Getting started on Data Studio can take a bit of time. There’s no question that it’s easier to use than most data visualization tools, but there is still a learning curve. I put together this list to help you get started with minimal effort and maximum ‘wow’ factor.

These dashboards include data from social media, google analytics, google ads, and several other sources. You can copy paste all the visual elements and then rewire them to use your own data.

My Favorite Google Analytics Template — Blue World by Michael Howe-Ely

Michael has done incredible work with Data Studio and this GA template that he built is featured by Google in the Data Studio template gallery.

My Favorite Google Ads Template — Google Ads Monitoring by Search Foresight

Foresight provides a straight-forward breakdown of metrics that can be adapted to almost anybody’s Ads data — colors can be updated to match your own reporting and even if you’re not using Google Ads, you can copy the layout/visualization style for your other paid media data.

My Favorite Facebook Ads Template — Facebook Ads Overview by Supermetrics

If you’re going to connect Facebook Ads or many other sources of ad data, you’ll need to use a 3rd party connector like Supermetrics. This allows you to add lots of different data sources to Data Studio that wouldn’t normally be available. For Facebook Ads, Supermetrics has a set of pre-made templates and plenty of clear instructions for wiring up your data.

My Favorite Google Search Template — All In One Search Console by Data Bloo

A great source of inspiration for those that are going to integrate search performance data into their dashboard. Tons of great visualizations and a very intuitive way of structuring search KPIs.

My Favorite Ecommerce Template — Another from Data Bloo

Thanks for taking a look!

I also build my own custom Data Studio reports for all sorts of clients — from startups to F500 brands.

If you found this article helpful you can also support my work by using this affiliate link to check out Supermetrics.
If you’re building Data Studio reports you will almost certainly end up using Supermetrics to integrate your data. It’s a powerful tool that opens up a world of possibilities in Data Studio.

5 of the best free marketing dashboard templates for Google Data Studio was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Problem

Anybody dealing with tech products and data-focused services runs into the same fundamental problem: what you do is technical but non-technical people control the budget. In other words:

This is an incredibly tough hurdle to clear. I’ve seen so many people try to dumb down their tech, focus on features, etc. But we all know that painfully overused sales lesson “Sell benefits, not features”

I’m going to explain how visualizations are the rocket fuel you need to leverage that concept.

Let’s start with the old way:

Lead with the technology, focus on all the features and hope that people understand why it’s valuable.

We know that approach doesn’t work. So I’m giving you an incredibly simple alternative:

Build visualizations that tell a story. Let that story sell for you.

In other words: Make big beautiful dashboards!

Up until about 5 years ago, building a dashboard was an extremely complex process with multi-year timelines and huge budgets. Now you can spin one up in less than an hour using dozens of off-the-shelf tools. It’s easier than ever and can be applied to virtually any type of data.

I’ve been in the dashboard game for years. I’ve used them in sales roles, design roles, product roles, and as an independent consultant. They are almost entirely responsible for me closing deals with Google, Apple, Lego, Microsoft, Gatorade, Nectar, Emergent and many others.

So why do dashboards work so well?

The short version is that they force us to paint a picture of how our product/service will be used in the real world.

But it goes even deeper. I believe dashboards play into an archetypical fantasy we all share about running a business that leverages data and technology.

I call this the data-driven fantasy.

Data-Driven Fantasy

What do you see in your head when you think about a company being data driven? How about a company leveraging technology to improve their operations?

A lot of people imagine something like a command center:

Big screens, lots of charts, data streaming by and little dots showing up on big maps of the world.

For whatever reason this idea sells really well. So take advantage of it. The easiest way is to include a mockup of your product/service that matches with this archetype. A dashboard is the best way to do that.

The secondary benefit is that it gives you a chance to leverage good visual design. Good visual design projects credibility. See the example below:

Pretty cool right? Well this is just a random collection of charts and metrics from one of my template kits. It’s far from being actionable but people rarely notice that because it’s so darn visually pleasing.

Getting started

There are countless systems out there to help you build a dashboard with virtually any type of data. Many of them are incredibly easy to use (even if you’re a total novice) and either free or extremely low price.

