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Looker Studio

Looker Studio
Formerly Google Data Studio

Overview

What is Looker Studio?

Looker Studio is a data visualization platform that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.

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Recent Reviews

Best Analytical tool

8 out of 10
March 29, 2023
Incentivized
As data analysts, we have to create the report and dashboard in GDS. So, we have integrated some data sources like Google Analytics, …
Continue reading
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 15 features
  • Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.) (49)
    9.2
    92%
  • Customizable dashboards (50)
    9.1
    91%
  • Report sharing and collaboration (50)
    6.8
    68%
  • Report Formatting Templates (49)
    5.5
    55%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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N/A
Unavailable

What is Looker Studio?

Looker Studio is a data visualization platform that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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SAP Lumira Discovery is SAP’s data visualization and discovery application. It facilitates data discovery, visualization, and analysis by assisting users with creation of dashboards, infographics, presentations, data facets, tag clouds, and more.

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Features

BI Standard Reporting

Standard reporting means pre-built or canned reports available to users without having to create them.

7.6
Avg 8.4

Ad-hoc Reporting

Ad-Hoc Reports are reports built by the user to meet highly specific requirements.

6.5
Avg 8.0

Report Output and Scheduling

Ability to schedule and manager report output.

7.6
Avg 8.4

Data Discovery and Visualization

Data Discovery and Visualization is the analysis of multiple data sources in a search for patterns and outliers and the ability to represent the data visually.

8.8
Avg 8.2
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Product Details

What is Looker Studio?

Looker Studio, formerly Google Data Studio, is a data visualization platform from Google that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.

Looker Studio vs. Looker


Looker Studio is a part of Google's Looker Suite for business intelligence. Looker Studio is a self-serve BI solution where less technical users can create charts and reports, while Looker is a complete, enterprise BI platform, where technical users can build complex models that consider every aspect of the business. Looker Studio offers both free and pro versions, while Looker is not available for free.

Looker Studio Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo

Frequently Asked Questions

Looker Studio is a data visualization platform that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.

Reviewers rate Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization highest, with a score of 9.3.

The most common users of Looker Studio are from Small Businesses (1-50 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(267)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 51)
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Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using Looker Studio Pro for embedded Analytics. Looker Studio makes getting started with customized analytics really easy. It also has an incredible amount of features and tools to offer for advanced use cases. I started by connecting Google Sheets data, transitioned into connecting supermetrics, and 9 years later, I am still using Google Data Studio, now with big data from a Google Big Query warehouse. I love the fact that it utilizes an open canvas similar to PowerPoint or Slides. You can move charts, shapes, and images anywhere you want at the pixel level, and rearrange the order they display via send to back or front settings.
  • Open Canvas
  • Broad customizability
  • Expansive connectors
  • Drag and drop
  • Pro tier is still in the early stages. Support is lacking and unclear, even with the new paid plan with the SLA.
  • Needs better user management. IAM, SSO, etc for the embedded use case.
  • Needs more features to support embedding.
Does great at open canvas editing and letting you fully customize without the need for a grid. It is democratizing self-service no-code analytics. You do not need to be a data or analytics engineer to get started, and you can go very far based on how intuitive and straightforward the UI is.

Some of the biggest challenges with Looker Studio relate to user management/security, embedding options, and issue support. For a long time, every user needed to have a Gmail to invite them to view a dashboard via login, not sure if that has been improved yet. You can let any user view without logging in, but that is not always recommended due to security reasons. In terms of embedding, you can only iframe dashboards. More sophisticated BI tools let you embed elements via API or Javascript. Iframing dashboards also make drill downs and dashboard to dashboard navigation tricky/near impossible. There is also no ability to contact Google for support when bugs or outages happen. They point everyone to the Data Studio community. There is some ability to get in contact with Google if you have an enterprise-level contract with Google Cloud, but the path for support is very ad hoc and not always fruitful.
March 29, 2023

