【Complete Guide】Illustrated Instructions on How to Use Looker Studio

What is Looker Studio?

Looker Studio is a free and sophisticated BI tool provided by Google that automates reporting and monitoring and can be easily shared with stakeholders.

BI tools used to be the most expensive services for large companies such as Tableau and Domo, but since Google started offering Looker Studio (then called Looker Studio) for free in 2016,Looker Studio has become a very popular service worldwide as a BI tool that anyone can use.

This article is aimed at web production companies and advertising agencies that want to streamline their reporting to clients, as well as web and marketing professionals at business companies who want to automate their internal reporting. From the introduction and basic usage for beginners to detailed explanations of advanced features for advanced users, this course explains how to use Looker Studio.

Benefits of Looker Studio

Here are three typical benefits of the Looker Studio.

Free, easy-to-understand dashboards

Looker Studio is free, but like many Google services, such as Google Analytics, it is as sophisticated as or more sophisticated than paid tools.

Dashboards created with Looker Studio are automatically updated once created, eliminating the need to create many reports at the beginning of each month. The dashboards are also fully interactive, allowing users to change the time period they wish to view and to use filters to narrow down their search.

More than 600 different connectors to connect to a variety of data

More than 600 connectors are available, including Google services such as Google Analytics, Search Console, and Google Ads, advertising data such as Facebook ads and Yahoo ads, and social media data such as Instagram and Twitter, allowing you to connect data from various services.

Google services can be connected via free connectors, but to connect to data from non-Google services, you need to ask your own engineers to acquire data using APIs or apply for paid partner connectors such as Supermetrics.

Can be shared in a variety of ways, including automatic emailing and PDF downloading

Looker Studio, like Google Sheets, allows anyone to access the latest data by sharing a URL. The data can also be automatically emailed to relevant parties each morning with the previous day's performance data, or downloaded as a PDF file for use as a reporting document.

How to Implement Google Looker Studio

Installation of Looker Studio is completed by simply entering basic information and setting up your email. The process takes about one minute.

Start Using

Open the official page and select "USE IT FOR FREE".

 

Enter basic account information

You only need to enter two essential pieces of information: “country” and “company name”. Once entered, agree to the terms and conditions and select "Continue”.

Configure email settings.

Next, the mail settings screen will appear. Select "Yes, to all" and then "SAVE".

Note that "Yes, to all" is fine since you do not receive emails that frequently, but if you are concerned about receiving even a few emails, you can choose "No". You can also change this setting anytime from "User settings".

This completes the installation. Now let's get started with Looker Studio.

Basic usage of Looker Studio

Using Looker Studio is very simple; after creating a data source, you simply create a report using that data and share it once the report is complete.

In this article, we will explain the reporting process using “GA4” as an example, which many of you will be creating reports from now on, as the current Universal Analytics will end on July 1, 2023.

Creating Data Source

1.Select "Data source" from "Create" in the upper left corner of Looker Studio home screen.

2.From the list of connectors screen, select "Google Analytics".

3.Select the target account

Once you have granted Looker Studio access to your Google Analytics account, you will see the available Google Analytics account properties view; for GA4, there is no view, so as shown below, select the property that begins with “GA4” and then click on "CONNECT" in the upper right corner.

4.Data source creation is now complete!

Once you have connected and are taken to the list of fields screen as shown in the figure below, you have completed the creation of your data source. Select "CREATE REPORT" in the upper right corner to proceed to report creation.

Create Report

When the report creation screen appears, go to "Add a Chart" and select a format to create a chart. In this case, we will choose a time series chart.

 

2.  After adding a chart, an edit screen will appear on the right side, where you can configure settings related to the data. Detailed settings such as dimensions, indicators, and filters to be used in the chart can be configured.

In this case, we added page titles as a breakdown, set the indicator to page views, and created a time-series chart of page views by page title.

 3. Next, change the tab on the editing screen to "Style" to switch to the design settings. You can customize the color and size of the chart, font, background, etc. in detail to create a chart that is easy to read.

In this case, I created a dark version with a dark background.