Once you’ve chosen a system to use, you need to decide what to include. Here’s a quick rundown of my thought process when putting together a dashboard for a new client:

1. Dashboards are the shiny object
   We’re looking for the easiest and cheapest way to get a visualization into your sales cycle. It doesn’t need to replace your product. If done right, it should barely expand the scope of your project at all. For your situation it’s okay if it is simply the shiny object to get the client’s attention and close a deal.
2. Who are the stakeholders
   First figure out who is actually going to be using what you sell.
   Second figure out who is paying for whatever you’re selling.
   They’re not always the same person.
   For both of these people, figure out what need you’re addressing. Use this as your guide for whatever you include in your dashboard.
3. Don’t just focus on the business need, focus on the person
   Everyone I’ve ever presented to wanted three things
   •To save time and skip the tedium: Does your dashboard make their life easier?
   •To save or make more money: Does your dashboard get them a raise or increase their personal commissions?
   •To build their career: Will your dashboard get them promoted or build their personal brand?
4. Keep it simple. Set internal and external expectations
   At this stage the goal isn’t building a final set of perfect fully validated dashboards. It’s to aid in the process of closing a deal.
   •We are illustrating possibilities
   •An imperfect dashboard mockup is better than showing no visual examples.
   •If you don’t have data access yet or don’t know where to start then just grab a template for a common data source you know you can access (e.g. social or google ads). Swap out your brand colors and add your logo. Show where you could include your new data side by side. Think wireframes not final deliverables.
5. Don’t sweat the KPIs… yet
   •In the spirit of illustrating possibilities, don’t worry about having the perfect KPI at this stage.
   •If you’ve set expectations properly, your audience is going to understand that any data included in your project is a placeholder.
   •If you have a KPI you know will close a deal then manually pull it for now. Put that value in a spreadsheet. Every major visualization tool can use a spreadsheet as a data source. Figure out how to automate later.
6. Set up your stakeholders for success
   •Give them everything they need to sell the project internally to other teams or to their leadership.
   •That means great screenshots, powerpoint slides and anything else they need.
7. Prioritize design — wow factor matters
   •This can be a struggle for those of us that have fought hard to help businesses make better decisions with their data — we know it’s all about choosing the right data and presenting it in a responsible way. Frills and vanity metrics can be dangerous…but right now we need immediate impact and are focused on perceptions. Save the nuance until after you’ve closed a deal.
   •Spend the money to hire a designer. Use freelancers if you need to. Have a professional polish your look & feel.

That’s it! If you have any questions or want to discuss how to handle your own project feel free to contact me: cottrell (@) hey.com

I love hearing from folks in the community and am always happy to point people in the right direction.

If you got some value from this article you can support my work by checking out my Excel templates:
https://bigexcelenergy.com

Or you can use my affiliate link for Supermetrics — a great tool for connecting Data to Google Sheets, Excel or Data Studio: https://supermetrics.idevaffiliate.com/idevaffiliate.php?id=2487&url=267

Dashboards Close Million Dollar Deals was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m a dashboard guy. The kind of person that has always dreamed of having my own minority report style command center.

The moment I had my own blog and social media accounts I put together an external monitor with GA stats and social media performance on it.

Eventually I co-founded a media monitoring startup and got to work as a product manager building dashboards and command centers for a handful of fortune 500 companies. In short, it was a ton of fun.

But, I learned that it’s HARD to make these. Like really really hard. If you want data from multiple sources, calculated, aggregated and in real-time you’re going to pay BIG bucks (easily $100k+). You’re also going to need a team of developers and have to pay maintenance fees to keep it up and running.

My journey seemed like it was coming to a close when that startup was acquired and I found myself traveling long-term around Asia with my fiance.

But it wasn’t over quite yet. To keep myself productive I took on a handful of smaller and less complex Data Studio and Excel dashboard projects like this (apologies if this embed takes a long time to load):

I quickly learned that the fields of BI, Analytics, Data Science etc are in desperate need of basic design training. It also made me realize that having even rudimentary design skills was a HUGE advantage.

