I’ve been experimenting with Google Data Studio and putting together interactive client reports. Data Studio is relatively new, so there are some limitations that present themselves when you are trying to replicate a particular Google Analytics report.
Date Range Control
One of the best parts about Data Studio reports is that the end user can control the date range. This means clients can look at their data in ways a static report could never show. This is great for seeing long term trends and seasonal statistics.
Customized Dashboard
Dashboard really is the best term to describe Data Studio Reports. I have a report set up to monitor several websites that show me basic metrics for a 3 day span. That’s right, you can gather data from multiple sources and combine them into one report.
Google Analytics
If you have access to a Google Analytics profile for a website or an app, you can connect to it as a Data Source. Google Analytics data sources have a lot of options, but they can’t do everything Google Analytics does. Most basic information and graph types are available.
Google Search Console
If you have a verified Google Search Console website profile, you can connect to it as a data source. Search Console data sources are far more limited the the Analytics sources, but then so is the Search Console itself.
Here is the list of Data Source option from Google Data Studio
- File Upload
- BigQuery
- Campaign Manager
- Cloud Spanner
- Cloud SQL for MySQL
- Display & Video 360
- Extract Data
- Google Ad Manager 360
- Google Ads
- Google Analytics
- Google Cloud Storage
- Google Sheets
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
- Search Ads 360
- Search Console
- YouTube Analytics
- TV Attribution