How to Connect API to Looker Studio

Your most valuable data often lives inside apps that don't have a direct, one-click connection to Looker Studio. While these services offer powerful APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) to access that data, getting it from the API into your reports can feel like a daunting technical hurdle. This guide will walk you through the practical, step-by-step methods you can use to bridge that gap and build the unified dashboard you need.

Why Connect an API to Looker Studio?

Dashboards are most powerful when they tell the whole story. The native connectors for Google Analytics, Google Ads, and BigQuery are fantastic, but they only show a piece of your business performance. Your complete picture might involve data from project management tools like JIRA, support platforms like Intercom, a niche advertising network, or even a custom-built internal application.

APIs are the universal language of modern software, allowing different applications to talk to each other and exchange data. By connecting an API to Looker Studio, you can:

• Unify Your Reporting: Pull in data from any source - sales, marketing, operations, support - and visualize it alongside your core Google metrics.
• Automate Your Data Pulls: Stop manually downloading CSV files every week. An API connection creates a live, automated pipeline for your data.
• Customize Your Data Model: Extract the exact metrics and dimensions you need from a source, rather than being limited by a pre-built connector's capabilities.

First, Check if a Connector Already Exists

Before you dive into building something custom, it's always worth spending five minutes to see if someone else has already solved your problem. Google and its partners have built a large gallery of "connectors" that handle the API integration work for you.

You can find them directly within Looker Studio:

1. From the Looker Studio homepage, click Create and select Data Source.
2. On the next screen, you’ll see a list of official Google Connectors.
3. Use the search bar at the top to search for the service you want to connect (e.g., "HubSpot," "Shopify," "Asana").
4. The results will show connectors from both "Partner Connectors" (developed by other companies) and "Community Connectors" (built by independent developers).

If you find what you need, your search is over! Just follow the prompts to authorize the connection. If you don't find a direct connector, don't worry - that's what the rest of this guide is for.

Method 1: The Easy Way with a Third-Party Connector Service

The simplest way to connect to many popular but unsupported APIs is by using a specialized third-party data service. These platforms act as a bridge, pulling data from dozens of APIs and piping it directly into BI tools like Looker Studio.

Think of them as a "connector-as-a-service." They handle all the complex coding, authentication, and API maintenance so you don't have to.

Popular Services in this Space:

• Supermetrics
• Power My Analytics
• Funnel.io
• Two Minute Reports

Benefits of this method:

• No coding required: It’s a point-and-click process.
• Fast setup: You can often be running in under 15 minutes.
• Maintenance-free: The service is responsible for keeping the API connections up-to-date.

Downsides:

• Subscription Cost: These services are subscription-based and can range from affordable to expensive depending on your needs.
• Limited support: They support a wide range of popular marketing and sales apps, but may not have a connector for a very niche or internal API.

How it Generally Works:

1. Sign up for an account with the third-party service of your choice.
2. Inside their platform, connect your data sources by authenticating your accounts (e.g., logging into TikTok Ads, Klaviyo, etc.). This gives them permission to access your data.
3. Go back to Looker Studio and create a new data source.
4. Instead of searching for your end source (like TikTok), search for the third-party provider (like "Supermetrics"). You'll find their partner connector.
5. Select their connector, authenticate with the account you just created, and choose the data source and specific metrics you want to bring into Looker Studio.

For most marketing and sales teams, this is the most efficient and practical route to get data from multiple platforms into their dashboards without needing technical resources.

Method 2: The DIY Route with a Custom Community Connector

If a third-party service doesn't support the API you need or you prefer a more hands-on approach, you can build your own connector. This gives you complete control and is free (aside from your time), but it does require some basic comfort with code.

Looker Studio allows anyone to build their own "Community Connectors" using Google Apps Script, a simple version of JavaScript that runs on Google's servers.

Phase 1: Understand the API You're Connecting

Before writing a single line of code, you must understand how the API you want to access works. Dive into its official documentation and find the answers to these four key questions:

• Authentication: How does the API confirm you have permission to access the data? This is often a simple API key you pass along with your request, but can sometimes be a more complex OAuth 2.0 flow.
• Endpoints: What are the specific URLs you need to request to get the data you want? An API will have different endpoints for users, sales, projects, etc. Find the ones relevant to you.
• Data Format: The data will almost always be returned in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). Skim a sample response to understand its structure.
• Rate Limits: How many times can you request data per minute or per day? It's important to be aware of these limits to avoid being blocked.

Phase 2: Writing Your Connector Code in Apps Script

A Looker Studio connector is an Apps Script project containing four essential functions. Let's walk through them.

Setup Your Script:

1. Go to script.google.com and create a New Project.
2. Give your project a descriptive name, like "My Custom API Connector."

The Four Core Functions

Your script needs these exact function names for Looker Studio to recognize it.