My new side hobby was jazzing up Excel reports. Anybody who works with Excel knows that the reports tend to be painfully dry and not very visually engaging. I think this is a big reason that Excel has a reputation for being a fairly unexciting system to work with.

I’m here to say that this reputation is not deserved. Excel can be straight-up beautiful. It has almost all the visual design features found in powerpoint and a ton of flexibility for building exciting visualizations.

My evidence? I built both of these in Excel using nothing but the standard features (no VBA, no plugins, etc.).

It might seem counter-intuitive but you can absolutely treat an Excel sheet like a powerpoint slide. Here are a handful of features I used in these dashboards that you can easily learn through free tutorials:

• Setting a background image
• Including cell values in a text object or shape
• Understanding shape features like gradients, transparency, outlines, shadows, etc.
• Customizing chart colors

If you have any other questions feel free to ask. I’ll take the time to respond and point you in the right direction.

You can also buy pre-made templates as well (there are tons of them available, just do a quick google search). If you like my style of dashboards you can purchase my Excel Dashboard Toolkit at https://bigexcelenergy.com/excel-templates/

Pushing the limits of Excel’s visual design features was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Social reporting, analytics data, paid media performance, eCommerce, heck even just your AdWords performance… having to manually export and build reports like this is tough and time consuming. It doesn’t need to be.

You can save all those wasted hours every month. I’m going to explain how using two methods: Google Data Studio and Excel->PPT linking.

But first, let me set the scene.

Anna just got brought on to an exciting & innovative division of Acme Technologies. Her new job includes ownership of her division’s social data.

Maybe that sounds a bit boring, but if you’re into analytics this is a great gig.

Or at least that’s what Anna thinks, until she gets into her first day and sees the workflow from her predecessor…

Maybe you can guess already, but it is not pretty.

It’s an 8 step process. Takes up 10–20 hours of her week. Requires her to login to 3 different platforms. Essentially, Anna’s new job is building out this monstrosity of a report every month, and she won’t be doing much else.

So, what does this nightmarish workflow look like?

Acme has social data on Sprinklr. Analytics data on Google Analytics and several manually tracked metrics in a cloud hosted spreadsheet.

Anna has to log in to access each service. Export the data or visualization she needs. Put some of it into a new spreadsheet. Then she has to process all that data and build new charts and visualizations.

But we’re not done yet.

She has to copy out all the values and charts from her spreadsheet and put them into a powerpoint presentation to share with her team. That powerpoint needs to be formatted properly and customized to match this weeks data.

One thing is for sure. This is NOT a good use of her time.

If that scenario sounds even a little bit familiar, you’ve probably got a massive opportunity sitting in front of you.

Everyone knows how frustrating and tedious building reports can be. They all know it’s a waste of time and money. But they do it anyways.

Why, you ask?

Because you do need to have a snapshot of your business’s performance. You need to know what is and isn’t working and spot opportunities for improvement. Reports do deliver results, but oftentimes it comes at too high of a cost.

This is why automation is so important.

When you build an automated report there are two costs:

1. the set-up
2. a very small amount of recurring maintenance.

That’s it. Once your data is connected, your reports go from a 20 hour/week task to a 1 hour task. Think about how much the 19 hours you save are worth to your company? I’m guessing a lot.

So what does the automated version of Anna’s situation look like?

Using Excel->Powerpoint links:

She logs in to each system and does her usual export. Time elapsed: 20 minutes.

She then renames each exported file to a standardized name. Time elapsed: 2 minutes

Then she opens up her powerpoint and her source excel file and clicks “update links”. Time elapsed: 10 minutes (or less)

If necessary she changes the report title, and adds a few notes. She has 28 minutes left to get this done.

And BAM! She has a fully functioning report with visualizations, accurate calculated metrics, trend comparisons and more.

Using Google Data Studio

Anna needs to export her Sprinklr data and then uploads the file to Google Sheets. All her other data sources are automatically connected.

She opens up her GDS report, adjusts the date range, and BAM! There’s her updated report.

If necessary she can download it as a PDF/image file and add labels/notes as well.

That’s a massive improvement to your workflow.

You can learn the skills for either one of these yourself. Check out some of the tutorials for Google Data Studio and learn about what connectors are available.

