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Google Data Studio is a data visualization platform that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.https://dudodiprj2sv7.cloudfront.net/product-logos/UJ/qe/B7ZFJ3A2EJWU.JPEGLooking for a FREE Data Visualization tool? Then Google Data Studio (P.S. Free For a Reason)Google Data Studio is our organization's current aggregate data visualization tool for all organic media (Instagram, Facebook), marketing analytics tools (Firebase, Google Analytics, Google Search Console), and other user information software (Cooper - CRM, PostgresSQL, Google Sheets). Our team's marketing department frequently looks at reports and dashboards to see leading and lagging KPIs across each platform. Google Data Studio allows us to view all our data sources in one location, track A/B multivariate tests with WoW and MoM data, and makes it easy to make decisions and conducts tests as the data is presented in an easy-to-consume format.,Pre-loaded Report Templates: Without a data visualization experience/training it's most likely difficult to set up the desired dashboard you envision. Fortunately, Google Data Studio offers pre-loaded reports for the most common data source connections. These common connections include: Google Ads, Firebase, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and more. They save a lot of time and are easy to substitute data variables. Being a remote company, it can be difficult to share in real-time... not with Google Data Studio. If our team is viewing the data on a call, we are able to update the dashboard in real-time and everyone is able to see the changes made without refreshing. Subsequently, as one user is able to change data parameters (dates, labels, etc) and the rest viewing the data are able to follow along. It can be difficult to get ideas how you should prepare your data - which KPIs should I include? In what order? Should I use a pie graph or bar chart? Thanks to Featured Data Studio reports I'm able to look at shared reports generated by others to get ideas on how to set up similar data.,While Google Data Studio has a resources (video tutorial) tab, it's very basic. The tutorials state navigational answers to exploring around the site, setting up data connections, and creating calculated fields. The videos are outdated 2016 and older and rarely dig into the actual building of reports and dashboards, especially with Google-owned products. In order to connect solutions outside Google's products such as 3rd party tools, you need to pay a subscription to a 3rd party service to connect the data. The two main companies (Supermetrics, Power My Analytics) help you connect these 3rd party tools through their subscription services. Notification of data connections being removed. On a few occasions, I will enter Google Data Studio only to find out there is missing data and that I need to reconnect a data source. While this doesn't happen too often it would be ideal to be notified so I can fix this right away rather than be notified by a team member that the connection is broken.,6,As of today Google Data Studio hasn't helped us make any earth-shattering data decisions. More or less, Google Data Studio has allowed us to save time by instead of switching between platforms to view data from Google Analytics and Google search Console, etc. we are able to view all the data sources in one location. Google Data Studio has provided our team with data transparency. Every member of the team is able to view the data in real-time even while someone else is making a change to the reports. We are able to share these reports and help inform of changes we need to make to our product. Thankfully Google Data Studio for us has been free, else we wouldn't have purchased the tool. We are an extremely lean company and Google Data Studio helps us stay lean and save time with their free software.,Tableau Desktop,Buffer, Mailchimp, MailgunPerfect for Rapidly Prototyping/Testing Dashboard Designs & LayoutsGoogle Data Studio is used on a per-user basis within the organization to import, manipulate, and visualize datasets. Google Data Studio functions as a dashboard for displaying data analysis to a variety of audiences: internal presentations and client-facing purposes. It was used primarily within the data and analytics department (who gathered specs and built/deployed the dashboards) and accessed by account managers and clients. It is a useful platform for quickly prototyping/designing different dashboard/visualization strategies without investing the resources on a comprehensive or especially sophisticated solution.,Quickly build and prototype dashboards to test proof-of-concepts for data visualization. Hosted on Google which means it's accessible internally and externally to different parties (dev, data/analytics, client reps, account management). Well-maintained community connectors and documentation for extensive platform/data source support.,Community connectors are developed by third parties and sometimes cost money, which can disrupt building free dashboards Reconciling disparate / multiple file types can be a hassle and usually requires doing it off-site (in SQL) to create a master data set for ingestion and viz in the Data Studio platform,9,Data Studio is especially helpful for prototyping, and saving manhours/resources by rapidly designing and testing viz/report opportunities. Its positive impact is large: it is free, accessible, shareable, and can be used internally and externally. It is a viable stopgap