Conditional Formatting in Looker Studio: meaning & practical guide
Conditional formatting in Looker Studio is a powerful tool that enhances your data visualization by adding colors to your charts and tables based on specific rules. Whether you're highlighting performance thresholds or creating heat maps, it helps draw attention to key metrics effortlessly.
In this lesson, you’ll learn what conditional formatting is, how to implement it in Looker Studio, and how to get the most out of its features through real-world examples.
What is conditional formatting
Conditional formatting is a feature that changes the appearance of cells or rows in your tables or charts based on rules you define. It’s commonly used to:
- Highlight key KPIs (e.g. when a value is below target)
- Emphasize outliers
- Visually group data using heat maps
How to add conditional formatting in Looker Studio?
There are different ways to apply conditional formatting in Looker Studio, depending on the kind of visual effect you're aiming for. In this section, we’ll go over each method and show you how to set them up step by step.
Before applying conditional formatting, it's helpful to take a moment to consider your formatting goals and the available options. Here’s a quick overview of the decisions you’ll need to make:
- Pick a formatting type: Decide between Single Colour (for specific conditions) or Colour Scale (for gradient heatmaps).
- Select the target field: Choose the data field whose values will determine whether formatting is applied.
- (If using Single Colour) Choose a condition: Define a rule such as greater than, equal to, or less than that will trigger the formatting.
- Decide on the style and scope: Choose the background and/or text colors, and specify whether the style should apply to a specific cell or the entire row.
Single colour option
This option lets you highlight specific rows or cells when certain conditions are met. It is particularly useful for drawing attention to outliers, threshold breaches, or key metrics.
💡 Conditions Available (Single Colour Only)
The following logical conditions are available exclusively for the Single Colour option:
- Equal to
- Not equal to
- Greater than
- Greater than or equal to
- Less than
- Less than or equal to
These can be applied to both numeric and categorical fields. You define one or more rules and specify how the data should appear when the rule is met — via background or text color.
How to apply:
- Select your table or chart.
- Navigate to the Style tab.
- Scroll to Conditional Formatting.
- Click + Add formatting.
- Choose Single colour.
- Choose your field, condition, and styling preferences.
Colour scale option
Colour scale formatting is used to apply a gradient of colors based on value distribution. Unlike the single colour option, this method doesn’t use logical conditions. Instead, it maps colors proportionally across a defined range, from low to high values.
This creates a heat map effect, making it easy to spot patterns, variations, or performance levels at a glance.
How to apply:
- Select your table.
- Open the Style tab.
- Scroll to Conditional Formatting
- Click + Add formatting.
- Choose Colour Scale.
- Select the metric field and define your color gradient.
💡 To go further: You can add multiple color points (minimum, midpoint, maximum, or more) to customize the gradient and better reflect the value distribution in your dataset.
Multiple conditional formatting
In Looker Studio, you’re not limited to a single formatting rule — you can add multiple conditional formatting rules to the same chart or table. This is particularly useful when you want to highlight different thresholds or categories in the same dataset.
For example, you might want to:
- Highlight revenue below $5,000 in red
- Mark revenue above $10,000 in green
You can define a separate rule for each condition and assign a unique style to it. This layered approach lets you bring more nuance and readability to your data visualizations.
⚠️ Be careful with conditional formatting priority
When multiple rules apply to the same cell or row, Looker Studio follows a top-down priority order:
- The first rule that matches is the one that will be applied.
- Any rule listed below it, even if it also matches, will be ignored.
To manage this:
- Use the drag-and-drop interface to reorder your rules in the formatting panel.
- Place your most specific rules at the top and broader rules further down to avoid conflicts or unexpected results.
Conditional Formatting Examples
Here are a few practical examples to help you understand how conditional formatting can be used effectively in Looker Studio.
Example 1: Flag Low RevenueApply a rule on the "Revenue" field with the condition "Less than $5,000". Set a light red background to draw attention to underperforming entries.
Example 2: Heat Map on Conversion Rate
Use the "Conversion Rate" field with the Colour Scale option. Define a gradient from red (low) to yellow (medium) to green (high) to create a heat map effect.
Example 3: Emphasize Neutral Values
Set a condition on the "NPS" (Net Promoter Score) field for values less than 4. Use a red background to visually flag bad scores that require attention.
Conditional formatting in Looker Studio is a simple yet powerful way to make your data clearer, more readable, and easier to interpret at a glance. Now that you know how to use it, you can start building reports that highlight what really matters.
More function to use with Looker Studio
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