How to Use Looker Studio

Building a slick, informative dashboard doesn't require a data science degree or an expensive software subscription. With Google's free Looker Studio, you can transform intimidating rows of data into clear, interactive reports that help you make smarter decisions. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from connecting your first data source to building and sharing your first professional dashboard.

What Exactly Is Looker Studio?

Looker Studio (formerly known as Google Data Studio) is a free data visualization tool that lets you create interactive dashboards and professional-looking reports. Think of it as a canvas where you can pull in data from dozens of different sources - like Google Analytics, Google Sheets, or your social media ads - and display it using a variety of charts, graphs, and tables.

Why should you care? Because manual reporting is a time sink. The old way involves exporting CSVs on a Monday, wrangling them in a spreadsheet, and painstakingly building charts just to answer basic questions. By Tuesday, that report is already stale. Looker Studio automates this by creating live dashboards that are always up-to-date, shareable with a simple link, and fully customizable to show the key performance indicators (KPIs) you care about most.

Step 1: Connecting Your First Data Source

Before you can visualize any data, you need to tell Looker Studio where to get it. The platform has hundreds of "connectors" that act as bridges to your different data platforms. For this walkthrough, we'll use one of the most common data sources: Google Analytics.

1. Open Looker Studio: Navigate to lookerstudio.google.com and log in with your Google account.
2. Create a Data Source: In the top-left corner, click the "Create" button and select "Data Source".
3. Choose a Connector: You'll see a gallery of connectors. Google's own products (like Google Analytics, Ads, and Sheets) are at the top. Find and click on "Google Analytics".
4. Authorize the Connection: If it's your first time, Google will ask for permission to let Looker Studio access your Google Analytics data. Click "Authorize".
5. Select Your Analytics Property: On the next screen, you'll see panels for Account, Property, and View (or Data Stream for GA4). Choose the specific Google Analytics account and property you want to pull data from. Then click the "Connect" button in the top-right.

Once you connect, you'll land on a configuration screen showing all the fields available from that data source. These are divided into Dimensions (the "what," like Country, Page Title, or Traffic source) and Metrics (the "how many," like Sessions, Users, or Conversion Rate). You don't need to change anything here right now. Just click "Create Report" in the top right to jump into the report editor.

Step 2: Understanding the Looker Studio Interface

When you create a new report, Looker Studio will place a sample table on a blank canvas to get you started. It might look a little empty, but this is where the action happens. Let's break down the key areas:

• The Toolbar (Top): This is your command center. Here you'll find buttons to "Add data," "Add a chart," and "Add a control." This is also where you'll find options to add text, images, and shapes, as well as sharing settings.
• The Canvas (Center): This is the main part of your report. You can drag, drop, and resize charts and other elements here. The grid helps you keep everything aligned for a clean layout.
• The Properties Panel (Right): This is arguably the most important part of the editor. Whenever you select an element on your canvas (like a chart or a text box), this panel changes to show its settings. It has two main tabs:

Step 3: Building Your First Visualizations

Now for the fun part. Let's start building a basic dashboard. Delete the default table Looker Studio created for you by clicking on it and hitting the "delete" key. We'll add a few essential chart types from scratch.

Add a Scorecard for High-Level KPIs

Scorecards are perfect for showing single, important numbers like total revenue, total users, or your overall conversion rate. They give a quick, at-a-glance view of performance.

1. Go to the toolbar and click "Add a chart," then select "Scorecard".
2. Click anywhere on your canvas to place the scorecard.
3. With the scorecard selected, look at the Properties Panel on the right. Under the Data tab, you'll see a spot for "Metric".
4. Click on the current metric (it might default to something like Views) and select the metric you want to display. Let's choose Total Users.
5. To make it more useful, let's add a comparison. Still in the Data tab, scroll down to the "Default date range" section and select "Previous period" from the comparison drop-down. Now you'll see the percentage change from the prior period right below your main number.

Add a Time Series Chart to Track Trends

A time series chart (or line graph) is essential for seeing how your metrics are trending over time. Did traffic spike last week? Are sales trending down this quarter? This chart tells that story.

1. Click "Add a chart" and choose "Time series chart".
2. Click and drag on the canvas to draw a rectangle for where you want the chart to go.
3. In the Properties Panel, you'll see a field for "Date Dimension" (which should correctly default to Date) and "Metric". Let's set the metric to Sessions.
4. You can track multiple metrics on the same graph to spot correlations. Click "Add metric" and add Conversions. Now you can easily see if traffic spikes are leading to more conversions.
5. Hop over to the Style tab to change the line colors to match your brand.

Add a Table to See the Details

Tables are great for a more granular view of your performance data. For example, which specific marketing channels or pages are performing best?

1. Click "Add a chart" and select "Table". Place it on your canvas.
2. In the Properties Panel, select a Dimension. A great one to start with is Session default channel group. This will show you where your traffic is coming from (Organic Search, Direct, Paid Social, etc.).
3. Next, add your Metrics. Let's add Sessions, Engaged sessions, and Conversion.
4. In the Style tab, you can add heatmaps to your metric columns, which visually tint the cell background based on its value. This makes it much easier to spot top performers at a glance.

Step 4: Making Your Dashboard Interactive with Controls

A static report is good, but an interactive dashboard is great. Controls allow you or your viewers to filter and segment the data in real-time without needing editing access.

Add a Date Range Control

This is the most important control. It allows users to select the time period they want to analyze, whether it's "Last 7 days," "This quarter," or a custom range.

1. In the toolbar, click "Add a control" and select "Date range control".
2. Place it at the top of your dashboard. That's it! Now, when you're in View mode, anyone can use it to change the date for the entire report.

Add a Filter Control

A drop-down filter lets users drill down into specific segments of data, like a certain traffic source, country, or device type.

1. Click "Add a control" and choose "Drop-down list".
2. Place it next to your date range control.
3. In the Properties Panel on the right, under the Data tab, select the "Control field". Let's choose Device Category. Now, your viewers can filter the entire dashboard to see data from only Mobile, Desktop, or Tablet users.

Step 5: Sharing and Collaborating on Your Report

Once your dashboard is ready, Looker Studio makes it incredibly easy to share with your team, clients, or stakeholders.

In the top-right corner, you'll see a "Share" button. You have several options:

• Invite people: Add email addresses and grant them either "Viewer" or "Editor" access, just like in a Google Doc.
• Get report link: Generate a shareable link. Be sure to check the link sharing settings to choose who can find and view it.
• Schedule email delivery: Set up a recurring email to send a PDF or a link to your report to key stakeholders on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.

Final Thoughts

Looker Studio democratizes data analysis, giving anyone the power to turn raw data into actionable insights through visual dashboards. By starting with a simple data source connection and adding a few essential charts and interactive controls, you can quickly build a professional-grade report that saves time and surfaces crucial performance trends.

While manual dashboard setup in Looker Studio is a huge step up from spreadsheets, we built Graphed to make the whole process feel even more effortless. Instead of spending your time dragging and dropping charts and configuring metrics, you can just ask questions in plain English, like "Show me a dashboard of my website traffic by source for the last 30 days." Graphed connects to your marketing and sales sources - like Google Analytics, Shopify, and Facebook Ads - and instantly builds a live dashboard for you, saving you the busywork so you can get straight to the insights.