Connecting Google Ads and Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) is excellent for your marketing!
Looker Studio is a powerful dashboarding tool allowing you to easily link several platforms to the same report and display KPIs.
Looker Studio can help you in 2 ways: Digging into your data to find issues and opportunities and creating beautiful dashboards to present your result.
We'll find out in this report how to connect your Google Ads account to Looker Studio and create your first report with it.
Follow this link if you'd instead use a template to start even more quickly. There is more instruction on how to copy a template here.
About connectors:
You need to use a connector to create a Looker Studio data source, but there are two kinds of connectors:
Google published a Google Ads connector that is free to use, but several partners published their own Google Ads connector.
I advise using the free connector if you already know how to use Looker Studio, and every KPI you need is available in the Google connector.
If you need to learn how to use Looker Studio and are looking for great support, look on the Partners connector side. Sometimes we can access more KPIs than the official connector. Feel free to ask!
We will see how to create a Looker Studio data source using the Catchr Google Ads connector here.
Create a Google Ads data source:
Click on this link to access our Google Ads connector on Looker Studio.
From there, go through the different authorization steps.
Once finished, you can select the account link to your soon-to-be Looker Studio data source. And finally, click Connect at the top right.
You just created your Google Ads data source! Rename it so you can find it later.
This page is the field list available in this data source. You can manage their name, type, or aggregation method here. You can even create calculated fields or parameters. To learn more about this page, follow this link.
From your data source page, click on Create Report at the top right.
You created a report with your data source attached. You can find the data source fields list in the far right panel.
This is your canvas. It's here that you will place charts and create your dashboard! You can have a detailed explanation of this interface in this article.
The first thing to do is to choose which KPIs we want to use:
And we will breakdown with some dimensions:
Now we can start creating our report.
Add a Scorecard:
We can start adding elements to the report. We'll begin by displaying a Scorecard for each chosen metric:
Copy and paste this Scorecard and repeat the operation for each metric.
Once every Scorecard is displayed, align them all:
Add a table:
We will create two tables to display our performance by Campaign and AdGroup:
Once all the metrics are added, copy and paste this table and change the dimension to the Ad group name.
Add a GeoChart:
Adding a map to our report is a great way to visualize the repartition of your ads performance :
Geo Charts can only display one metric at a time, but you can use the Optional metrics option to quickly change metrics in view mode.
Change dimension and metrics for your GEO Chart
Add bar chart:
For the Gender and Age breakdown, we will use a bar chart. It's a great way to analyze your audiences quickly:
For example, you can explore the style options to modify your bar chart to display horizontally.
Add control fields:
To finish the data part of this report, we need to add some control fields. Control fields will allow viewers to modify the selected date range and apply filters on dimensions like the Campaign Name, etc.
Now we will add a dropdown list to select only the wanted campaign. Once active, all the pages will automatically adapt to match the filter.
Try to click on it to check how it works! And explore the other control fields. For example, you can find filters via text, fixed size select box, etc.
Color and size
Now that everything is displayed, we can modify the style of this report.
First things, you might feel that this report is too small:
Then go back to Theme. Here you can choose a pre-made theme to change the color of your report's components quickly.
Title and text:
You can use a text box easily to add some titles and informative text about your performance:
Explore the Style options. You can change the font color and size, add borders and shadows, and create the perfect text box for every situation.
Add an image:
You can add some images to your report. For example, try to add your logo or your client's logo.
You are the owner of this report now. You can share it easily with the Share button at the top right and manage which role everyone has:
You'll find a detailed article on how to share your report here.
To save some time, you can use a template report. You can copy it with one of your data sources and have an already-styled report where you only need to adapt the KPIs.
Here is a template based on this tutorial. You'll find everything we saw in this article. And follow this link to a tutorial to copy it easily.
Get all your marketing data in your favorite data activation, database or reporting tools.