Or, if you already know how to use Excel and powerpoint, look up how linking an Excel file to a powerpoint works. It’s a deceptively simple process and unlocks a ton of potential for automation.

If you don’t have the time to learn the ins and outs of a new platform. You can also have a system built for you on a very reasonable budget.

A typical project runs anywhere between $USD 2k–10k. If you have an exceptionally small/simple report you can expect less. If what you’re doing is complex or has 3+ data sources I would be prepared to scale up your budget.

All report examples in this article are from Cottrell Consulting.
cottrell [@] hey.com

If you plan on using Data Studio you’re most likely going to end up using Supermetrics as well (they help you easily connect lots of complex data sources). If you want to support us then use our affiliate link when you sign up: https://affiliate.supermetrics.com/2487.html

You’re wasting your time on reports. Automate them. was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

a.k.a. How Google Analytics will get you to Aruba

So we’ve all heard it. You need to be tracking everything. Data is gold… or oil… or something like that… yada yada yada.

But guess what? Most people don’t have the bandwidth or the skills to do a fully custom event-tracking setup on their site.

Tag Manager? Most haven’t heard of it.
Setting up MixPanel? Good luck doing that without knowing how to code.

It’s okay, though.

A boring old run-of-the-mill Google Analytics setup is enough to start making WAY better decisions about your web presence.

So I’m going to give you a simple-yet-powerful case study. I’m hoping it’s enough that you can replicate something similar with your own data.

Case Study Time

I wrote this blurb for Quora to explain how I use GA to save me $$$ on development. Get ready, get set, let’s go!

Any time I’m deciding on adding or removing a new feature I look to Google Analytics to tell me if it will affect my bottom line. Could it possibly grow my user base? Will it alienate some of my existing customers? The great crystal ball that is Google Analytics has these answers.

So here’s how it works

I’m working with Joe Anonymous on his very well established site. It has hundreds of thousands of hits per month, great engagement, and lots of potential.

But, there’s a problem. His site isn’t mobile friendly (like, not even mobile functional). Essentially you’re not using his site on your phone, even if you want to.

Joe is deciding if he wants to drop $10,000 to make his whole site mobile friendly. Joe doesn’t want to spend ten grand on dev. He’d rather spend it on a vacation to Aruba.

Well, thank goodness Google Analytics is here to help.

So first things first, we ask GA how many people are attempting to visit the site on mobile.

The answer? Surprisingly few. Like less than 5%. This is unusual, but not surprising. Joe’s content is a variety that folks tend to use a desktop to view.

But we want to be extra sure we’re not missing something. So we can use the ever-insightful Google Analytics to learn about the types of users trying to visit the site on mobile.

We know almost all of Joe’s users that are spending $$$ are older (35+), we know where they are located (USA and Canada) and that they almost come in from one of 3 referrers (that’s 3 websites sending almost all the traffic that leads to a sale).

As it turns out, of the 5% of users hitting the site from mobile, very few fit the target profile. They tend to be younger, only 30% of them are in the US/Canada and almost none of them are coming in from those 3 referrer websites…

By our best estimate we’re looking at something like this:

Total Users (200K) x Percent from Mobile (5%) x Those Matching Our Target Profile (12%) x The Percentage of Our Target Profile That Buy (3%) = Total New Users that Buy per Month ( ≈36)

So if you didn’t follow that, we can roughly estimate ≈36 more sales per month if we make the site mobile friendly.

This is really oversimplified, as mobile-friendly sites get better search rankings, some sales come from other users, and many other factors come into play. But our best estimate( and given that search rankings aren’t a big factor for Joe’s site), we’re going to stick with ≈36 sales.

Those sales are worth about $5 each. So that’s $180 a month.

It’ll take a long time for us to make back our $10,000 in development costs at that rate.

So guess what? Joes going to Aruba, baby!

Essentially the formula is simple. Consider who is being affected by a change to your site. Use Google Analytics to filter for that segment. Learn everything you can about them. Then calculate your best estimate for how it affects the bottom line: is this gonna kick you in the KPIs or not?

Are we talking about statistically validated analysis here? Absolutely not. We’re talking about doing the best we can with the data we have. That’s a lot better than leaving that data sitting untouched in a database.