solution too. More sophisticated reports are built in Tableau or Power BI.,Tableau Desktop, Tableau Online, Microsoft Power BI, Power BI For Office 365, QlikView and Looker,Tableau Online, Power BI For Office 365, Microsoft Power BI, Looker, Kenshoo Infinity Suite, LastPass, Yubico, BlueJeans, Google Hangouts,Geo heat mapping of events/values. Sharing and exporting dashboard visualizations. Connecting with other Google Suite data sources (Sheets, Ads, Analytics, etc).,Integrating with non-supported (community or Google) datasources,9A great way to automate reporting tasksWe use Google Data Studio to create a marketing dashboard, reporting on all active campaigns and how they're performing against key business objectives. This is being used within a single team right now, but based on our experience we may expand the use to other teams within our larger department. For us, it's really helped to automate reporting tasks and spend more time on analysis rather than pulling numbers. It's also enabled us to bring multiple sources into a single place for easier sharing.,Connects seamlessly with Google products (Analytics and Ads) and allows you to quickly update reports with a click (or on a scheduled basis, depending on what's being pulled. Templates that provide a good starting point for common reports (like Google Ads effectiveness) Offers the ability to connect to a wide range of other products via connectors/Google Sheets, to bring all sources under one dashboard view Flexibility to blend data from sources together, create custom metrics, and customize reports in ways that you can't do easily within Google Analytics,Sometimes a chart won't display in the way that I want, or won't show data at all, and it can be difficult to understand why. Error messaging/blank data could be more clear for troubleshooting purposes. It's nice to have the opportunity to bring in other data sources, but many of the connectors cost money, so it's easy to hit roadblocks in reporting. The limit of data points on a page can be challenging when trying to bring in a lot of different metrics - for example, I've run into scenarios where I want to add a new metric scorecard but am blocked from doing so, and need to split my report to a different page. I understand this is probably necessary for processing reasons (and processing can be an issue when presenting), but it can be frustrating.,10,It's significantly cut down on the time it takes to report on our marketing campaigns - freeing us up to focus on other tasks. It's made the impact of successful campaigns more clear - leading to more investment in what's working. It's helped to contribute to more of a data-driven focus across our organization.,Google Analytics,Bing Ads, Qualtrics, Twitter AdsGoogle Data Studio - Great data visualization tool for simple data sets!I use Google Data Studio as a data visualization tool to build dashboards and create reports. It easily integrates with other Google platforms such as Google Analytics and Google Ads (AdWords) which saves me time from having to export my data from each of these platforms and then import into a 3rd party data visualization tool.,Data integration -- Connects easily with GA, Adwords, Search Console, Facebook Ads, GMB and many more! Live Data Connection -- It can pull data in real time from GA, Google Ads, GSC etc in real-time without having to refresh data. Dynamic controls -- Ability to interact with charts and widgets make the dashboards more appealing and informative.,Increase support for connectors -- Currently, only about 150 data connectors are available. Limited data visualization options and widgets -- Something that can definitely be improved. Ability to slice and dice the data.,6,Once reports/dashboards are set up, they are readily available and don't require any preparation time. This saves my time by almost 50% and allows me to actually focus on data interpretation as opposed to data pulling.,Tableau Online and Microsoft Power BI,Tableau OnlineGoogle Data Studio: a half-baked product with good potential.Data Studio is used on and off for really specific needs such as following closely a web site KPI for example. Currently, Data Studio works great with Google Analytics (GA) data. You can create OK looking dashboards using GA and make calculations between metrics. However, it's not yet ready to include outside source files and it becomes very complex to inject targets for example and calculate such KPIs as % Monthly sales vs sales targets. For this reason, we use Data Studio mainly as a quick access to GA data more than anything else.,Quick visualization for real-time Google Analytics numbers. Calculations between GA metrics. Easy report distributions.,Having green/red arrows to show how a metrics is fluctuating vs a defined period. Having control box or dials to switch between weekly and monthly views or filtering lists on different levels. The module to control external sources is awful and very complex and unreliable. Stick to GA data for now or use another tool such as Klipfolio to gain time.,5,So far the return is very limited but it cost nothing. The major investment is time to factor in when using Data Studio. Currently there are very cheap tools like Klipfolio that will do a far better job for a fraction of the time needed in Data Studio.,Klipfolio,Klipfolio, Microsoft Power BI
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Google Data Studio
56 Ratings
Score 8.0 out of 101
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Google Data Studio Reviews

