a pie chart
To add a pie chart, click on pie chart on the drop-down after clicking “add a chart.”
You can add the full pie chart or the donut pie chart.
2. Adding a bar chart
Adding a bar chart follows a similar process. Click on “add a chart,” then choose a bar chart.
Depending on how you want to visualize your data, you can choose the stacked bar chart, 100% stacked bar chart or the stacked column chart.
3. Adding a Google Map
Google Maps are one of the types of charts that can be visualized on Looker Studio. There are four types of google maps on Looker Studio; the bubble map, filled map, heat map, and line map.
Adding these maps is easy and follows the same process explained above. Click “add a chart” on your dashboard and scroll to “Google maps.” Choose any of the map types to add to your dashboard.
Adding Controls To Your Charts On Data Studio
Controls let you change the data displayed on your dashboard. They act as filters on your dashboard. In this section, we’ll learn how to add controls to our charts.
1. Add a chart to the report.
If you don’t already have a chart on your dashboard, simply click “add a chart” on your dashboard menu and select any charts of your choice.
2. Add a control to the report.
The next step is to add a control, which is relatively easy. Click “add a control” on your dashboard menu. The drop-down menu shows a range of options available to you.
Looker Studio offers eight (8) controls that can be added to your report. They are;
- Drop-down list
- Fixed-size list
- Input box
- Advanced filter
- Slider
- Checkbox
- Date range control
- Data control.
To get further insights on how to set up controls, check out our article to learn how to set up filters and controls on your dashboard.
3. Switch the chart type
After adding a control to your report, you can visualize how your charts look by switching to another chart type without starting from scratch.
To do this, on the right-hand side of your dashboard, click “chart.”
The drop-down immediately displays all the chart types available on Looker Studio, as shown below;
Looker Studio adjusts the default dimensions and metrics depending on the chart type selected. All customizations made on the previous chart are preserved in the new chart.
Similarly, you can also switch between control types.
4. Add other components to the report.
Aside from charts and controls, you can add other components to your reports, like text, images, lines, rectangles, etc. These are simple ways to customize your reports and give them some branding.
5. Arrangement and layout options
After adding other components to your report, to further customize, you can change the layout, how different components are arranged on the report canvas, or even customize the theme and layout of your reports.
Clicking “themes and layout” on your dashboard gives you options to help further customize your report. We have a detailed guide on how to customize your Looker Studio reports. You should check it out.
Using Charts as Interactive Filters
The ability to make your reports and dashboards interactive is a crucial benefit of Data Studio. Your readers can drill down into interest segments by adding date range selectors and filter controls.
It’s easy to create an interactive filter from any table, geo map, bar chart, or scatterplot with just a few clicks. Here’s how:
1. Create a new chart
The first step in creating an interactive filter is to create a new chart. As explained throughout this article, this is easy to do.
2. Add data to reports
The next step is to add data to your reports. To do this, click “add data” on your dashboard. You can connect your Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and many more data sources using our connectors.
3. Add chart interaction
After adding your data source, under Chart setup, turn on “cross-filtering” under chart interactions.
4. Use the chart as a filter.
Turnin. g on cross-filtering on your charts makes it possible for other properties on your dashboard to display information about metrics you click on the chart.
Consider the dashboard below; it shows a bar chart and a table displaying the results of a Google ads campaign.
After applying the cross-filtering function on the bar chart, click on any campaign on the chart immediately shows me the results of that campaign on the table on the right as shown below;
If I had other charts on this dashboard, the filter would be applied to all of them. That’s how you make your charts and dashboard interactive.
Visualize Your Reports With Our Templates
We’ve spoken a lot about creating charts on Looked Studio. Like every other marketer, you already understand the need to create a detailed, interactive visual report for your clients or boss.
We’ve made it much easier to implement this advice by creating free report templates for you.
Yes, you can grab any of our templates and ready your marketing reports in 5 minutes. We have templates for virtually every use case.
You can use templates to create Facebook ads reports, Instagram insights, LinkedIn insights, TikTok, and many more.
It doesn’t end there; if you are willing to get your reports ready asap, we can set them up for you for FREE. Simply book a call with our customer success team, and you will be attended to immediately.
Conclusion
Visualizing your data can help you communicate your insights clearly with your audience. Consider your goals and how each chart relates to the audience when creating visualizations.
If you’re creating a report, ensure that the visualizations support the story and make sense. If you’re creating a chart, consider how it relates to the audience and supports the story.
Portermetrics is a powerful tool that can help you visualize your data and create charts that strongly impact your audience. Best part? You can create a report that truly stands out with our free templates today.
Get on board and book a call with our team to set up a report for you for FREE.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some questions we often get asked a lot about creating Looker Studio visualization
1. How do I connect Excel to Looker Studio?
To do this, click “add data” on your dashboard. Then select Google sheets as your data source. This imports the Google sheets data into Looker Studio.
2. How do you create a chart in Looker Studio?
This is easy. Create a new report on Looker Studio, connect to a data source, then click “add a chart” on your dashboard menu. Add any charts of your choice.
3. How can I make my chart more attractive?
To ensure your charts are attractive and not dull, ensure you create them with an end goal: to support the story you’re trying to portray through your report. Remove unnecessary axes, and ensure it’s straight to the point.
4. What chart type is the best?
No chart type is better than the other on Looker Studio. Yes, there are chart types that are generally used to visualize data, like tables, but it doesn’t make it the best.
The chart type you use should depend on the purpose of the report. The chart type you use should communicate the usefulness of the metrics you’re measuring. That’s how you create a report that your clients or bosses read.
