The different types of charts & visualizations in Power BI

Power BI is a highly intuitive tool that offers a wide range of visuals to help you analyze your data effectively. With a simple drag-and-drop, you can start visualizing your most important KPIs right away. But if you’re here, you’re probably wondering: what is the best visualization to highlight your data? You’re in the right place!

We’ll explore the best charts and visuals available in Power BI, how they work, and when they’re most useful for you.

Power BI visuals list

Power BI offers a wide variety of visuals, and often a single type can be presented in multiple chart formats. To keep things simple and focused on what really matters, we’ll group the charts by type and explain the purpose of each. We won’t go into every single variation, except for specific cases where it truly adds value, since most alternatives simply provide another way of visualizing the same data for the same objectives.

Bar and Column charts

Bar and column charts in Power BI are excellent for comparing values across multiple categories. They provide a simple and familiar way to highlight differences, while remaining flexible and easy to read.

• Pros: Easy to understand, interactive, and effective for quickly comparing multiple categories.
• Cons: Can become cluttered with too many categories, suffer from label readability issues, and are not ideal for showing changes over time.

You can find 6 bar and column charts (3 of each) in Power BI:

• Stacked bar chart
• Stacked column chart
• Clustered bar chart
• Clustered column chart
• 100% stacked bar chart
• 100% stacked column chart

💡 Whether you use a bar chart or a column chart, the main difference is readability. For example, if you’re sorting data by age, a column chart works well because the values are easy to display. But if you sort by conversion name, a bar chart is often better since it makes the labels clearer. In the end, it’s all about choosing the format that keeps your data easy to read.

Line chart

Line charts are essential when you want to track an evolution or identify a trend over time. They provide a clear way to visualize how values increase, decrease, or fluctuate, making them perfect for highlighting progress or spotting long-term patterns.

• Pros: Ideal for showing data over time, easy to interpret trends, and effective for highlighting growth or decline.
• Cons: Can become difficult to read with too many lines, may oversimplify complex data, and not well suited for comparing categories at a single point in time.

Combo charts

Combo charts combine two chart types (a column chart with a line chart) to show different measures on the same axis. They are particularly useful when you want to compare actual values against a trend, or display two related KPIs with different scales. In marketing, for example, you might use a combo chart to show ad spend as columns and conversions as a line.

• Pros: Allows comparison of two types of data in one view, highlights relationships between metrics, and saves space in dashboards.
• Cons: Can be harder to read if overused, may confuse the audience if the measures are not clearly related, and less effective if too many series are added.

Power BI offers 2 types of combo charts:

• Line and Stacked Column Chart: Best for showing proportions.
• Line and Clustered Column Chart: Ideal for making comparisons.

Area charts

Area charts are similar to line charts but go further by highlighting cumulative values and showing how categories contribute to a total over time.

• Pros: Great for showing overall trends and totals, useful to illustrate how each category contributes to the whole.
• Cons: Can get cluttered with too many categories, harder to read than line charts, and may exaggerate differences.

Power BI provides 3 types of area charts:

• Area chart: Similar to a line chart, but with the emphasis on volume.
• Stacked area chart: Best for showing proportions over time. Keep in mind that it represents a cumulative total, not individual sums.
• 100% stacked area chart: Ideal for visualizing proportions without needing exact numerical values.

Pie chart

Pie charts (and donut charts) are ideal for showing proportions and illustrating how each category contributes to a whole.

• Pros: Simple to understand, great for showing part-to-whole relationships, and visually appealing for small datasets.
• Cons: Hard to read with too many categories, not precise for detailed comparisons, and less effective than bar charts when accuracy is needed.

Card & KPIs chart

Card and KPI charts are the simplest visuals, displaying data as a single number. They make it easy to see the total of a metric (cost, revenue, etc.) and quickly compare it to a previous period or a defined target.

• Pros: Very clear and straightforward, perfect for highlighting key metrics, and useful for quick comparisons against goals or past results.
• Cons: Limited context, only shows one value at a time, and doesn’t provide details or breakdowns.