Best Analytical tool

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As data analysts, we have to create the report and dashboard in GDS. So, we have integrated some data sources like Google Analytics, Google Ads, FB Ads, Quickbooks, and others. I created many dashboards as per the requirement like costing, profit, marketing, sales, etc.
  • Visualization design of dashboards.
  • Integration with data sources
  • Smooth access of BigQuery
  • Creating aggregate function can be more smooth.
  • Data banding can be improve.
  • 3rd party integration of other data sources can be smooth and reliable.
I have to create ad expenses dashboard to get an idea of the spending and conversion rate. So, GDS has the template which was so smooth just need to connect my G Ads account, and boom all report is there.
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Google Data Studio is used to visualize data collected in Google Analytics and Airtable. We store lots of data through those platforms. However, they are not very useful for visualizing that data. Through simple script connections, Google Data Studio solves that problem.
  • Easy to learn interface
  • Versatile - able to select various colours and fonts
  • Various graph options for visualization
  • Easily refresh data
  • It can become laggy at times, especially when working on a larger data project for lengthier periods
  • I can't build graphs from scratch and easily choose which metrics to include
  • Blending different data sources is difficult
Google Data Studio is great for creating simple graphs out of larger datasets that are continuously being updated. It's not the best when you want to build highly specific graphs and manipulate the data exactly the way you want to. Although there are formula functions to help with this, it can be difficult and time-consuming for beginners. Excel is a simpler route in that case.
Artyom Ashigov | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I use Google Data Studio on daily basis. By using that we can figure out how many people use our systems, how many people want to play, how much they spend. We can easily do comparison analysis. We use all analytical metrics to provide it our managers to make a decision.
  • It is online service. You don't need to upload an application to use it and it's free.
  • It has many visualization tools.
  • You can use many data sources to connect your data with Data Studio. For example Google Analytics, Google Sheets are among most popular choices for users.
  • It is not that easy to learn Data Studio without tutorials and as I know Google don't have video lessons for Data Studio.
  • Sometimes Data Studio can't differentiate metrics from dimensions.
  • Charts sometimes don't work properly. You need to reload them again to fix errors.
When you want to create something really fast and meaningful Google Data Studio is one of the best choices you have. You can use different charts that will express your ideas in the best way. If you have a lot of time to prepare a project for management and if you have Power BI or Tableau, it is better to use one of these applications because they will offer you much more flexibility.
Mukul Saxena | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We used it for making Dashboards, reports to show to the management with a great impression, as its easy to read. Its feature of converting data collected from various connectors to the graphs is fantastic. It can be integrated with almost more than 300 connectors. Reports created in Crux forms looks visually good by using different type of graphs.
  • Data management
  • Calculations
  • Data visualization
  • Interactivity
  • Few functionalities are very exclusive only for data studio.
  • It's time taking to load data and at the same time only single Data source can be connected.
  • When editing the reports you have to switch between Edit and View mode to see how does the change looks like.
Editing the reports is little bit tricky or time consuming , as we have have to switch between Edit and View mode to see the effect of doing changes. So basically , it's not user friendly at making reports. Whereas on the other hand when it comes to integration , i think its really good as it provides more than 300 connectors, I haven't used all of them but it's a good option.
German Delgado | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I have not find any other product that can be as useful as this in an entry level of Business intelligence, this no cost, very easy to learn tool help me to develop new ways to see data to take decisions that help me improve my KPIs. It's not the most powerful tool but nevertheless it’s a first step into the Data Science World. Data Studio has opened my eyes into a new passion on data visualization and data science.
  • Data Visualization
  • KPI Tracking
  • Deccision Taking
  • Proccessing Power
  • Desing Tools
  • More types of charts or Graphs
Suited for situations that you have a lot of data bases, and a regular chart is not enough, also when you need to share reports and information with your team in a more efficient way. The possibility that each person can apply they’re on filters makes it more relevant to them, and this is a big deal, making the info relevant to user conducts to better understanding and better understanding leads to better decision.
November 04, 2021

