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How to Connect YouTube to Looker Studio

Cody Schneider•

Pulling your YouTube data into Looker Studio is the fastest way to build custom reports that go far beyond the standard YouTube Analytics dashboard. With an interactive report, you can track the exact KPIs that matter to your channel, blend YouTube data with other marketing sources, and automate your reporting. This guide will walk you through, step-by-step, how to connect your YouTube channel to Looker Studio and start building truly insightful dashboards.

Why Bother Connecting YouTube to Looker Studio?

You might be wondering, "Why not just use the analytics dashboard inside YouTube Studio?" While YouTube's native analytics are great for quick check-ins, they have limitations. Connecting your channel to a BI tool like Looker Studio unlocks a more powerful and flexible way to analyze your performance.

Here’s what you gain:

  • Fully Customized Dashboards: Instead of being stuck with YouTube's default layout, you can create reports that show exactly what you and your stakeholders want to see. You can build high-level KPI overviews for executives, granular video performance reports for your content team, or sponsor-specific reports showing the impact of a campaign.

  • Combine Data Sources: This is the biggest advantage. You can pull data from Google Analytics, your email platform, Shopify, Google Ads, and more into a single view. Imagine a chart that shows how a specific YouTube video directly impacted website traffic and product sales. That’s the kind of insight you can’t get from YouTube alone.

  • Scheduled, Automated Reporting: Stop manually taking screenshots or exporting CSVs every week. You can set up your Looker Studio dashboard to automatically refresh and even email a PDF version to your team on a regular schedule. It puts your reporting on autopilot.

  • Deeper, Interactive Analysis: Looker Studio's filters and controls allow you to slice and dice your data in ways that are clunky or impossible in the standard YouTube interface. You can filter your entire dashboard by a specific video, date range, or demographic with a single click.

The Easiest Way: Using Google's Native Connector

Looker Studio (now part of Google Cloud) is a Google product, and so is YouTube. Naturally, they have a free, built-in "connector" that lets you pipe data directly from YouTube Analytics into Looker Studio. For most users, this is the quickest and best way to get started.

It's designed to be straightforward, using your Google account to authorize the connection securely. This means you don't need to hunt for API keys or write any code. It just works.

Step-by-Step: Connecting YouTube to Looker Studio

Ready to make the connection? The process is surprisingly fast. Just follow these steps, and you’ll have your YouTube data ready to go in minutes.

Step 1: Open Looker Studio and Create a New Data Source

First, head over to lookerstudio.google.com and sign in with the Google account that has access to your YouTube channel.

On the main screen, click the big + Create button in the top left and select Data Source from the dropdown menu.

Step 2: Find and Select the YouTube Analytics Connector

You'll now see a gallery of "Google Connectors," along with connectors from third-party partners. In the search bar at the top, type in "YouTube." You should see the YouTube Analytics connector appear. Click on it.

Step 3: Authorize the Connection

Looker Studio needs your permission to access your YouTube Analytics data. Click the blue AUTHORIZE button. This will trigger a standard Google login pop-up, asking you to choose the Google account associated with your YouTube channel. Select the correct account and grant the necessary permissions.

Once you’ve authorized it, the button will turn into a grey, disabled "AUTHORIZED" button, and you can move on.

Step 4: Configure Your Data Source

After authorization, Looker Studio will ask you to specify which channel's data you want to use. You'll see dropdown menus here.

  • Select your account/channel: If your Google account manages multiple channels, you'll need to pick the specific one you want to analyze from the list.

After you select your channel, you'll see a list of every single metric and dimension available. This is your chance to see all the data types you can pull in, from "Views" and "Subscribers Gained" to "Video Title" and "Traffic source." Don’t worry about changing anything here yet, you can leave them all selected.

Step 5: Connect and Create Your First Report

In the top right corner, click the blue CONNECT button. This will finalize the setup of your new data source.

Looker Studio will then show you a table view of all the data fields you have available. From here, click the CREATE REPORT button, also in the top right. A pop-up will ask you to confirm adding this brand new data source to a brand new report. Click ADD TO REPORT.

And that's it! You're now inside a blank Looker Studio report canvas with your YouTube data source connected and ready to go. Looker Studio will even add a simple starter table to the canvas to show you the connection is working.

Building Your First YouTube Performance Dashboard

Now for the fun part. The canvas is blank, and your data is waiting. On the right-hand panel, you'll see your "Data Source" and a list of all available dimensions (like Video Title, Date, Country) and metrics (like Views, Watch time, Likes).

Here are a few essential charts to create for your first dashboard to get you started.

1. High-Level KPIs with Scorecards

Scorecards are perfect for showing your most important top-line numbers at a glance.

  • Go to Add a chart > Scorecard.

  • By default, it might show "Views." Great! If not, drag the Views metric from your data panel on the right over to the "Metric" section for the scorecard.

  • Duplicate this scorecard (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V) twice more. For the second one, change the metric to Watch time (hours). For the third, change the metric to Subscribers gained.

  • Finally, add a date range control at the top (under "Add a control") so you can easily filter your dashboard for "This Month," "Last 30 Days," etc.

2. Performance Over Time with a Line Chart

A time series chart shows you the rhythm of your channel - are you growing, stalling, or seeing seasonal dips?

  • Go to Add a chart > Time series chart.

  • Set the "Dimension" to Date.

  • For your Metrics, add both Views and Subscribers gained. Now you can easily see if a spike in views from a viral video led to a similar spike in new subscribers.

3. Top Performing Videos with a Table or Bar Chart

You need to know what content is resonating with your audience.

  • Go to Add a chart > Table.

  • Set the "Dimension" to Video Title.

  • Add multiple Metrics to see a complete picture. Good ones to start with are Views, Average view duration, and Watch time (hours).

  • Click on the header of any metric column in your table to sort by it and instantly see your top video for that KPI. For a more visual look, you could use a Bar Chart instead!

4. Understanding Your Audience and Traffic

Where are your views coming from?

  • Go to Add a chart > Pie chart.

  • Set the "Dimension" to Traffic source and the "Metric" to Views.

  • This will instantly give you a breakdown of whether your audience is finding you through YouTube search, suggested videos, external sources, or other channels.

Advanced Option: When to Use a Third-Party Connector

While the native Google connector is powerful, you might eventually hit a wall. Sometimes you need more data, more flexibility, or just more power. This is where third-party connectors like Supermetrics or Power My Analytics come in.

You might consider a third-party tool if:

  • You need to analyze data from multiple YouTube channels in a single chart. The default connector is limited to one channel per data source.

  • You need access to a very specific metric that the native connector doesn't provide.

  • You consistently run into data sampling or query limits because you manage a massive channel with millions of daily views. Paid connectors are often built to handle larger loads more efficiently.

For most users, especially when starting out, the free native connector is more than sufficient.

Final Thoughts

Connecting your YouTube channel to Looker Studio transforms your raw performance data into a powerful tool for strategic decision-making. Now, you can move beyond the basics and build dashboards that truly explain your channel's growth, highlight your best content, and monitor the KPIs that drive your success.

Building reports like this is a core skill, but we know it can become a huge time sink, especially when you need dashboards that blend YouTube performance with data from Shopify, Salesforce, or Facebook Ads. We created Graphed to streamline this entire process. Instead of manually building charts and wrestling with data sources, you can ask for a report using plain English, like "Create a dashboard showing our YouTube ad spend vs. Shopify sales" and get a live, interactive visualization in seconds, freeing you up to act on the insights, not just look for them.