How to Share Custom Reports in Google Analytics

Sharing your findings from Google Analytics is the fastest way to get your entire team on the same page. When everyone looks at the same data points, decision-making becomes faster and more effective. This article provides a step-by-step guide on how to create, customize, and share custom reports in Google Analytics 4.

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Why Share Custom GA4 Reports?

Before jumping into the "how," it's helpful to understand the "why." Consistently sharing custom reports accomplishes several key things:

• Builds Alignment: It ensures your marketing team, sales department, and leadership are all looking at the exact same Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). This ends the confusion that comes from different team members pulling slightly different data.
• Saves Time: Instead of team members manually filtering standard reports or asking you for numbers every week, they can access a pre-built report designed to answer their most common questions. This frees you up from repetitive data-pulling tasks.
• Establishes a Single Source of Truth: A well-crafted custom report becomes the official reference for a specific goal, like tracking campaign performance or content engagement.
• Empowers Your Team: It gives non-analysts direct access to the insights they need without having to learn the complexities of navigating the entire GA4 interface.

A Quick Note: Universal Analytics vs. GA4 Reporting

If you're used to the old Google Analytics (Universal Analytics), you'll notice the process for sharing custom reports has changed significantly. In Universal Analytics, you could create a custom report and share a template link, allowing anyone with the link to import that report structure into their own Analytics view.

Google Analytics 4 operates differently. It gets rid of template links and instead centralizes report management in a section called the "Library." In GA4, "sharing" a report means publishing it to the main navigation menu within your property so anyone with the appropriate access can see it. This requires having a specific user role, which we'll cover later.

How to Create a Custom Detail Report in GA4

The most common custom report you'll build is a "Detail report." This is the standard view with a data table and accompanying charts that you can customize with your own dimensions and metrics. Let's build one from scratch.

For this example, let's create a report to see website content performance broken down by traffic source.

Step 1: Navigate to the Report Library

Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property. In the bottom-left navigation menu, click on Library. This is the command center for all reports in your property, both standard and custom.

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Step 2: Start a New Report

At the top of the Library screen, click the + Create new report button, and from the dropdown, select Create detail report.

You'll see two options:

• Create from blank: Starts with an empty canvas where you add all dimensions and metrics yourself.
• Use a template: Starts you with the structure of an existing report (like "Traffic acquisition" or "Pages and screens"), which you can then customize.

For beginners, starting with a template is usually easier. Let's choose the Pages and screens template for our example.

Step 3: Customize Dimensions

The report builder will open. On the right-hand side, click on Dimensions. Dimensions are the attributes of your data - the "what" or "who" (e.g., Page Title, City, Device Category).

Since we're starting with the "Pages and screens" template, you should see "Page title and screen class" already there as the primary dimension. This is perfect for our content performance report.

To add the traffic source, click + Add dimension and search for or select Session source / medium. This will allow us to see which channels are driving traffic to each piece of content. Drag "Page title and screen class" to be the primary default dimension if it isn't already.

Step 4: Customize Metrics

Next, click on Metrics in the right-hand panel. Metrics are the quantitative measurements - the "how many" (e.g., Views, Users, Conversions).

This template should already include "Views," "Users," "New users," "Average engagement time," and "Conversions." Let's simplify this. Keep "Views" and "Users," and click the "x" to remove the others. Then, click + Add metric and add Engagement rate to see how compelling your content is.

Your metrics list should now be: "Views," "Users," and "Engagement rate."

Step 5: Configure Charts

At the top right, you'll see a Charts section. Here, you can change the two visualizations that appear above the data table. By default, you'll likely have a line chart and a bar chart. These are good defaults, but you can change them to a scatter chart if you prefer. You can also hide a chart by clicking the eye icon.

Leave them as a line chart and bar chart for now. These will allow users to spot trends over time and compare performance between pages.