Marketing Agency Employee

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are using the Google Data Studio in our marketing department to track analytics for our own digital marketing business and for a dozen of our clients. It helps us keep things organized, track progress, and provide our clients with data to track their marketing efforts.
  • Google Data connectors are simple
  • Visualisations
  • Syncing with other apps
  • Delayed updates in data
  • No excel support
  • No on-premise deployment
We use Google Data Studio for a lot of reports here at our marketing agency. It is easy to use and cloud-based. We use the google suite so the integration is helpful - google analytics, sheets, etc. Google Data Studio is also free which is a big plus as we are an agency that pays for multiple platforms.
Rafael Grandizoli | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Data Studio is used across some departments in the company to create dashboards and reports to help the team have insights and analyze performance from multiple advertising campaigns. In a quick and easy way, any of our users can access the data and create charts, tables and compose dashboards for their work.
  • Simple data integration from files.
  • Create calculated fields using data (for metrics).
  • Plot charts and tables quickly.
  • Organize everything in a dashboard.
  • Easy sharing.
  • Data preparation.
  • Custom integrations.
  • Combine sources with recurrent process.
For a daily basis use, Google Data Studio can provide almost everything you need to generate a simple data visualization that can be easily updated (with an automated integration or manually). It can help create a basic BI analytics dashboard, but not complex ones since it would need more development skills.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Data Studio is being used to produce reports and dashboards for use across the entire organization. We have a large number of applications on which metrics must be reported. As a Google Premier customer, Google Data Studio was the logical choice as it provides the reports and dashboards we need in a cost-effective way.
  • Charting
  • Multiple data sources
  • reporting
  • Scheduled transmission of reports
  • It's reporting and dash-boarding lacks the interactivity of Tableau.
  • As a developer, I find the layout and formatting options somewhat limited.
  • It is somewhat difficult to organization reports and dashboards into folders.
  • There seems to be no integration with any external source control provider.
  • Multiple data sources
  • Custom SQL
  • Visual interface for joining tables
  • Ample variety of charts
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
The Google Data Studio platform provides us with the ability to perform simple analytics on various datasets in order to discover trends and present that data to management in a simple, easy-to-understand format. While first party connector support may be limited, the ability to use CSV files as an interchange format allows us to cover most systems from time and attendance to simple excel exports.
  • Ease of use
  • User interface / look-and-feel of reports
  • Pricing (has a free option)
  • CSV file support minimizes barriers to entry
  • First party connector support can be improved
  • Complex visualizations / datasets may not be possible
  • Cannot be used on-premise, which may cause issues with data compliance
Google Data Studio is great for simple, on-demand analytics and visualizations. The user interface is intuitive enough so that you don't need to be a data scientist in order to get some useful info from your data sets. If you are comfortable with having to manually export and load a CSV file every time you run it in order to get fresh data, then it will work for you - even better if you already use Google's platforms or one of the other supported connectors such as MySQL. However, the cloud-only option means that data compliance requirements will need to be taken into consideration.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Data Studio is an awesome tool with great graphics that we use to visualize data for client reports. Our whole organization uses this tool to some extent. We love that it is a free data visualization tool.
  • I love that this tool is free.
  • The reports and dashboards are very customizable.
  • Pivot tables and combinations are easy.
  • The platform can be slow at times.
  • There can be bugs.
  • Setting it up initially can be a little tough.
Google Data Studio is free so almost any company can use it and benefit from it.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Data Studio is used across departments at our company. We have daily active users within Operations, AdOps, Product, Engineering, IT, and various Business teams. Self-service GDS dashboards are used extensively for reporting and analysis of various KPIs. We also utilize GDS for email reports. Dashboards are also shared externally with partners. GDS is easy to use for standard and ad-hoc reporting and BI insights and analysis to understand trends and performance.
  • Self-service
  • Easy to use, point and click
  • Little to no training required
  • Easy to share internally and externally
  • Rich visualizations
  • Canned reports
  • Easy to copy/paste/dupe existing reports
  • Ability to join data sets
  • Easy integration with various data sources
  • Flexible data integrations, including lowest common denominator (CSV, XLS, G-Sheets)
  • Wide range of APIs
  • Secure / authentication via Google SSO
  • Easy to share / re-assign ownership of reports and data sources
  • Limited data joining / merge options
  • Limited ETL
  • Limited calculations / regex configs
  • Limited data labels and presentation reporting settings vs. alternatives
  • Can be slow to update (dreaded "GDS is not available, please try later")
Pros:
-Cost
-Easy to use
-Self-service
-Flexible visualizations out of the box
-Data sources, plug & play
-Easy to share (internal and externally)
-Easy to export and import data
-Easy to clone, edit, manage dashboards

Cons:
-Can be slow / not reliable
-Date ranges and sorting defaults can sometimes get messy
-Data joins/mergers can be challenging
-Limited to joining 5 different data sources
-Some quirky limitations on UI, labels
-Getting help / support can be a challenge from Google, generally on your own