Share Report

Once you have created a report, select the "▼" icon to the right of "Share" in the upper right corner of the screen. You can share in various ways, including URL sharing like , automatic email distribution, or PDF download.

(Elementary level) Introduction to Looker Studio Functions

Use template

Looker Studio is a useful and intuitive tool once you get used to it, but it may take a lot of time for a beginner to create a report from scratch. In such cases, use templates to save time.

In addition to the official templates provided by Google, there are community templates (some for a fee) created by third parties other than Google, such as inhouse+. Community templates are attractive because they are from companies in various countries such as Greece, so please look at them.

Click here for Google's official template gallery.

Create access analysis reports from Google Analytics using templates.

Now let's create a Google Analytics report using templates.

Select and open the template of your choice

In this case, let's use the official template that Google provides for free. Select the link with one of the report names below to open the template.

• 1.Google Analytics Audience Overview: This template allows you to check user-related data from Google Analytics in an easy-to-understand manner at first sight.
• 2.Google Analytics Acquisition Overview: This template allows you to check overview of Google Analytics data related to customer acquisition in an easy-to-understand manner at first sight.view of Google Analytics data related to customer acquisition.
• 3. Google Analytics Behavior Overview: This template allows you to check behavior-related data from Google Analytics in an easy-to-understand manner at first sight.

Copy the template and select the account you wish to use.

After opening the template, select the three dots in the upper right corner and choose "Make a copy".

From the New Data Source pull-down, select "Create data source".

Select "Google Analytics".

Select the account you wish to use for the report and select "CONNECT".

After this, the list of fields will appear, and select "CONNECT" in the upper right corner.

Finally, make sure that the data source you wish to use for the report is selected in the new data source and select "Copy Report”

This completes the creation of a Google Analytics report using the template. Once you have created a report for your site, you can customize it as needed based on the template.

Create Google Search Console SEO reports using templates.

Next, let's create a Google Search Console report.

Open the template and select the account you want to use.

Again, let's use the official template that Google provides for free. Select the report name link below to open the template, then select "Use my own data" in the upper right corner.

• Search Console Report:  A template that allows you to check key data from Google Search Console in an easy-to-understand manner at a glance.

The Search Console requires two data sources, "site impressions" and "URL impression", which should be configured as follows:.

Original data source	New data source
[Sample] Search Console Data (URL)	URL impression
[Sample] Search Console Data (Site)	Site impression

First, set up a new data source for [Sample] Search Console Data (URL).

Select the site you want to use for the report, select "URL impression" in the table, "web" for the property parameter, and "Add".

Once you have completed setting up the new data source for [Sample] Search Console Data (URL), do the same for [Sample] Search Console Data (Site).c

As before, select "Create data source" from the pull-down menu, select "Search Console" in Data Source, and when the screen below appears, this time select "Site impression" in the table and select "Add".

This completes creating the Google Search Console SEO report using the template. Once you have a report for your site, you can customize it as needed based on the template.

Create Google Ads ad reports using templates.

Next, let's create a Google Ads report.

Select and open the template of your choice.

Again, let's use official templates that Google provides free of charge. There are many templates for Google Ads, so we have picked the ones we recommend. Select the link with one of the report names below to open the template.

• 1. Google Ads Overview: A template that provides an easy-to-understand overview of Google Ads at a glance.
• 2.Google Ads Search Performance:  A template that allows you to comprehensively check the performance of your Google Ads search ads.
• 3.Google Ads Ad Group Performance:This template allows you to check the performance of each ad group of Google Adsin an easy-to-understand manner at a glance.

Copy the template and select the account you wish to use.

After opening the template, select "Use my own data" in the upper right corner.

Select the account you wish to use for the report and select "Add".

This completes the creation of the Google Ads report using the template. Once you have a report for your site, you can customize it as needed based on the template.

Create reports from Google Sheets data

Next is how to create a report with a template, let's add data from Google Sheets to the Looker Studio and create a report.

Prepare original data from

As shown in the figure below, the first row should be used as a header line, and the actual data should be entered from the second row.

Connect Google Sheets data to Looker Studio

Select "Google Sheets" from the data source.