1. getAuthType(): Handles Authentication

This tells Looker Studio how your API authenticates users. For starters, an API key is the most common and simplest method. You would specify that the authentication type is 'KEY'.

function getAuthType() {
  const cc = DataStudioApp.createCommunityConnector(),
  return cc.newAuthTypeResponse()
    .setAuthType(cc.AuthType.KEY)
    .setHelpUrl('https://www.example.com/api-docs')
    .build(),
}

2. getConfig(): Defines User Input Fields

This function creates the user interface your team will see when they set up the connector in Looker Studio. Here, you'll ask them to enter the API key.

function getConfig(request) {
  const cc = DataStudioApp.createCommunityConnector(),
  const config = cc.getConfig(),

  config.newTextInput()
    .setId('apiKey')
    .setName('Enter your API Key')
    .setHelpText('You can find your API key in your account settings.')
    .setPlaceholder('abcd-1234-wxyz-5678'),

  config.setDateRangeRequired(true), // Usually you'll want a date range.

  return config.build(),
}

3. getSchema(): Defines Your Data Structure

This is where you define the "columns" of your data source. You need to list every field you plan to pull from the API and declare its data type (e.g., TEXT, NUMBER, YEAR_MONTH_DAY).

function getSchema(request) {
  const cc = DataStudioApp.createCommunityConnector(),
  const schema = cc.getSchema(),

  schema.newDimension()
    .setId('date')
    .setName('Date')
    .setType(cc.FieldType.YEAR_MONTH_DAY),

  schema.newMetric()
    .setId('sales_total')
    .setName('Total Sales')
    .setType(cc.FieldType.CURRENCY_USD),

  schema.newDimension()
    .setId('product_name')
    .setName('Product Name')
    .setType(cc.FieldType.TEXT),

  return schema.build(),
}

4. getData(): Fetches and Returns the Data

This is the heart of your connector. This function is responsible for:

• Receiving the API key the user entered in getConfig.
• Making a call to the external API using that key.
• Parsing the JSON response from the API.
• Looping through the data and formatting it to match the schema you defined in getSchema.
• Returning the formatted rows to Looker Studio.

function getData(request) {
  // 1. Get user configuration (API key and date range)
  const apiKey = request.configParams.apiKey,
  const startDate = request.dateRange.startDate,
  const endDate = request.dateRange.endDate,

  const url = `https://api.example.com/data?start=${startDate}&end=${endDate}`,
  const options = {
    'headers': {
      'Authorization': 'Bearer ' + apiKey
    }
  },

  // 2. Fetch data from the API
  const response = UrlFetchApp.fetch(url, options),
  const data = JSON.parse(response.getContentText()),

  // 3. Define the schema for Looker Studio to expect
  const fields = request.fields,
  const dataFields = data.fields, // Example structure, adjust accordingly
  const schemaMap = {},
  dataFields.forEach(function(field) {
    schemaMap[field.name] = field,
  }),

  // 4. Format and return rows
  const rows = [],
  data.items.forEach(function(item) {
    const row = [],
    fields.forEach(function(field) {
      row.push(item[field.name]),
    }),
    rows.push({ values: row }),
  }),

  return {
    schema: fields,
    rows: rows
  },
}

Phase 3: Deploy and Connect Your Connector

Once your code is ready, you need to create a deployment to make it usable in Looker Studio.

1. In the Apps Script editor, click Deploy > New deployment.
2. Click the gear icon next to "Select type" and choose Looker Studio Connector.
3. Give your deployment a description and click Deploy.
4. Copy the Deployment ID it gives you.

Now, head over to Looker Studio:

1. Create a new data source.
2. In the search bar, look for "Build your own" and select that connector.
3. Paste your Deployment ID into the validation box and click Submit.
4. Your custom connector will load. Fill in the API key as defined in your getConfig function, authorize permissions, and click Connect in the top right.

Success! You should now have a data source in Looker Studio powered directly by your own custom code.

The Alternative "Middleman" Method: A Google Sheet

If building a full connector seems like too much, there's a simpler, if less elegant, middle ground: use a Google Sheet as a data warehouse.

The process is straightforward:

1. Automate the API-to-Sheet Transfer: Use a tool like Zapier or Make.com, or even a simple script within Google Sheets itself (UrlFetchApp), to pull data from your API on a recurring schedule (e.g., every hour or every night) and dump it into a Sheet.
2. Connect Looker Studio to the Google Sheet: This is a native connection in Looker Studio. Simply create a data source, select "Google Sheets," and point it to the sheet you prepared.

This is a great workaround for non-developers or for data that doesn't need to be perfectly real-time. The biggest downside is a potential delay in data freshness, but for many reports, that’s perfectly acceptable.

Final Thoughts

Getting external data into Looker Studio is more accessible than it seems. You can use a paid third-party service for a plug-and-play solution or roll up your sleeves with Google Apps Script to build a fully custom and free connector. Both paths lead to more comprehensive dashboards that tell a complete business story.

Ultimately, the goal is to spend less time juggling data and more time acting on insights. Instead of hand-coding connectors or paying for multiple middleware tools, our approach at Graphed is to handle these API connections for you automatically. We let you connect your marketing and sales tools with one click and then build real-time dashboards using plain English, skipping the entire technical setup and complex BI tooling.