Akhilesh Arya | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Create robust and interactive marketing dashboard for free using Google Data Studio. It makes data visualization better with the help of graphs and charts. Easy GUI makes it more user friendly.
And live data connectivity provide you the feature where you can connect to real time data though this feature is slow and the refresh rate is slow but its there.
  • This platform is free.
  • Can connect to verity of databases easily.
  • Live data connection is one of the most powerful feature which is not there in other BI tools.
  • Data range filter settings are amazing.
  • Excel can not be imported you have to convert it into csv file before use.
  • On premise deployment facility is not available.
  • Cannot handle complex relationships between datasets.
If your architecture is based on Google services, [Google Data Studio] is the best tool to use. Also if you are not dealing with complex data analysis.
Tegan Jenner | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Data Studio is being utilized by our media and analytics departments. There are 3 users in our office that are fluent in using this tool. Together, we create reports for our clients to summarize performance. The reports (in view-only mode) are shared with our clients so they have an interactive way to look through reporting. Having the reporting be interactive is where the real value comes from --versus static reports like PDFs or Excel files with a finite period of data available.
  • Extremely customizable. From colors to font sizes to adding images, you can make your reports look like they were specifically created for your clients.
  • Constantly innovating. In the year that I have been using GDS they have released lots of new features, and it seems like they really listen to the user feedback through the customer service portal.
  • Data source flexibility. You can use Excel files, Google Sheets, CSV, etc.
  • Ease of onboarding. If you are familiar with Microsoft Excel, it was really intuitive to pick up without a long period of onboarding/watching tutorials.
  • Once data files start getting large, it can be finicky. We currently don't have a database solution set up to use, and have been trying to use Google Sheets as our data sources, but once the Google Sheet files get large, it can affect the quality of the Google Data Studio report
  • This is still a relatively new product, so there are several little bugs you will find while using it. You just have to be patient and wait for the product team to fix the issues.
  • Some of the visualizations are limited. Once you get used to the full power of a tool like Excel, you run into occasions where GDS is missing a specific visualization feature you are used to seeing in Excel.
It's well suited if you have a report that you want to automatically refresh with new data. I.e. if you have a monthly report, in the same format from month to month, you can keep appending new data to your source data file, and refresh the report with minimal effort. This also allows you to collect historical data too, so you can always reference previous time periods, or change the date range of your report to answer any historical performance question that comes up.
April 29, 2021

Easy and Free to use

Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Data Studio allows me to pull all the information from my Google Analytics and Google Ads and create simple reports. What I love most is that I can visualize my results on Google Data Studio. This makes sharing reports to teammates super easy. There are many templates on Google Data Studio that makes this very easy.
  • Pull all the data I need from Google Analytics
  • Visualize the information to create beautiful reports
  • I can easily share reports with teammates
  • I wish there were more templates to choose from
  • I wish it was easier to pull information from other sources
  • I wish there was more syncing with our ecommerce platform
Google Data Studio is really great for anyone who needs help understanding and communicating the information on Google Analytics concisely. If you are a small business that needs to do weekly reporting on website performance or website sales, Google Data Studio makes this super easy to do with your teammates.
Christopher Penn | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Google Data Studio is used both inside our organization and on behalf of clients. It's our primary reporting and visualization tool, and the primary method we communicate data to clients. Because of its robust integration capabilities and ease of use, it's our first go-to for any basic data visualization from cloud-based data.
  • Free.
  • Easy to use, like the rest of Google Docs.
  • Integrates with hundreds of data sources.
  • Calculated fields are clumsy.
  • No variables/data storage.
  • Not a BI/computational tool, visualization only.
Google Data Studio is a visualization tool. It's mandatory for anyone using the Google Marketing Platform, especially Google Analytics 4. It's essential for low-cost, lightweight visualization applications where live data and reporting is needed.