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Google Data Studio
56 Ratings
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Score 8.0 out of 101
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Sam Lepak profile photo
March 11, 2019

Review: "Looking for a FREE Data Visualization tool? Then Google Data Studio (P.S. Free For a Reason)"

Sam Lepak
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Google Data Studio is our organization's current aggregate data visualization tool for all organic media (Instagram, Facebook), marketing analytics tools (Firebase, Google Analytics, Google Search Console), and other user information software (Cooper - CRM, PostgresSQL, Google Sheets).

Our team's marketing department frequently looks at reports and dashboards to see leading and lagging KPIs across each platform.

Google Data Studio allows us to view all our data sources in one location, track A/B multivariate tests with WoW and MoM data, and makes it easy to make decisions and conducts tests as the data is presented in an easy-to-consume format.
  • Pre-loaded Report Templates: Without a data visualization experience/training it's most likely difficult to set up the desired dashboard you envision. Fortunately, Google Data Studio offers pre-loaded reports for the most common data source connections. These common connections include: Google Ads, Firebase, Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and more. They save a lot of time and are easy to substitute data variables.
  • Being a remote company, it can be difficult to share in real-time... not with Google Data Studio. If our team is viewing the data on a call, we are able to update the dashboard in real-time and everyone is able to see the changes made without refreshing. Subsequently, as one user is able to change data parameters (dates, labels, etc) and the rest viewing the data are able to follow along.
  • It can be difficult to get ideas how you should prepare your data - which KPIs should I include? In what order? Should I use a pie graph or bar chart? Thanks to Featured Data Studio reports I'm able to look at shared reports generated by others to get ideas on how to set up similar data.
  • While Google Data Studio has a resources (video tutorial) tab, it's very basic. The tutorials state navigational answers to exploring around the site, setting up data connections, and creating calculated fields. The videos are outdated 2016 and older and rarely dig into the actual building of reports and dashboards, especially with Google-owned products.
  • In order to connect solutions outside Google's products such as 3rd party tools, you need to pay a subscription to a 3rd party service to connect the data. The two main companies (Supermetrics, Power My Analytics) help you connect these 3rd party tools through their subscription services.
  • Notification of data connections being removed. On a few occasions, I will enter Google Data Studio only to find out there is missing data and that I need to reconnect a data source. While this doesn't happen too often it would be ideal to be notified so I can fix this right away rather than be notified by a team member that the connection is broken.
If you are looking for a free data visualization tool or are a smaller business that uses mainly Google entry products and a few outside analytical tracking tools, then I would highly recommend Google Data Studio. Instead, if you evaluate data from a lot of third-party tools or you have an enterprise software solutions, it would be better suited to look into a paid data visualization tool like Tableau.
Read Sam Lepak's full review
Leah Jakaitis profile photo
January 15, 2019

Google Data Studio Review: "Perfect for Rapidly Prototyping/Testing Dashboard Designs & Layouts"

Leah Jakaitis
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Google Data Studio is used on a per-user basis within the organization to import, manipulate, and visualize datasets. Google Data Studio functions as a dashboard for displaying data analysis to a variety of audiences: internal presentations and client-facing purposes. It was used primarily within the data and analytics department (who gathered specs and built/deployed the dashboards) and accessed by account managers and clients. It is a useful platform for quickly prototyping/designing different dashboard/visualization strategies without investing the resources on a comprehensive or especially sophisticated solution.
  • Quickly build and prototype dashboards to test proof-of-concepts for data visualization.
  • Hosted on Google which means it's accessible internally and externally to different parties (dev, data/analytics, client reps, account management).
  • Well-maintained community connectors and documentation for extensive platform/data source support.
  • Community connectors are developed by third parties and sometimes cost money, which can disrupt building free dashboards
  • Reconciling disparate / multiple file types can be a hassle and usually requires doing it off-site (in SQL) to create a master data set for ingestion and viz in the Data Studio platform
I really love Google Data Studio and highly recommend it, with the understanding that it is a limited, free dashboard program, and does not have the robust analysis capability of an enterprise-level dashboard platform like Tableau or Power BI. It is perfect for dashboarding Google Suite data -- from Sheets, Ads, DCM/DBM, Analytics, etc. -- and readily ingests data from those sources.