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Step 6: Save the Report

Now that your report is configured, click the blue Save button in the top-right corner. Give it a descriptive name, like "Content Performance by Source," and add an optional description. Click Save again.

Congratulations! You've just created a custom Detail report. But right now, only you can see it. The next step is to make it visible to your team.

Sharing Your Custom Report Using the Library

Your newly saved report lives in the Library's report list, but it's not part of the main navigation menu yet. To "share" it, you need to add it to a "Collection." A Collection is simply a group of reports that appear as a single dropdown in the left-hand navigation (e.g., "Life cycle," "User").

Step 1: Find an Existing Collection to Edit

Back in the main Library screen, you'll see a section called "Collections." You can create a new one, but the easiest way is to add your report to a relevant existing collection. The "Life cycle" collection, which contains reports on "Acquisition" and "Engagement," is a great fit for our content report.

Find the "Life cycle" collection card and click the three dots (...), then select Edit.

Step 2: Add Your Report to the Collection

The collection editor shows two columns. On the left is the structure of the "Life cycle" navigation menu. On the right is a searchable list of all available reports in your Library, including the custom one you just made.

1. Find your "Content Performance by Source" report in the list on the right.
2. Drag it from the right-hand column and drop it into a relevant topic on the left. Let’s place it under the Engagement topic.

Step 3: Save Your Changes

Click Save at the bottom, and from the dropdown, choose Save changes to current collection.

And that's it! Your "Content Performance by Source" report will now appear in the main navigation menu for everyone who has at least Viewer access to this GA4 property. They can find it by navigating to Reports > Life cycle > Engagement.

A Quick Word on User Permissions

As mentioned, who can see and "share" reports is determined by user roles. Here’s a quick breakdown:

• Viewer: Can see any published custom reports but cannot create, edit, or publish them.
• Analyst: Can create their own custom reports but cannot access the Library to publish them for others. They are essentially for personal use.
• Editor: Can do everything an Analyst can, plus they have access to the Library to edit collections and publish reports for everyone to see.
• Administrator: Has full control, including managing users and permissions.

The key takeaway is this: to make a report accessible to your whole team via the navigation menu, the person creating and publishing it must have at least Editor-level permissions.

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Other Ways to Share GA4 Data

Publishing to the Library is the native way to share live reports, but sometimes you need a different format.

1. Export to PDF, Google Sheets, or CSV

This is the most straightforward method for sharing a static snapshot of data. In any standard or custom report, click the Share report icon (a box with an arrow) in the top right. You'll see two options:

• Download File: Choose between PDF or CSV format. This is useful for emailing a quick summary or including a chart in a presentation.
• Export to Google Sheets: This is powerful for more complex analysis, as it sends the raw report data directly to a new Google Sheet.

Caveat: Remember, a downloaded file is a static snapshot. The data won't update automatically.

2. Build a Looker Studio Dashboard

For fully interactive, highly customizable, and easily shareable dashboards, Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) is your best friend. You can connect your GA4 property as a data source and build dashboards with charts, graphs, and filters far beyond what GA4’s interface offers.

The biggest advantage is sharing. You can share a Looker Studio dashboard via a simple link, and viewers do not need access to your Google Analytics property to see the data. This makes it a secure and flexible way to share performance insights with clients, stakeholders, or agencies.

Final Thoughts

Sharing custom reports in Google Analytics 4 is all about using the Library to publish your tailored views into collections that your team can easily access. It requires at least Editor-level permissions, but once set up, it’s a powerful way to ensure your entire organization is making decisions based on consistent, accurate data.

While mastering GA4's report builder and Library is a valuable skill, it often involves a lot of clicking, dragging, and figuring out user permissions. We created a more direct path to get insights from your analytics data. With Graphed, we connect directly to your Google Analytics account so you can describe the report you need in plain English - like "create a dashboard showing our top 10 pages by sessions and engagement rate this month" - and get a real-time, easily shareable dashboard built for you instantly.