Google Data Studio is not a BI tool. It doesn't pretend to be one either, but that means you need to carefully think through what kinds of data you're going to be visualizing, and doing that pre-processing BEFORE your data gets to Google Data Studio.
Scott Walker | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
[I used Google Data Studio to] create a dashboard for each of my clients that combines all their data sources (social, ad networks, Analytics, etc.) into one easy to read report for them. I download a PDF for them to view each month, but I also send the link to the dashboard in case they want to view it or play around with the metrics. I've found that many clients are often asking for updates on the performance of the campaigns or site performance, so giving them an easy one-stop-shop where they can find all their performance data is very convenient.
  • Easy to design/brand
  • Native data support for all Google products such as Adwords, Search Console, and Analytics
  • Constantly improving and growing
  • No native support for many outside sources like Facebook or Twitter (must build own or use third party software)
  • Many features that are available in Tableau or other dataviz solutions aren't available yet
  • Available templates aren't styled using default colors, so you have to update the color palette of each module by hand.
  • Data Score boxes are very limited in what they can report
[Google] Data Studio is a great tool for someone who is starting out with Dataviz software or doesn't have the budget to purchase Tableau or something more powerful. I personally like using it because the bulk of my data sources are Google related (adwords, analytics, search console, etc.). So the native support is very convenient.

If you have to pull a lot of CRM data or outside connectors, you'll need to build the API yourself or purchase a connector from a third party. If doing so, you may want to seriously look at the all-in costs of the software stack; you may find that other (more supported) dataviz programs will be worth the cost. This is especially true if your pulling from 5 or more sources or if you need to query large amounts of data. But, if you're a SMB or a small agency creating a value-added report for your clients, then Data Studio is definitely a great place to start!
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We make use of Google Data Studio in order to can insight into large amounts of statistical data we have stored in BigQuery. We run reports and generate some visualizations to allow people to better understand the data. This allows non-technical people to get the benefits of the data without too much trouble.
  • Ability to define reports.
  • Report against a large amount of data quickly.
  • Data visualizations.
  • More difficult for non-technical people to use.
  • It can be a little cumbersome to get everything setup and running.
  • The documentation could be a lot better.
Google Data Studio is best suited for bringing large amounts of data together and creating reports and visualizations in order to gain insights into what the data has to offer. It is easy to share dashboards and reports with other people so that they can access the insights without granting them access to the data.
April 27, 2021

Disappointing

Score 2 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We used Google Data Studio to create monthly reports for our clients. Since it's directly within Google, there aren't any issues with reliable data connections. It was a solution to creating monthly analytics reports that we could easily export for our clients.
  • Reliable connection to Google Analytics.
  • Various ways to display data.
  • Options for custom reports.
  • Takes a long time to set up.
  • Not user friendly.
  • Not enough template reports that are helpful.
I would not usually recommend Google Data Studio. There are a lot more user friendly options out there. But if they just want to create a quick dashboard type view for a few data points, Google Data Studio wouldn't be a bad option.
Janaye Steadman | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Google Data Studio to send our clients weekly and monthly analytics reports for their social media profiles. It has made this process significantly easier and less time-consuming since we are able to schedule the reports to send automatically.
  • Easy to schedule automatic emails
  • Completely customizable
  • Can connect to almost anything to pull data
  • Honestly Google Data Studio does really well. The improvements I would like to see have to do with connectors, not Google Data Studio itself.
For our purposes (sending and receiving consistent reports) it is perfect. We use it specifically for social media, and the only drawback is that I can't always pull all the data I want (for example, I wanted to know how many applications we had on Facebook, but this is not a metric provided by Facebook, therefore I couldn't put it in a Google Data Studio report either).
Jordan Comstock | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are in the beginning stages of implementing Google Data Studio. It is currently being used in the Marketing department. We have connected our google apps, Google Analytics, search console, Google Ads to Data Studio. In marketing, it is giving us automated reports from all of those sources. We can combine the data sources for great-looking dashboards. We have run into issues with adding our site database data to Data Studio, which has been a hang-up for us to fully implement the software across all departments.
  • Dashboards that combine data sources.
  • Customization with design and branding.
  • Easy to use interface. Simple to get started with.
  • This is an issue that our Dev team is dealing with, so I can't speak too much to it, but we have had issues integrating our database with GDS. Those issues have held us back from fully using GDS the way we wanted to.
  • Missing data can be a hassle to make look good on a dashboard.
  • Adoption has been slow across my team, they haven't seen the value the same way I do.
It is the best free tool for data visualizations. Especially if you stick to native google apps connecting to it. I've built some pretty looking data viz and it has helped us to automate marketing reporting.