If robust analysis on large datasets (>150,000) is a requirement, Data Studio is best deployed as a test-case or proof-of-concept before implementing a more comprehensive, powerful solution. It can ingest CSV and XLSX files, and community connectors/automation. This allows for data ingestion to come from platforms outside the Google Suite -- and while these connectors are generally reliable, they aren't maintained by Google and therefore can break, go out of date, etc.
Read Leah Jakaitis's full review
Ben Rubenstein profile photo
November 28, 2018

Google Data Studio Review: "A great way to automate reporting tasks"

Ben Rubenstein
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Google Data Studio to create a marketing dashboard, reporting on all active campaigns and how they're performing against key business objectives. This is being used within a single team right now, but based on our experience we may expand the use to other teams within our larger department. For us, it's really helped to automate reporting tasks and spend more time on analysis rather than pulling numbers. It's also enabled us to bring multiple sources into a single place for easier sharing.
  • Connects seamlessly with Google products (Analytics and Ads) and allows you to quickly update reports with a click (or on a scheduled basis, depending on what's being pulled.
  • Templates that provide a good starting point for common reports (like Google Ads effectiveness)
  • Offers the ability to connect to a wide range of other products via connectors/Google Sheets, to bring all sources under one dashboard view
  • Flexibility to blend data from sources together, create custom metrics, and customize reports in ways that you can't do easily within Google Analytics
  • Sometimes a chart won't display in the way that I want, or won't show data at all, and it can be difficult to understand why. Error messaging/blank data could be more clear for troubleshooting purposes.
  • It's nice to have the opportunity to bring in other data sources, but many of the connectors cost money, so it's easy to hit roadblocks in reporting.
  • The limit of data points on a page can be challenging when trying to bring in a lot of different metrics - for example, I've run into scenarios where I want to add a new metric scorecard but am blocked from doing so, and need to split my report to a different page. I understand this is probably necessary for processing reasons (and processing can be an issue when presenting), but it can be frustrating.
I think Google Data Studio is great for teams that are reporting on complex websites and/or have multiple traffic sources and campaigns, and want to pull key data into one place. It's especially useful if you don't have a dedicated analytics staff, as it does cut down on reporting time. You do need to have some analytics knowledge to use the tool, however; otherwise what's being displayed could be misleading or confusing. The takeaways are just as important as the data itself.
Read Ben Rubenstein's full review
Ali Zakeri profile photo
February 23, 2019

Review: "Google Data Studio - Great data visualization tool for simple data sets!"

Ali Zakeri
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I use Google Data Studio as a data visualization tool to build dashboards and create reports. It easily integrates with other Google platforms such as Google Analytics and Google Ads (AdWords) which saves me time from having to export my data from each of these platforms and then import into a 3rd party data visualization tool.
  • Data integration -- Connects easily with GA, Adwords, Search Console, Facebook Ads, GMB and many more!
  • Live Data Connection -- It can pull data in real time from GA, Google Ads, GSC etc in real-time without having to refresh data.
  • Dynamic controls -- Ability to interact with charts and widgets make the dashboards more appealing and informative.
  • Increase support for connectors -- Currently, only about 150 data connectors are available.
  • Limited data visualization options and widgets -- Something that can definitely be improved.
  • Ability to slice and dice the data.
If you have a clean data set that requires no/little manipulation, and you want to look at KPIs on a recurring/continuous time frame, then Google Data Studio would a good option for you. However, if that's not the case, then you might want to consider other tools such as Tableau or Power BI.
Read Ali Zakeri's full review
Francois Salvert profile photo
January 14, 2019

Review: "Google Data Studio: a half-baked product with good potential."