💡 In this category, Power BI offers three different charts: Card, KPI, and Multi-row Card. Choosing the right one depends on a key question: what level of detail do I want to display.

Waterfall chart

Waterfall charts are designed to show how an initial value is affected by a series of positive and negative changes, making it clear how you reach a final result. They are often used in finance and business analysis, but also work well in marketing, for example, to show how different actions or campaigns contribute to overall performance.

• Pros: Great for visualizing step-by-step contributions, highlights increases and decreases clearly, and helps explain how results are achieved.
• Cons: Can become confusing with too many steps, less effective for comparing categories, and not ideal for showing long-term trends.

Funnel chart

Funnel charts are used to represent data that flows through different stages, making it easy to see how values decrease step by step. They are especially relevant for processes with drop-offs, such as sales pipelines or customer journeys in marketing.

• Pros: Clear way to show conversions across stages, highlights where the biggest drop-offs occur, and very intuitive for business and marketing processes.
• Cons: Limited to sequential data, doesn’t explain why drop-offs happen, and can oversimplify complex processes.

Scatter chart

Scatter charts are used to show the relationship between two variables, making it easier to identify patterns, correlations, or outliers. In marketing, they can help compare metrics such as cost versus revenue, or impressions versus conversions. When you add a third variable to size the points, the scatter chart becomes a bubble chart, which allows you to add even more context to your analysis.

• Pros: Great for spotting correlations, highlighting clusters or outliers, and adding depth when extended into bubble charts.
• Cons: Can be hard to read with large datasets, requires interpretation skills, and may not be the best choice for quick comparisons.

Treemap

Treemaps display hierarchical data using nested rectangles, where the size of each block represents its value. They are useful for showing how different categories contribute to a whole, while also allowing a quick comparison between them. In marketing, for instance, they can be used to visualize budget allocation or the performance of different channels.

• Pros: Great for showing part-to-whole relationships, works well with large datasets, and highlights the relative importance of categories at a glance.
• Cons: Can be hard to read with too many small categories, doesn’t show trends over time, and lacks precision compared to bar or column charts.

Map

Map charts are designed to display data across geographical locations, making it easy to understand regional differences and distributions. In marketing, they are particularly useful to analyze performance by country, region, or city, such as sales, leads, or campaign reach.

• Pros: Visually engaging, perfect for geographic insights, and helps spot regional trends at a glance.
• Cons: Requires accurate location data, can become cluttered with too many points, and may oversimplify details without context.

Table & Matrices

Tables and matrices in Power BI are the most straightforward visuals for displaying detailed, structured data. A table shows rows and columns with exact values, while a matrix extends this by allowing grouping, drilling, and cross-tab style analysis. In marketing, they are often used to list campaign results, leads, or performance metrics in detail.

• Pros: Precise and detailed, great for showing raw data, supports hierarchies in matrices, and allows users to drill down for deeper insights.
• Cons: Less visual and engaging than charts, harder to spot patterns at a glance, and can become overwhelming with too much data.

Best Power BI charts & visualizations

The choice of a chart always depends on the data you want to highlight and this rule works for all the reporting platform and also for marketing data vizualisation. Selecting between charts within the same category comes down to the level of clarity they provide. In fact, we can consider a dashboard successful when all its data is clear, valuable, readable, and easy to understand. The key insights should be grasped at a glance. The same principle applies to the choice of colors and the layout of visuals on a page. You can also draw inspiration from Power BI dashboard examples and templates.

Visualize your Marketing data in Power BI

Understanding the strengths and limitations of each Power BI chart is the first step to creating dashboards that truly make your data meaningful. Once you know which visuals to use, the real value comes from connecting the right data. With Catchr integration, you can easily bring all your marketing data (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn, and more) directly into Power BI. This way, you can apply the charts we’ve just reviewed to track campaigns, analyze performance, and uncover insights that drive smarter decisions.