Need some support combing through your own Google Analytics setup? Click here and we can get you all fixed up.

Squeezing Every Last Drop From Google Analytics was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Analytical reports use data to power decision making.

An analyst reviews data, considers its meaning and makes suggestions based on their interpretation.

But that’s a pretty boring definition. In practice, analytical reports are an incredible tool that guide important decisions made by many of the biggest organizations in the world.

They use powerful data visualizations and give us insights into the way the world works. Insights that we probably wouldn’t get anywhere else.

They take our data from boring to fascinating. They put our data into action.

They’re also a big part of almost every important decision you can think of.

• Is the president deciding to invade a country? He’ll definitely be looking at analytical repots.
• Deciding which features to put in the new iPhone? That’ll be analytical reports galore.
• Developing a new cancer drug? Analytical reports will be a major part of your decision making.

Analytical reporting gets a bad reputation for being boring, tedious, or indecipherable… but good reporting is none of those things. It’s fun, engaging, easy to understand and delivers real value to its readers. So go out there and learn more, try building an analytical report yourself, you’ll be amazed how enjoyable it can be.

Do you need a dashboard or analytical report? Get in contact and I’ll personally see how we can help: Cottrell Consulting

What is an analytical report? was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m just a normal dashboard that likes long walks on the beach, watching the sunset, and the occasional vanity metric.

I’ve been getting myself out there lately. Seeing some new people. Really exploring who I am and what I want.

But, I’ve learned it’s scary out there for a single dashboard looking to mingle. The old business intelligence professionals aren’t very happy when a fresh young dashboard like myself wants to liven things up.

The mere mention of vanity metrics, data fluff, and taking time to make our data beautiful is enough to send them into apoplectic shock.

But, you know what? I get it.

They’ve been fighting for real, data-driven, actionable reporting for decades. The mantra has been “no vanity metrics and keep users engaged by delivering concrete value.”

But the problem is, they won that fight a long time ago. In fact, they won so thoroughly that being a dashboard these days is boring. Like painfully enterprise-level boring. Industrial-level boring. Like manually filling out excel tables level of boring.

So, I’ve started my adventure. I want to find that happy medium where us dashboards add value, but are still fun and engaging. I want to find people that acknowledge that dashboards need some humanity. That user experience is as important in dashboards as every other product (*cough* person) out there.

Sometimes I like to fantasize that I’m Apple in the 90s, fighting for computers to be designed in a human friendly way. And, just like Apple, the traditionalists keep saying “no way, it’s all about data and functionality, who cares about the design. You’re just a boring computer, you don’t need to be cool and sexy.” Well, I certainly want to be. A dashboard can dream, can’t they?

So, I took some people out for drinks to get to the bottom of the issue. Each one has strong opinions on the topic. And yes, a physical manifestation of a dashboard can go out for drinks, in case you were wondering.

Carrie is an innovative freelancer building beautiful D3 charts.

Bob is a traditionalist. He’s been in BI for 20+ years.

Cindy handles monthly analytics/paid media reporting for eCommerce companies.

Bob: “The problem is that many of us have worked for decades to stop the misinformation around BI. There are literally thousands of pseudo data scientists/analysts pushing bad practices and just delivering ‘pretty’ data that delivers no real value”

Cindy: “Yep, I’ve seen this as well. It’s incredible how much bad advice is floating around. Some of it isn’t just useless, it’s actually harmful to the businesses using it.”

Me: “Okay okay okay, but really though have any of you gone more than five minutes in any BI community without hearing a lecture about vanity metrics, data fluff, and ‘delivering value’? I certainly haven’t.”

Carrie: “I haven’t either, and I almost NEVER hear anyone talking about design in BI. It’s like the industry thinks they’re immune to being boring. Business users are people, too. People aren’t machines. They react to more than just the data.”

Me: “Heck yes. Have you ever tried to woo your date with a big list of KPIs, a boring two tone chart and a pivot table? It doesn’t work.”