Francois Salvert
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Data Studio is used on and off for really specific needs such as following closely a web site KPI for example. Currently, Data Studio works great with Google Analytics (GA) data. You can create OK looking dashboards using GA and make calculations between metrics. However, it's not yet ready to include outside source files and it becomes very complex to inject targets for example and calculate such KPIs as % Monthly sales vs sales targets. For this reason, we use Data Studio mainly as a quick access to GA data more than anything else.
  • Quick visualization for real-time Google Analytics numbers.
  • Calculations between GA metrics.
  • Easy report distributions.
  • Having green/red arrows to show how a metrics is fluctuating vs a defined period.
  • Having control box or dials to switch between weekly and monthly views or filtering lists on different levels.
  • The module to control external sources is awful and very complex and unreliable. Stick to GA data for now or use another tool such as Klipfolio to gain time.
Really depends on the need. If it's to produce a dashboard that needs to look good and is reliable, I would use a different tool. However, if that colleague is an analyst, I think Data Studio is a quick and free tool you need to have in your analytics toolbox.
Read Francois Salvert's full review
Rachel Berry profile photo
December 10, 2018

Google Data Studio Review: "No-cost way to analyze and report"

Rachel Berry
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
The marketing department uses Google Data Studio to analyze and report on digital channels. The reports are shared with department heads and provide insight into marketing's results. The reports are very easy to customize and read.
  • Integrated data from multiple channels.
  • Allows for customization of reports and dashboard.
  • Reliable tech from Google that improves over time.
  • Does not necessarily integrate all data equally. Not all social channels allow their data to be imported via API, so be prepared to do some manual imports.
  • You need to spend some time learning to use Data Studio to be able to generate reports. It's not a very intuitve interface.
  • Needs a good tutorial.
Great for a team with a limited budget for reporting and analytics that still wants to evaluate their performance and share results. If you're already using Google Analytics, it's tempting to take the next step and report out of Google Data Studio. Leave time to learn how to use it, though.
Read Rachel Berry's full review
Jasmeet S Babra profile photo
November 28, 2018

Google Data Studio Review: "Very promising and easiest tool in market"

Jasmeet S Babra
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Google Data Studio is used as a tool for developing dashboards and ad hoc reports. It is used by various members of the team as a way to showcase data insights and automate reports which were previously being distributed in the form of Excel sheets or Powerpoints.
Currently It is being used by our department only. The business problem it solves is the need for automated reporting dashboards and being able to create flexible reports.
  • Selection of filters
  • Being able to connect to a variety of live data sources
  • It lives as a live document
  • Easy to build
  • Easy to learn
  • Easy to share
  • Conditional formatting
  • Being able to share it inside of emails
  • Being able to make a custom layout with good downloadable options. PDF download came very late
  • Live text integration
  • Dynamic image insertion which changes with dates
Google Data Studio (GDS) is best used when the need of the hour is a single live document with data over time. The usage of date filters and other filters is very useful. The place where it doesn't excel is that it's still in beta phase and sometimes reports break for no reason.
Read Jasmeet S Babra's full review
Meredith Walter profile photo
November 25, 2018

Review: "Google Data Studio - A good data viz starting point."

Meredith Walter
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Google Data Studio is used mainly in our marketing analytics department. It serves various purposes ranging from post-campaign reporting to general data pulse checks. It expedites the process of collecting data so that we can focus more on insights drawn from the data and action items created from the insights.
  • Ease of creating data visuals - you don't need to be an expert to manipulate the charts
  • Ease of adding and removing data sources from a wide range of sources - google products, spreadsheets, etc
  • Ease of sharing your reports with a URL link that anyone can access and use
  • Ease of reproducing reports and templates for client-like work or recreating the same report for a different data source, like GA property
  • The ability to calculate custom metrics is limited. Unfortunately, you can't apply a "filter" to a custom metric, which has been a major road block for our org lately
If a user is looking for a free data visualization tool, I'd highly recommend using Google Data Studio as a starting point. As you use GDS, you'll gain a better understanding of the features you'll actually use and perhaps some that you wish GDS had. You could then take that insight into your purchase decision of a more robust data viz software like Domo or Tableau.

If a user is looking for a tool that will connect several custom data sources or making very advanced data visualizations, GDS is more than likely not a good option. It is limited with its connections and calculated metrics, as well as the type of visualizations you can create.
Read Meredith Walter's full review
Brian Nizinsky profile photo
November 16, 2018

Google Data Studio Review: "Makes me love data again"

Brian Nizinsky
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
I use Google Data Studio to build reports that show the results of various online marketing campaigns that we run. It makes it very easy to design a good looking interactive report that I can easily change some data points on and then share out to others. It's also easy to update and add to a presentation when needed.
  • Easy to create great looking reports to make data more accessible to anyone
  • Can take a complex data set and gives you options on how to present them to make it make sense
  • It can be used by people who do not have a data background or access to a data analyst
  • There needs to be more templates ready to go, or at least an easy way for others to share their templates
  • I would love it if some professional designers created some layouts that we could use for free
  • Better error handling at times, not clear why data isnt showing up the way I want it to
It's well suited for marketers that need to create visuals of data and update/share them quickly. Its way better than creating a Google Analytics report that may not be understood by certain people. The fact that you can let other users change things like date range makes it great to share with someone so they dont keep coming back and asking for more data.

