How to Combine Two Graphs in Excel

Trying to show how your marketing spend impacts sales, or how website traffic correlates with newsletter sign-ups? Sometimes, a single chart just doesn’t tell the whole story. Combining two different types of charts - like bars and a line - into one visual is the perfect way to compare metrics with different scales and uncover powerful insights. This guide will walk you through exactly how to combine two graphs in Excel, turning confusing data into a clear, compelling story.

Why Combine Graphs in Excel?

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." A combination chart, or combo chart, is perfect for when you're trying to visualize two different types of data on the same graph. It’s a workhorse for finding relationships between different metrics.

The key benefit is the ability to use a secondary axis. Imagine you want to plot your monthly revenue (which is in the tens of thousands of dollars) against the number of units sold (which is in the hundreds). If you put both on the same axis, the "Units Sold" values would look like a flat line at the bottom, completely dwarfed by the massive revenue numbers. A secondary axis creates a second scale on the right-hand side of the chart, allowing each dataset to be represented clearly.

Common Scenarios for Combo Charts:

• Sales vs. Marketing: Plotting monthly sales revenue (bars) against marketing ad spend (line). Are your spending surges leading to revenue bumps?
• Website Performance: Showing total website sessions (bars) against the conversion rate percentage (line). Does more traffic necessarily mean a better conversion rate?
• Operational Efficiency: Comparing the number of support tickets received (bars) against the average resolution time (line). Can you see how response times change when ticket volume spikes?
• E-commerce Analytics: Visualizing units sold (bars) alongside the average order value (line). Are people buying more items, or are they buying more expensive items?

In all these cases, you're looking at two different units of measurement ($ vs. #, sessions vs. %, tickets vs. hours). A combo chart makes this comparison easy to understand at a glance.

Preparing Your Data for a Combo Chart

Good charts start with good data structure. Before you even think about clicking the "Insert Chart" button, you need to organize your data in a way Excel can understand. For a combo chart, that means a simple, tidy table.

The most important rule is that your data series must share a common category, which will form the horizontal (X-axis) of your chart. This is usually a time-based category like Day, Month, or Quarter, but it can also be something like names of products or marketing channels.

Let's use a common sales and marketing scenario. We want to compare monthly advertising spend to the sales revenue it generated. Your data table should look something like this:

Step 1: Set Up Your Table Open a new Excel sheet and create three columns. The first column will be your shared category (in this case, Month), and the next two columns will be the data series you want to compare (Ad Spend and Sales Revenue).

Notice the different scales here? Ad Spend is in the low thousands, while Sales Revenue is in the tens of thousands. This is a perfect candidate for a combo chart with a secondary axis.

Method 1: Create a Combo Chart From Scratch

This is the most direct way to create a combined chart in modern versions of Excel (Excel 2013 and newer). Excel has a built-in "Combo" chart type that makes the process incredibly straightforward.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Select Your Data: Click and drag your cursor to highlight your entire data table, including the headers (e.g., cell A1 through C7 in our example).
2. Open the Chart Menu: Go to the Insert tab on the top ribbon. In the "Charts" section, click on Recommended Charts.
3. Choose the Combo Chart Option: A dialog box will pop up. While Excel might recommend a Clustered Column chart by default, we want more control. Click on the All Charts tab at the top of the box.
4. Select "Combo": In the list of chart types on the left, click on Combo at the very bottom.
5. Configure Your Chart: This is where the magic happens. You’ll now see a new menu for building your combo chart. For each of your data series ("Ad Spend" and "Sales Revenue"), you can choose a chart type and decide whether to plot it on a secondary axis.
6. Create the Chart: Once you're happy with the preview, click OK. Excel will instantly drop your new combo chart right into your worksheet.

And that’s it! You'll now have a single, clean visual showing your Sales Revenue as columns (measured by the left vertical axis) and your Ad Spend as a line (measured by the new right vertical axis).

Method 2: Add a Second Data Series to an Existing Chart

What if you already have a chart showing one data set and just want to add another one to it? For instance, maybe you already built a column chart tracking Sales Revenue and now you want to layer in Ad Spend. This method works well for that scenario.

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Start With a Single Chart: Begin by creating a basic chart for your first data series. Highlight just the Month and Sales Revenue columns, go to Insert > Charts, and select a simple Clustered Column chart.
2. Open the Select Data Menu: Right-click anywhere in the chart area and choose Select Data….
3. Add a New Series: The 'Select Data Source' window will appear. On the left side, under 'Legend Entries (Series),' click the Add button.
4. Define the New Series:

At this point, your chart will show two sets of columns, side-by-side, which isn't yet what we want. The Ad Spend columns will likely be too small to see properly.

1. Change the Chart Type for the New Series: Find the new, tiny columns on your chart representing Ad Spend. Right-click on one of them and select Change Series Chart Type... from the menu.
2. Configure Your Combo Chart: You'll be taken to the exact same Combo Chart configuration screen from Method 1. Now you can easily adjust the settings just as we did before:
3. Finalize Your Chart: Click OK. Your existing column chart is now transformed into a beautiful and informative combo chart.

Customizing and Refining Your Combo Chart

Creating the chart is only half the battle. A default chart from Excel is functional, but a few quick tweaks can make it much more professional and easier to read.

Add Axis Titles

This is the most critical step for any chart with a secondary axis. Without titles, your audience has no idea what the left and right axes are measuring.

• Click on your chart to select it.
• Go to the Chart Design tab on the ribbon.
• On the far left, click Add Chart Element > Axis Titles.
• Add a Primary Vertical title (e.g., "Sales Revenue ($)") and a Secondary Vertical title (e.g., "Ad Spend ($)").
• Don't forget the Primary Horizontal title to label your X-axis (e.g., "Month").

Write a Clear Chart Title

Replace the generic "Chart Title" with something descriptive. Instead of "Ad Spend and Sales Revenue," try something that communicates the insight, like "Ad Spend vs. Sales Revenue - Q1 & Q2 2024".

Adjust Your Colors

The default colors might not fit your brand or be the clearest. Click on any data series (the bars or the line) to select it, then use the Format tab to change the fill or outline color to something that makes more sense visually.

Final Thoughts

Combining two graphs in Excel is an incredibly powerful way to compare different metrics, spot trends, and tell a data-driven story. By using the built-in Combo Chart feature and adding a secondary axis, you can easily create professional-looking visuals that reveal how one area of your business impacts another.

Instead of manually downloading CSVs, wrangling them in Excel, and painstakingly building these charts every week, we built Graphed to automate your entire reporting process. You can connect your marketing and sales platforms (like Shopify, Google Ads, or HubSpot) once, and then simply ask in plain English for the exact dashboard you need. Asking to see "Shopify sales revenue vs Facebook Ads spend by month as a combo chart" generates a live, interactive dashboard that updates automatically, saving you hours of repetitive report-building.