Carrie: “Exactly. I build reports that deliver value. But you know what? I also make them sexy. I make people want to look at them. Sometimes that means adding a metric that will make an old curmudgeonly data scientist spit out his coffee. But, if the dashboard is still delivering value as a whole, than so be it!”

Me: “I’d date your dashboards.”

Carrie: “I’ll introduce you sometime.”

Bob [interjecting]: “Here’s the problem. We’re talking about businesses. Not E.D.D.Y.E.S.’s dating life. In a business, time is money. If someone is looking at a dashboard every day that isn’t valuable, than that equals real money being lost.”

Cindy: “OK, so I tend to do monthly reports. They’re long and dense.They definitely aren’t sexy… You wouldn’t want to date them… They also inform how my clients are going to spend their money. So I keep them factual and value focused…

But honestly, getting my client’s whole team to adopt a new report is hard. Not everyone is going to read through 3 pages of analytics (even if they should).”

Me: “Exactly, I’ve never had a problem getting the attention of a CMO or Director that already knows they need my sweet sweet data. But, have you tried getting a 10 person marketing team to check on you every week? It ‘aint easy, even if you’re the most valuable report on this side of town.”

Bob: “But that just means you’re not delivering enough value. If you’re data is really valuable everybody will check you every day.”

Me: “First off, ouch Bob… but second, in practice people aren’t completely rational. Just bringing value won’t make everybody pay attention. People are complex, emotional, illogical creatures. That’s why human-centered design is so important. It’s why a dashboard is more than just a bunch of KPIs. I have a personality, I have style, and that’s what makes me work.”

After that the conversation turned a bit NSFW, so we’ll stop there. It’s nice when you’re the one telling the story, you can make sure you have the last word. And, in case you were wondering, dashboards do enjoy a cocktail every now and then.

But, I think you get the point, right?

A lot of it just has to do with your personal preferences. I like a redhead with vanity metrics and glasses, but Bob prefers a practical brunette with a stable job and standard KPIs.

If you’re out on Tinder looking for a sweet dashboard that’s responsible, reliable, and practical you’re going to find lots of them to swipe right on.

But you’re not going to find a lot of wild, adventurous, sexy dashboards. Especially ones that still deliver real value.

I think the BI industry could use a few more of us. That being sexy and practical isn’t mutually exclusive. That maybe it’s not such a bad idea to be a little less boring.

So I implore you, don’t just blindly take the boring data-only approach to your dashboards. Swipe right on a dashboard like me. Give us a chance to impress you. Hey, maybe your whole team will actually use us? Maybe we’re that little spark you need.

Disclaimer: I’m adding this again, in case it wasn’t BLATANTLY OBVIOUS this post is supposed to be tongue and cheek. My last post about E.D.D.Y.E.S’s adventures received some very angry messages from several BI professionals, data scientists and data analysts…. seriously guys? So to be abundantly clear: if you’re new to the field of BI, don’t take this advice literally. It’s supposed to give a light comedic voice to the “other side” in an industry that takes itself too seriously.

Like what you read? Follow me here on Medium. You can also check out my portfolio of Google Data Studio dashboards and competitive monitoring services here:

https://www.datastudiopro.com/

The Adventures of Every Damn Dashboard You’ve Ever Seen (part 2) was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Whether you need a slick new Adwords template or a killer analytics page, Google Data Studio is a great option.

It’s part of the Google Suite, has an easy learning curve, native adwords/analytics connectors and let’s you easily add your own branding and design style… oh and did I mention it’s free?

If you’re feeling adventurous you can also design your GDS reports yourself, or hire a freelancer to design them for you. Like any other freelance work, you get what you pay for. So, I do not suggest farming the work out to a cheap overseas agency.

There are three main places to go for free Google Data Studio templates:

1. The Data Studio Report Gallery: the best all-in-one collection. Curated by the GDS team. Lots of visual styles and lots of examples using different data sources.
2. The Helpfulllee GDS Resource report: Lee Hurst put together this awesome report with tons of resources (it’s a GDS report about GDS reports… report-inception)
3. Old fashion detective work: do a google search using this phrase: site:datastudio.google.com/u/0/reporting
    — You can find some lesser known reports starting around page 8. You’ll have to comb through a decent number of reports with no access, but eventually you’ll find ones that are public. I’ve found some great templates this way.