I can't think of a scenario where its less appropriate, maybe if the data needs to be very high level?
Read Brian Nizinsky's full review
No photo available
April 04, 2019

Google Data Studio Review: "Google's BI tool is slowly capturing the market"

Verified User
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use it for our reporting needs. We connect our Google Analytics to Data Studio through the connector. Data Studio helps me to do much more in-depth analyses than what is presented in Google Analytics. We use it currently in our department and we are planning to expand it throughout our region. Apart from Google Analytics, we connect it to our database to do analysis and reporting.
  • Drag and drop your metrics and dimensions and you will get the report, the interface is super clean and it calculates real quick.
  • Scheduling the report: you can schedule the process of downloading the report in PDF and sending it to you or your customers weekly/monthly.
  • Frequent updates from Google makes this tool a go-to tool compared to other BI tools. You can also try the free version and it is amazing.
  • One of the biggest drawbacks is that it requires connectors. Data Studio is a great tool as long as you connect Google products/separate files (Excel ), but when it comes to connecting third-party integrations, it's either complicated or not yet available.
Well Suited: Simple/complex reports as long the source is from a Google app; for super quick reporting with an Excel file; If you are not a data professional but still want to start with reporting. Less appropriate: If you have used an enterprise reporting tool such as Power BI or Tableau, you might not see this as an equivalent tool or replacement tool.

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No photo available
December 19, 2018

Google Data Studio Review: "Highly Customizable & Easy to Read"

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Google Data Studio has been used in a single department for the benefit of the entire agency, as well as our clients. The highly customizable interface has given us the tools to display the exact information we want to our agency and clients. We send monthly reports to our clients that mainly consist of Google data from both Analytics as well as Google Ads.
  • Highly customizable
  • Easy to read graphs
  • Modern/sleek look
  • Should provide some templates/direction for those who don't want to (or can't) start from a clean slate
  • Additional integrations to provide a well-rounded story
More suited for companies/agencies/clients looking for specific website and Google Ads data in a highly customizable setting. For those also looking for email, social, and other insights, this isn't the most well-rounded tool for them. I'm not sure I would recommend the tool for e-commerce businesses either, as those specific platforms probably offer more expansive/specific analytics.
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No photo available
November 28, 2018

Google Data Studio Review: "Amazing Data visualization Tool. Don't miss out!!"

Verified User
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
Google Data Studio is been used across the entire organization. After analyzing its potential when it first came out, we decided to use it to create our clients' reports. The main problem it solved was to connected straight to the Google API and automatically update every month, saving us many hours in updating reports
  • The new Data Blending feature allows you to integrate different data sources in one chart, which is particularly useful when displaying performance from different channels.
  • The free version is very exhaustive and allows you to create comprehensive reports
  • It connects with SuperMetrics which has great customer service. They are creating connectors on a regular basis, so just connect with them to put on a request
  • It would be great to be able to aggregate data from different sources into 1 metric. Add of now, with the new data Blending, we can only see data from different sources as different metrics.
  • When connecting to GA API, it would be great to see all options available in GA to replicate them in Data Studio. For example, it's not possible to see goal completions by name, only the total goal completion number.
  • Creating tables from an excel sheet or Google sheet should be more simple: Before connecting the sheet, you have to transform your data so it's in Data Studio prefered format.
Data Studio is well suited for small and medium companies as it's a free tool that has great capabilities. However, it only works well with the existing data connectors.
It is not well suited for large companies with different data sources, or internal data with different formats...
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Tegan Jenner profile photo
August 29, 2018

Review: "Google Data Studio: Easy to pick up, and super powerful"

Tegan Jenner
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
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.
Read Tegan Jenner's full review
Enrique Clemente profile photo
May 25, 2018

