How to Use Google Analytics with Google Sheets

Pulling your Google Analytics data into Google Sheets supercharges what you can do with your website data. It transforms raw metrics into a flexible canvas for custom dashboards, deeper analysis, and reports that perfectly match your business goals. This article will show you two practical ways to connect Google Analytics and Google Sheets, so you can stop wrestling with limited dashboards and start building meaningful reports.

Why Connect Google Analytics to Google Sheets?

Before jumping into the "how," let's quickly cover the "why." While the Google Analytics interface is powerful, it has its limits. Moving your data into a spreadsheet opens up a new level of control and flexibility.

Fully Custom Dashboards: Escape the rigid widgets of the GA dashboard. In Google Sheets, you are in complete control. You can design reports that highlight your most important KPIs, use your own branding, and arrange charts and tables in a way that tells a clear story for your team or clients.
Blend Data from Multiple Sources: Your business data doesn't live in a silo. In Sheets, you can combine your GA website data with other crucial information. Import a CSV of your ad spend from Facebook or LinkedIn, connect to your CRM to pull in lead data, or track inventory from your e-commerce platform. Placing this data alongside your GA metrics gives you a complete picture of your performance.
Deeper, More Flexible Analysis: Sheets is a power tool for data manipulation. You can use advanced formulas like QUERY, VLOOKUP, and SUMIFS to slice and dice your data in ways not possible in the GA interface. Go even further by building pivot tables to quickly summarize information or calculate custom metrics like cost per acquisition and customer lifetime value.
Automation and Backups: Set up your reports once and have them refresh automatically. You can schedule data pulls to happen daily, weekly, or even hourly, ensuring your dashboards are always up-to-date without any manual work. It also serves as a personal backup of your most important historical data.

Method 1: Using the Official Google Analytics Add-on

The easiest and most common way to get your GA data into Sheets is by using the free, official add-on from Google. It's robust enough for most reporting needs and is the perfect starting point.

Step 1: Install the Google Analytics Add-on

First things first, you need to add the tool to your Google Sheets account.

Open a new or existing Google Sheet.
In the top menu, navigate to Extensions > Add-ons > Get add-ons.
A search window will pop up. Type "Google Analytics" into the search bar.
Find the official add-on (it will be listed by Google) and click on it.
Click the "Install" button and follow the prompts to grant the necessary permissions for it to access your Google Analytics data.

Once installed, you'll see a "Google Analytics" option under your Extensions menu.

Step 2: Create Your First Report

Now you're ready to configure your first data pull. This process involves telling the add-on exactly what information you want.

From the top menu, go to Extensions > Google Analytics > Create new report.
A sidebar will appear on the right side of your sheet. This is where you'll define your report.

Let's walk through the configuration fields:

1. Name Your Report: Give your report a descriptive name, like "Monthly Traffic Overview" or "Source-Medium Breakdown."
2. Select your Account, Property & View: Choose the specific Google Analytics account, property, and view you want to pull data from. Most people will use their main reporting view.
3. Choose Your Metrics: Metrics are the quantifiable numbers you want to measure. Think of them as the "what" you are tracking. You can select multiple metrics.Examples include: Sessions, Users, New Users, Bounce Rate, Pageviews, Goal Completions, Transactions, Ads Cost.
4. Choose Your Dimensions: Dimensions are the attributes you use to break down your metrics. They are the "who" or "where" behind the numbers, providing context.Examples include: ga:date, ga:sourceMedium, ga:campaign, ga:country, ga:deviceCategory.Notice the "ga:" prefix, this is standard for most dimensions and metrics.

After you've selected your desired metrics and dimensions, click the "Create Report" button. This won’t run the report just yet.

Step 3: Run the Report

When you clicked "Create Report," the add-on generated a new tab in your sheet named "Report Configuration." This sheet controls all the reports in your workbook. You’ll see the parameters you just selected laid out in a table.

To pull the data:

Go to the top menu and select Extensions > Google Analytics > Run reports.
The add-on will execute the configuration and fetch the data from the GA API.
Depending on the amount of data, this might take a few seconds or a couple of minutes. Once complete, you’ll find a new tab in your spreadsheet - named after your report - containing all the requested data, neatly organized into columns.

Step 4: Schedule Reports to Run Automatically

The real power of this add-on comes from automation. You can set your reports to refresh on a regular schedule without lifting a finger.