You are also welcome to try out a few of my own templates here.

When you’ve found a template you like, look in the upper right hand corner for the duplicate icon.

Then select the appropriate data source. It should be listed in the name.

If you don’t have your data source connected yet, click the “CREATE NEW DATA SOUCE” button (in blue above).

Once you select your new data source a new report will be generated titled “Copy of [original report name]”

If any of the charts show an error or “no data” message, you can select them. Then on the right of the screen you can drag a new metric, dimension or range from the “Available Fields” just over the appropriate row beneath the Data Source field on the right.

In no time you’ll have your own working copy of the report.

Don’t forget to swap out the name and logo!

Like what you read? Follow me here on Medium. If you need a custom Google Data Studio report, or need someone to handle your GDS workflow, contact my consulting agency:

https://www.datastudiopro.com/

Using Free Google Data Studio Templates was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

We thought we were off to the races. Our minimum viable product was ready to go. Our funky little landing page was up and running. We were tracking our funnels and had a sweet analytics framework.

Things seemed great.

We were working out of a living room in an old victorian house. 5 people all pushing to build something great. Something that would bring real value to anyone in a competitive industry. We were pumped full of unbridled optimism.

Then we launched!

But guess what? Like so many thousands of other startups, our initial launch was underwhelming. When you’ve got so much energy and so much optimism, just about anything other than hitting the moon will feel a bit disappointing.

I could count our users on my fingers and toes. Almost none were actively engaged with the product.

We took the bullseye approach to marketing. Ran small tests on tons of different channels. But we couldn’t get traction. It felt like everything we tried fell flat.

But, every once in a while, we’d get a little “win”. A user here or there. Maybe an occasional snippet of positive feedback.

Making the data work

With those wins we started collecting a small data set… emphasis on small. There were times that our sample size was 1 person. In the beginning it was never big enough to have a high confidence level. Our data scientist reminded me of this very very frequently.

But what I learned was that we had to work with the data that was available. We could fill in the gaps with intuition.

Before I started my startup career I got really lucky and had an opportunity to have breakfast with Marc Randolph (co-founder of Netflix). One of the things that stood out in our conversation was his advice about making big decisions with barely any information.

“What characteristics have I seen in great entrepreneurs? One of the biggest is having a solid strategy for making good decisions with limited data.” He told me about his experiences having to steer his company without enough information to be confident in a positive outcome. Navigating those types of situations is a hallmark of great startup leadership.

Work with the data you have

So I put his advice into practice. I took what we had and made the most out of it. I figured out the profiles of every user that converted. I figured out where we were achieving a small (but respectable) viral coefficient. And we even started doing things that wouldn’t scale, as long as it meant adding one more user.

When it came down to it, we were looking at small numbers, making big assumptions and fighting hard to bring on one user at a time.

In the process I learned some important lessons.

1. Start a dialogue with your existing and target customers.
    — you may not have many users, but you need to understand the ones you do have. Like really really well.
    — because you have so few users, they may not represent your “ideal user”. So, go find your ideal users. Make friends with them. Read their blogs. Talk to them on twitter. Ask them for feedback. Bring one on as an adviser. Do whatever you can to understand their needs.
2. Understand your user’s experience (BECOME YOUR OWN USER).
    — when you don’t have users, you need to become one yourself. You should be using your own product/service…every…damn…day. It’s the first thing you should do when you wake up in the morning. Every day ask yourself “is this really useful?”, “does it actually add value” and “would I honestly use this if I hadn’t built it?” (if not, why?).
    — you should know every bug before a user reports it. A good way to do this is to treat yourself like the QA guy. Think through every interaction possibility and test it out. Do this for every step of the users journey. Start with onboarding process for a new user, then move to using every feature in your product/service.
3. Get more data, even if you have to pay.
    — there are lots of hyper-targeted survey services out there. You can pay a very reasonable price to get questions answered by your target customers. This can be a great way to prioritize features, pricing, marketing channels, etc. Do a bit of research on building effective surveys before you start. If everyone who responds says they’ll only pay $20 for your $1000 product, you may need to rethink your pricing (true story… this happened on one of my side projects).