Google Data Studio Review: "Good tool to get a visual analysis of the data from internal databases and Google sources"

Enrique Clemente
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
In my company, Data Studio is used for two main purposes:
  • Connect it with internal databases to create reports and graphics
  • Connect and combine several data sources such as Google AdWords and Google Analytics to generate personalized and attractive reports for our clients, which can be consulted online and allow to automate this work
  • Extract data from your own databases and present the information in a friendly way, thank you its
  • Extract data from Google products such as Google AdWords and Google Analytics to combine in one report
  • Share data with other people in the organization or clients
  • It only allows you to extract data from its own sources or through an external database. It would be interesting if it allowed taking data from other types of sources, such as Facebook or Twitter.
  • It also does not allow calculating metrics with different data sources, that is, you can not combine them with each other.
Well suited
  • Generating internal reports and share them with other colleagues in the organization
  • Combining several sources of data in one report, very interesting to generate reports of marketing online for the clients
  • Filtering data in the reports easily

Less appropriate
  • Extracting data from non-internal or Google sources
  • Combining metrics from different sources

Read Enrique Clemente's full review
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May 18, 2018

Review: "Google Data Studio helps us beautify and share data, fast."

Verified User
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Google Data Studio to beautify and simplify raw data for clients. At one point in time clients claimed they wanted the raw data and would do these things themselves. Unfortunately, and predictably, that ended up not being the case. Google Data Studio allows us—with some exceptions—to quickly get them the deliverable they want and we don't mind spending the extra time as it's minimal with maximum client satisfaction.
  • The integration offering is robust and I've yet to run into a situation where we were not able to get our data into Google Data Studio
  • Creating a beautiful report can be done with minimal training
  • Sharing a report and determining the permissions takes seconds which is especially valuable when someone wants to see something quickly
  • We often have data fields that have multiple values separated by commas. Some BI tools provide options to visualize that data as a group or as individual data points. Unfortunately, I've yet to find a simple way to do this in Google Data Studio
  • Copying a report is, surprisingly, different from other Google Suite tools. Continuity is difficult in a company the size of Google but it's still disappointing.
  • Forgiveness could be improved when it comes to configuring the data resource. Often, sometimes 20+ minutes can be wasted on a 1 second mistake. This could be a user error but it's one that I haven't found an easy answer for.
Rather than trying to create visuals in Google Sheets, you're able to create a much prettier and interactive combination of visualizations when connecting that specific Google Sheet to Google Data Studio.

This being a free tool, I've found that a lot of advanced functionality we enjoy using in other BI tools is lacking in Google Data Studio. Therefore, if you really want to dig into data, it may not be the right fit for you.
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May 18, 2018

Google Data Studio Review: "A powerful companion to GA"

Verified User
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Review Source
We use Google Data Studio for data visualizations when Google Analytics doesn't cut it. It's being used by the brand and marketing team to create easy-to-digest dashboards, especially in areas where we don't have access to Growth Strategy analytics.
  • User interface. Easy to understand and visually friendly
  • User experience. Designed well with easy learning curve
  • Visualizations. There are a lot of impactful styles to choose from.
  • Onboarding support could improve.
  • Customer service could be more accessible.
  • API integrations.
Well suited for visualizing and sharing community team data from a single source. Not well suited for playing nicely with multiple data sources through APIs.
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Google Data Studio Scorecard Summary

Likelihood to Recommend (56)
8.0
Usability (2)
9.0

Feature Scorecard Summary

Pixel Perfect reports (9)
7.4
Customizable dashboards (16)
8.6
Report Formatting Templates (15)
7.3
Drill-down analysis (12)
6.5
Formatting capabilities (13)
7.2
Integration with R or other statistical packages (5)
6.4
Report sharing and collaboration (16)
9.1
Publish to Web (12)
8.3
Publish to PDF (9)
7.3
Report Versioning (8)
6.9
Report Delivery Scheduling (7)
7.2
Delivery to Remote Servers (2)
9.5
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.) (16)
7.0
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization (14)
7.7
Predictive Analytics (5)
6.2

About Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is a data visualization platform that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.
Categories:  Data Discovery and Visualization

Google Data Studio Technical Details

Operating Systems: Unspecified
Mobile Application:No