The Marketer’s Google Data Studios Template & Guide

Google Data Studios is my go-to reporting dashboard for clients.

It is the perfect reporting & data visualization tool for marketing and analytics. 

Previously, we used a pretty complex reporting software with a very robust interface.

Clients started to request simpler reporting dashboards and Google Data Studios (GDS) was the perfect middle ground.

The best part of all about GDS is that it is free to use and updates itself. 

You would just need to create 1 report per client and each month the report is ready for you to discuss the prior month. 

I wanted to give my readers access to my Google Data Studios reporting template so they can duplicate it and use it for their clients.

Here is The Marketer’s Google Data Studios Reporting Template

In the top right of the screen, click the 3 dot icon and select “Make a copy”. 

Now you can customize this report to fit your client’s KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). 

Understanding Google Data Studios

Google Data Studios is a live reporting dashboard that is 100% customizable online. 

Marketing teams and freelancers will create GDS dashboards to present marketing analytics & performance to their clients.

You can add data in various formats such as scorecards, pie charts, line graphs, and so much more. 

Most reports have a set date range. 

In the template report, the date range is set for the previous month compared to the month before. 

Once the new month comes, the report will update itself to reflect the newest information. 

Setting up one report per client can satisfy your data reporting service. 

We allow our clients access to view their dashboard 24/7, then we go over their dashboard with them once per month. 

Google Data Studios is great for understanding your performance and overall, the value you are providing to your clients. 

Your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should have been agreed upon before starting your marketing campaign. 

GDS will allow you to set benchmarks and analyze the performance to determine if you are on track to hitting your client’s KPIs. 

It doesn’t get much simpler than that!

Google Data Studios is pretty much free to use if you are using only Google platforms like Google Ads or Google Analytics. 

If you want to pull in data from a different platform, like Facebook ads for example, you would need to utilize a third party data connector.

Typically you will need to pay for the third party data connector but it doesn’t have to be expensive.  

We have tried several paid third party GDS data connectors and none of them have been as great as Reporting Ninja. 

How To Connect Your Data To Google Data Studios

Google Data Studios offers 20 free connectors.

The biggest ones are Google Analytics, Google Ads, and Google Sheets. 

If you are utilizing UTMs within all your marketing campaigns, you could get away with only using Google Analytics for every platform by filtering the Source/Medium. 

But if you are not, you may need a third party connector like Reporting Ninja.

There is another workaround but it is clunky. 

You could export data from Facebook Ads or TikTok ads and paste it into a secure Google Sheet.

Then in GDS you could pull from that Google Sheet. 

Here’s how you add data to your GDS report.

Customizing The Google Data Studios Template

The Marketer’s GDS template from above is using sample data provided by Google. 

If you want to customize that template for your client or your business you would click into each data scorecard or chart and change the data source.

Under “Data Source” you should see “[sample] Google Analytics”. 

Click on this gray box and then click the blue icon at the bottom for “ADD DATA”.

Now click on the proper connection.

Typically you would choose Google Analytics and just follow the steps provided.

GDS will connect to your account and allow you to select your client’s account to pull data from.

Simple right? 

You can also click on any data scorecard or chart and navigate to the “STYLE” tab on the top right of the dashboard. 

Here you will be able to change color and fonts to really personalize your report. 

I would also recommend adding your client’s logo to the top left of the report. 

Let me know what you think of my Google Data Studios template.

If you want to work with The Marketer feel free to reach out here.