It’s all about building context. A better understanding of your target users plus a better understanding of your own product equals a better understanding of your data. When you see that sudden drop-off in your users at a certain step in your funnel, you won’t just see a percentage, you’ll see an entire experience.

Using it in the real world

My favorite way to put this newfound knowledge into action? Using Google Analytics Behavior Flow chart.

The behavior flow chart becomes exponentially more useful the better you understand your users and product. Even if you only have a few users, you can quickly and efficiently explore ever single stage of their journey.

The process is simple. You’ll see a red symbol next to a stage where a dropoff occurred. Click it to highlight the users journey of anyone at that stage. At the top of the page you can switch between page flow and event flow (or both).

On the left you can choose how to segment the flow. I prefer to use source/medium so I know if I need to address issues with a specific referrer. Want to hone in on one specific users journey? Use a filter and restrict the traffic to their network or their specific city.

Spend 30 minutes exploring this chart and I guarantee you’ll find at least one opportunity to improve your conversions, user retention, or bounce rates.

So, is this something you can work into your routine? I know it’s a lot easier to talk about than it is to actually do it. But I honestly believe it will pay off in dividends for those just getting started and working with barely any data. You’ll be exponentially better at finding signal in the noise. It will make every insight more actionable. Try it out!

If you need any help getting started feel free to get in contact. I’m happy to help. cottrell (at) hey (dot) com
https://www.datastudiopro.com/

n-of-1 is better than n-of-none was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I was the kind of kid that dreamed of having my own command center.

Big bright charts, data streams, giant maps with targets all over them.

I was totally enthralled whenever one of these big NORAD style rooms showed up in a movie.

The moment I could afford an external monitor, I started making my own little war rooms in my workspace. I’d spin up a custom google analytics report, pull up social screens, and DIY my own little mission control center.

Eventually I co-founded a media monitoring company and got to work as a product manager building these systems for a handful of fortune 500 companies. In short, it was a ton of fun.

But, I learned that it’s HARD to make these. Like really really hard. If you want data from multiple sources, calculated and in real-time you’re going to pay BIG bucks (easily $100k+). You’re also going to need a team of developers and have to pay maintenance fees to keep it up and running.

But for the rest of us, there’s this thing called GDS…

After my media monitoring startup was acquired I found myself doing some long-term travel in Asia while I made wedding plans with my fiancé. The whole time we travelled, I couldn’t stop myself from making dashboards. So late at night in our little hotel in Tokyo I’d pull out my laptop and think up new designs. Designs were great, but I wanted to build them myself (and I’m not a coder), so I started testing out this free tool that Google recently released called Data Studio.

It’s part of the Google Suite (in beta, I believe). The #1 factor that drew me in: it’s free. Second: it’s incredibly easy to use even without knowing how to code. Third: if you’re willing to get creative, it’s insanely powerful.

So what happened when I started?

I was able to build super sexy reports with near real-time data. But more importantly I could build the bad ass command centers of my dreams.

If you’re using Google Suite already, you seriously need to try out Google Data Studio for your visualizations. If you’ve got any of these, you’re ready to start:

• Google Analytics
• Adwords
• Search Console
• Data in Google Sheets
• Youtube videos

You can also integrate almost any other data source via 3rd party connectors, or build your own connector for almost anything with an API.

Basically, if the data is digital you can get it into GDS.

So what are my results so far? Here are some samples. Try them out. Play around. I’m amazed at how much I could embed into a medium article.

I did all of this without any coding. The designs are all made using the built-in features from GDS and the data is all managed in a nice convenient GUI. The learning curve was insanely easy compared to all the alternative programs I’ve tried. It would take me months to do this in the other visualization systems out there (and I’d probably need to learn to write CSS to make it look this sleek).

In short, use GDS if you need: tons of design flexibility, little to no cost, extremely easy integration of google suites data and an even easier learning curve.

If you’re looking for actionable Google Data Studio reports send an email to cottrell (at) hey (dot) com. I’d be happy to help you get started. Check out https://www.datastudiopro.com/

Google is bringing sexy back…to your data was originally published in Data Studio on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.