TrustRadius Insights for Looker Studio are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Pros
Broad Customizability: Users have consistently praised the broad customizability of Google Data Studio, emphasizing how it allows them to tailor their reports and dashboards precisely to their specific needs. The flexibility offered by the customization options has been a key factor in enhancing user satisfaction with the platform.
Integration with Various Data Sources: Reviewers across different industries have expressed appreciation for the expansive integration capabilities of Google Data Studio, noting how it provides them with a seamless way to connect diverse data sources and create comprehensive reports efficiently.
Ease of Access to BigQuery: A significant number of users have highlighted the easy access to BigQuery within Google Data Studio as a major advantage, streamlining the process of retrieving and analyzing large datasets effectively while saving valuable time.
Is the main dashboard of the company. We use it mainly for live data that we want to view live. We also use it to explore data to try to figure out issues, opportunities etc..
Pros
Connections with the google ecosystem
Speed of reports
Data ownership
Cons
There has been a lack of new features inside the ecosystem from some time now
There is no easy way to create relationships between data tables
Likelihood to Recommend
I really like how it is extremely well integrated into the google workspace ecosystem. Easy to share inside the organization and helpful.
VU
Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology (51-200 employees)
Looker Studio helps us to organize and visualize our data. We have some user profiles with their demographics, specific situation descriptions, behavior, etc. Looker works well to gather and make charts from this data. It is very useful for presentations, meetings or any research. The charts created in Looker can be downloaded in PDF, it is very convenient to use them.
Pros
Data visualisation
Data extraction
Data sharing
Cons
Requires learning curve
Data must be structured to download
Loading time is long
Likelihood to Recommend
If you already have some structured data and want to visualize it and use it in Miro for an additional illustration or insert it into a presentation - Looker Studio will be the right tool. If your data is unstructured, and if you have a lot of qualitative research, Looker wouldn't be helping.
I use Looker Studio daily to build dashboards and reports for routine analysis, as well as data pulls for our site data. The internal team uses these dashboards to analyze data needed for report-building and address business questions. My team and I also utilize Looker Studio to create self-serving dashboards for our key functional teams and stakeholders who have specific questions or routine needs.
Pros
Connects to GA4.
Loads quicker than other tools such as Tableau.
It is easy to share dashboards for viewing and co-editing purposes.
It is easy to export data from tables.
Ability to create filters and custom/calculated metrics.
Cons
There are several limitations to data manipulation - especially with different scopes.
Data has to be refreshed if new dataLayer elements are added often manually.
A limited number of charts, graphics, etc.
Limited design abilities (cannot bring in custom fonts, etc).
Likelihood to Recommend
Looker Studio is well-suited for those wanting to analyze web/site data and performance quickly. It is simple enough to learn/use for quick report-building or drilling into data. Looker Studio is easier to use/understand than the GA4 console and thus has a better UI/UX. It is an efficient tool for fast, simple data needs—especially for team members with limited analytical capabilities and knowledge.
In our company we use Looker Studio to analyze and understand internal KPIs, mostly to verify the profitability of contracts (man hours invested vs value of the contract) by importing time logs from Jira and financial data from our ERP. With the same data we are also able to allocate resources on various projects to normalize the workloads and optimize costs.
Pros
Data integration with various sources
Dashboards are easy to make
Google Workspace integration
Cons
Complex data modeling is best done at the source
The best performance is obtained with BigQuery. Avoid large datasets from other sources
Some features are locked in the "Pro" version, but you can work around some of them
Likelihood to Recommend
First of all, Looker Studio is free. That being said, for its price (which is zero) has a ton of functionalities which can be used when you have to analyze/report big chucks of data for basically any purpose.
If you don't need enterprise level features like advanced data permissions or team collaborations, or you are not reselling dashboards or reports to a third party, Looker Studio is perfect.
VU
Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
I use Data Studio to monitor the performance of eCommerce articles, looking at revenue, click through rate, ePM, and traffic. Using this data allows us to see how well optimised a page is to convert and make money from our affiliate partners. It also allows us to create different views and bring together different types of articles in different verticals and sectors of retail and eCommerce.
Pros
Customisation
Presentation of data
Different measurements of data
Cons
Load time
Bugs/reports breaking
Likelihood to Recommend
Monitoring the performance of articles and pages, from traffic to revenue.
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.
Pros
Open Canvas
Broad customizability
Expansive connectors
Drag and drop
Cons
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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.
Pros
Visualization design of dashboards.
Integration with data sources
Smooth access of BigQuery
Cons
Creating aggregate function can be more smooth.
Data banding can be improve.
3rd party integration of other data sources can be smooth and reliable.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
VU
Verified User
Analyst in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
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.
Pros
Easy to learn interface
Versatile - able to select various colours and fonts
Various graph options for visualization
Easily refresh data
Cons
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
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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.
Pros
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.
Cons
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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.
Pros
Data management
Calculations
Data visualization
Interactivity
Cons
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.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