Navigate to Extensions > Google Analytics > Schedule reports.
A dialog box will appear. Check the box to "Enable reports to run automatically."
Choose your desired schedule: every hour, day, week, or month.
Click "Save." That's it! Your report will now update automatically, keeping your data fresh.

Working with the Report Configuration Sheet

The "Report Configuration" sheet is your mission control. Instead of using the sidebar every time, you can modify reports directly here. For example, to create a report that always shows the last 30 days of data, simply change the start-date value to 30daysAgo and the end-date to yesterday. You can also duplicate existing configurations in the columns to quickly create and run multiple reports at once.

Method 2: Using a Connector Tool like Zapier

The GA add-on is fantastic for scheduled data dumps, but what if you need more dynamic, event-driven updates? This is where third-party connector tools like Zapier or Make come in. These platforms specialize in creating workflows between different apps.

This approach is best when you want to act on specific events, for instance, adding a row to a Google Sheet every time a specific conversion happens on your website or when a new user in a certain demographic is detected.

A Simple Zapier Workflow Example

Zapier works on a system of "Triggers" and "Actions." A trigger is an event that starts the workflow, and an action is what's performed as a result.

Let's set up a hypothetical "Weekly Performance Summary" Zap:

Trigger - Schedule by Zapier: You'd start with a scheduled trigger that runs at the same time every week (e.g., every Monday at 9 AM).
Action - Find Report in Google Analytics: Next, you add a Google Analytics action. You'd configure it to run a standard report for the previous 7 days, pulling metrics like Users and Sessions by the Source / Medium dimension.
Action - Create Spreadsheet Row(s) in Google Sheets: The final action connects to your Google Sheet. You map the data pulled from the GA report (e.g., Source/Medium, Sessions, Users) to the correct columns in a designated Sheet titled "Weekly Snapshots."

Once you turn this workflow on, it will automatically append a weekly performance summary to your sheet every Monday morning, creating a running log over time. While tools like Zapier often involve a subscription fee, they offer a level of real-time connectivity and multi-app integration that the free add-on can't match.

Bringing It All Together: Building a Simple Dashboard in Sheets

Once your data is flowing into Google Sheets, the real fun begins. You can now build a dashboard to visualize trends and surface insights.

Step 1: Set Up Your Raw Data Tab

Use the Google Analytics add-on to run a daily report that pulls in metrics like Sessions and Users and dimensions like Date and Source/Medium. Name this tab (e.g., "Raw GA Data") will be the engine for your dashboard. Schedule it to update daily.

Step 2: Create a Clean Dashboard Tab

Create a new blank sheet in the same workbook and name it "Dashboard." This is where your summary data and charts will live.

Step 3: Summarize Key Metrics

On your dashboard tab, use simple formulas to pull in summary data. For example, to get total sessions from your raw data tab, you could use:

=SUM('Raw GA Data'!B:B)

For more advanced summaries, the QUERY function is incredibly powerful. It lets you use SQL-like commands to filter and aggregate your data. For example, to get a breakdown of sessions by source/medium:

=QUERY('Raw GA Data'!A:C, "SELECT B, SUM(C) GROUP BY B")

This formula tells Sheets to look at your raw data, select the "Source/Medium" column (B), sum the "Sessions" column (C), and group the results by the source.

Step 4: Visualize Your Data

Finally, turn your summarized data into charts.

Create a line chart to show the trend of sessions over time. Simply highlight your date and session columns and go to Insert > Chart.
Create a pie chart to show the mix of your top traffic sources. Highlight the summary table created with your QUERY function and select Insert > Chart, choosing the pie chart type.

With just a few summary tables and charts, you've created a dynamic dashboard that updates automatically and provides a clear view of your website's performance.

Final Thoughts

Getting your Google Analytics data into Google Sheets gives you the power to analyze your performance in a way that truly fits your needs. Whether using the free add-on for scheduled reporting or a tool like Zapier for real-time updates, you unlock the ability to build custom dashboards, blend data sources, and find insights hidden within GA's standard interface.

Manually pulling data and building these reports in spreadsheets, even with helpful add-ons, can still be a time sink. For businesses that need answers instantly without the setup, we built Graphed to remove the friction. Instead of wrestling with configurations and formulas, you simply connect your Google Analytics account and ask questions in plain English, like "Show me a chart of my top 10 traffic sources from last month." Graphed instantly builds the report for you, pulling live data not just from GA, but from all your other marketing and sales tools, so you have a complete, real-time picture of what is and isn't working.