It has been a hassle with external data sources. I know it has those capabilities, but setting it up hasn't been easy.
Omar Gutierrez | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
As a digital marketing agency, we use Data studio to give on-demand reports to our different customers. We created a template where they can log in and see every metric regarding their online activity and campaign performance. It has been very useful because we can generate quick reports with highlights of each website performance and each of our clients can go into more detail using their links to the data studio reports.
  • Reports on demand. My clients can log in at any moment and adjust parameters to see details on particular dates or periods of time.
  • Templates can be created very easily and with a lot of detail.
  • Connection to Google Ads is a very easy way to track campaign performance, by showing the most important metrics.
  • The amount of information you can add to the reports is great, you can go into as much detail as you need in regards to website online performance.
  • Connection to social media would be a great addition.
  • New GA4 uses different kinds of metrics or names to the same metrics, so it has been an issue when trying to use the same template for new customers.
  • Having a just view option for non-Gmail users would be very helpful so my clients can open the link and see the report even though they are not Gmail users.
I always share my experience with Data Studio with my colleagues as a useful tool to generate quick, useful, data-driven reports for their businesses and clients. I think that the platform is easy to use, either by using one of the basic templates or by creating a tailored report with the most important and relevant information for their businesses. Once you've created the report, the information is just a click away, which is a very useful way to keep track of the performance of any website.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use it for our Marketing reports, specifically for our Mobile Apps Reports and Google Analytics reports. We use this report to understand the Mobile App downloads (which country had more downloads, which app had more uninstalls, etc.) and Visitors information on our webpages. Currently we use it in our Marketing department and we are planning to implement in other departments soon.
  • Ease of use: All it takes to create a report is just drag and drop the features/tools and get the report instantly. One great advantage compared to other similar tools such as power bi or Tableau is sharing the report instantly.
  • Sharing the Report: You can share the report within your organization and outside the organization with just an URL. You don't need to be a Google user to open the report.
  • Embed the Report on a Sharepoint with just a code. Never thought it would be so easy.
  • Seamless connectivity with Google Products.
  • As this is a free tool, definitely you would miss some features when compared with other BI tools ( for example prediction capabilities etc).
Well Suited:
If you are an beginner in reporting and looking for a less cost or free tool, this is the tool you should go for.
If you are a person with non technical background, but still want to create a BI report.
If your data is less (or not very huge) and create a report instantly.
If you are an avid Google user.

Less Appropriate:
If you are an avid user of Power BI and Tableau and want to report with the same functionality on Google Data Studio.
If your database has millions of records, this tool is for small to medium datasets.




Natalie C. Winslow | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We use Google Data Studio to create reports for our clients using several data sources, including Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Facebook Insights, Facebook/Instagram Ads. It allows us to easily customize how we show the data from the various sources and allows us to filter, highlight, and customize the color palette.
  • Combines data sources into one report.
  • It's free.
  • Filtering is easy.
  • It's intuitive if you understand analytics and ads.
  • Allows you to send automated reports from your own email rather than from Google.
It's great for most of what we need to run reports on, but buying connectors could probably get expensive. If you need to connect more than five data sources, it might be cheaper to use another third-party Analytics reporting tool. However, in most cases, we find that it allows us to show data in various types of graphs and charts, and add our own color palette, logo, etc.
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
We are currently using it in our marketing department to visualize data from our websites.
We connected the platform with Google Analytics, so we are able to create graphs and dashboards super easily, compared to exporting the data and creating graphs in PowerPoint as it was done before. It allows us to focus on the data, rather than fetching the information.
  • General user friendliness of the platform.
  • Straight forward integration with Google Analytics - no table manipulations needed.
  • Easy to add filters on a page or graph level.
  • Integration with Facebook ads and LinkedIn ads is not super easy. We need to go through a third party tool.
  • Sometimes it takes time to load the data.
  • Doesn't work super well on all browsers - although never had issues using Chrome.
I actually recommended Google Data Studio to other departments in our company. I think it's a great tool to easily create visuals out of data from Google analytics. No major technical skills are needed.

I wouldn't say less appropriate, but maybe a bit harder to integrate with the ads platforms, we need to go through a third party.
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