How to Create a Looker Studio Dashboard

Want to turn that spreadsheet full of numbers into a clear, interactive dashboard? Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) is a fantastic and free tool for exactly that job. This guide will walk you through creating your first marketing performance dashboard from scratch, step by step, even if you’ve never used a business intelligence tool before.

First, Why Even Bother with a Looker Studio Dashboard?

In a world of countless analytics platforms, Looker Studio has a few key advantages, especially for marketers and small businesses:

• It’s free. This is a massive plus. You get enterprise-grade dashboarding capabilities without the hefty price tag of tools like Tableau or Power BI.
• It loves Google products. It seamlessly connects to Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Sheets, Search Console, and BigQuery. If your data lives in the Google ecosystem, Looker Studio is likely the easiest way to visualize it.
• It’s highly customizable. You have complete control over the layout, colors, charts, and metrics. You can build anything from a simple one-page report to a complex, multi-page dashboard.
• It's easy to share. Just like a Google Doc, you can share dashboards with a link, giving view or edit access to team members or clients.

Before You Build: Planning for a Dashboard That Actually Gets Used

The biggest mistake people make is jumping straight into Looker Studio and randomly adding charts. This almost always leads to a cluttered, confusing dashboard that nobody on your team understands or uses. A few minutes of planning will save you hours of frustration.

Before you even open a new report, ask yourself four simple questions:

1. What is the purpose? What specific question is this dashboard supposed to answer? Is it "How are our Facebook campaigns performing?" or "What's the overall health of our sales funnel?" A dashboard with a clear purpose is a useful dashboard.
2. Who is the audience? Are you building this for your CEO, your marketing team, or a client? Your CEO probably wants high-level KPIs like Revenue and ROAS. Your marketing team might need detailed campaign-level metrics like CPR, CTA, and clicks to make daily decisions. Tailor the complexity to your audience.
3. What are the most important metrics (KPIs)? Based on the purpose and audience, list the 3-5 key performance indicators that matter most. Don't be tempted to cram everything onto one page. Stick to what's critical.
4. Where does the data live? Are you pulling from one source (like Google Analytics) or multiple (Google Analytics, Google Ads, and a Google Sheet)? Knowing this upfront makes the connection process much smoother.

Step-by-Step Guide: Building Your First Marketing Dashboard

Once you have a plan, you’re ready to build. For this example, let's create a simple website performance dashboard using data from Google Analytics.

Step 1: Create a New Report and Connect Your Data

Head over to Looker Studio and click the Blank Report button. The very first thing Looker Studio will ask you to do is connect a data source.

A "data connector" is simply a bridge between Looker Studio and the platform where your data is stored. Google provides connectors for all its properties. You’ll see options for Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Sheets, and more. Search for and select the Google Analytics connector. You'll then be prompted to authorize your Google account and choose the specific GA Property and View you want to pull data from. Once you've selected it, click Add.

Looker will confirm you want to add this data to the report, and just like that, you are officially inside the report builder with your data connected.

Step 2: Get Familiar with the Looker Studio Interface

The interface can look a bit intimidating at first, but it's organized into three main areas:

• The Toolbar (Top): This is where you add new charts, shapes, text, and interactive controls to your dashboard.
• The Canvas (Center): This is your workspace - the blank page where you will drag and drop charts to design your dashboard layout.
• The Properties Panel (Right): This is the most important area. When you click on any element on the canvas (like a chart), this panel is where you configure it. You’ll use this to change metrics, dimensions, date ranges, and styling (like colors and fonts).

Step 3: Add Your First Charts (Scorecards)

Scorecards are perfect for displaying high-level KPIs. They are just big, single numbers that give a quick snapshot of performance. Let's add some for our key metrics.

1. In the top toolbar, click Add a chart and select Scorecard.
2. Click anywhere on the canvas to place it. By default, it might show a metric like 'Views'.
3. With the scorecard selected, look at the Properties Panel on the right. Under the Data tab, you'll see a field called Metric. Click it.
4. A search box will appear. Let’s change it to “Sessions”. Just search for “Sessions” and select it.

Great! You've just created your first chart. Repeat this process to create two more scorecards for “Users” and “Conversions” (or whatever your key goals are). Arrange them neatly at the top of your dashboard.

Step 4: Visualize Your Data in a Trendline

Scorecards show the total, but they don't show how things are changing over time. For that, you need a time series chart.

1. In the toolbar, click Add a chart and choose Time series chart.
2. Place it on the canvas below your scorecards.
3. Look at the Properties Panel. This time, there are two primary fields: 'Dimension' and 'Metric'.
4. The Dimension is the thing you are grouping by—in this case, 'Date'. Looker should default to this.
5. The Metric is the thing you are measuring. Let's set it to 'Sessions'. Your chart will now show a line graph of website sessions over your selected date range.

Step 5: Break Down Your Data with Bar and Pie Charts

Now, let's see where that traffic is coming from. A pie chart or bar chart is perfect for displaying proportions.

1. Click Add a chart and select Pie chart. Place it on the canvas.
2. In the Properties Panel, set the Dimension to ‘Device Category’.
3. Set the Metric to ‘Users’.

You’ll now have a simple pie chart showing the percentage of your users coming from Desktop, Mobile, and Tablet. You could do the same thing with a Bar chart to show Sessions by ‘Default Channel Grouping’ (Organic Search, Direct, Social, etc.).

Step 6: Make Your Dashboard Interactive with Controls

A static report is useful, but an interactive dashboard is even better. The most important control is the Date Range Control, which lets anyone viewing the dashboard change the time period they're looking at.

1. In the toolbar, click Add a control and select Date range control.
2. Place it in the top right corner of your dashboard canvas.

That's it! Now, when you are in 'View' mode, you can click on that date range selector and change the report to show data for "Last 7 Days," "Last Quarter," "This Month," or any custom range.

You can also add other controls like a Filter control, which could allow users to filter the entire dashboard by a specific dimension like 'Country' or 'Traffic Source'.

Step 7: Polish Your Dashboard's Design

With all your charts in place, you can focus on making it look professional.

• Add Titles and Text: Use the Text tool in the toolbar to add a clear title to your dashboard and labels for each section. Give your charts context. Instead of a chart just showing traffic sources, add a textbox next to it that says, "Organic Search continues to be our primary driver of traffic."
• Use Themes and Layouts: In the upper-right area of the Properties Panel, you’ll find the 'Theme and layout' tab. You can select pre-made color palettes or define your own to match your company's branding.