Select the target Google Sheets and choose "CONNECT". At this time, leave the option "Use first row as headers" checked.

When the screen below appears, select "CREATE REPORT.

You can now create a chart with the data from the connected Google Sheets. Finish the report by setting up the data and styles in the edit window.

Invite other users to the report

Once the report is complete, share the report with your stakeholders.

As shown below, select "Share" in the upper right corner, then select "Send" after setting up after setting 1 to 3, so that everyone to whom this report is shared can access this report URL to see the latest data.

1.target user: add an email address to which authorization will be granted. Note that the email address must be associated with a Google account.

2.Authorization type: Details of each authorization are as follows.Looker Studio allows users to manage their change history and revert to previous versions, but should have as few editors as possible.

Editors: Users can edit reports and share them with other users.
Viewers: Users can view the report and share it with other users, but cannot edit it.

3.Email Notification: Leave this checked as the target member can be notified with this report URL.

Schedule email delivery of reports

If you want to send reports by push to relevant parties, we recommend the automatic email delivery feature. Once this is set up, you can automatically email the latest performance data to relevant parties.

The setup procedure is simple. First, select the "▼" icon to the right of "Share" in the upper right corner of the screen, then select "Schedule email delivery".

Then the following screen will appear. Simply make the respective settings and select "Schedule" to complete the process.

1. To: The email address to which the email will be sent. (It does not have to be a Google account.)

2. Pages: The target page to which you want to send the email. Only 5 pages of the report will be shown in the body of the email, and the rest will be in PDF format, so select the 5 most important pages.

3.Start Time: This is the date when the delivery starts and the time when the email is sent. Note that this may vary slightly due to server congestion.

4.Repeat: This is the frequency at which the emails will be sent. Select the appropriate frequency.

Download the report in PDF format

You can also email the report as a PDF. Select the "▼" icon to the right of "Share" in the upper right corner of the screen and select "Download report".

Then the following screen will appear. Simply select the pages to be made into a PDF and choose "DOWNLOAD" to complete the process.

(Intermediate level) Introduction to Google Looker Studio functions

Set the time period for the report

Adding a time period setting allows the report viewer to select the time period for the data freely.

For example, inhouse+ always uses "From the beginning of this month to today" as the default period, but if the viewer of the report wants to check the performance of the previous month, this feature allows the viewer to select the period freely.

In addition to the default options of "Today," "Yesterday," "Last Month," and "From the beginning of this month to today," the period can be customized in detail.

Let us explain how to set up this function.

1. First, go to the page where you want to add a time period setting and make sure you are in edit mode. Next, select "Add a control" from the toolbar and choose "Data range control".

2. then place it in the desired position, select the default period (in this case, "Last 30 days"), and choose "APPLY".

3. Right-click on the last period setting you added and select "Makereport level". This will apply this period setting to all pages in this report. For example, if a viewer changes the period to "previous month" on this page, "previous month" will be retained even if the viewer moves to another page.

Setting Filters

Filters can be added to make the report even more interactive. Similar to the time period setting described above, the filter feature allows report viewers to narrow the data at will. For example, if a viewer narrows the filter to traffic via organic search, all reports on that page will have data only via organic search. Let's set this up as soon as possible.

1. first, go to the page for which you want to add a filter and make sure you are in edit mode. Next, select "Add a control" from the toolbar and choose from the pull-down list.

2. then place it in the desired position and select the filter dimensions and indicators (in this case, "Country" and "URL clicks").

 

3. Once the configuration has been completed without any problems, it is easy to filter sessions to only those with the country "United States" as shown below.

Set up data management options that allow you to choose which sites to display in the report

This feature is very useful for those who manage many sites. Adding the data management option allows the viewer to select which sites to display in the report.

• Google Ads
• Attribution 360 (TV Attribution)
• Google Ad Manager
• Campaign Manager 360
• Google Analytics
• Search Console
• YouTube
• GA4 (added in August 2022!)

1. navigate to the page for which you want to set data management options and make sure you are in edit mode. Next, select "Add a control" from the toolbar and choose "Data control".

 

2. Once the component is added, set the connector type. In this case, since this is a Google Analytics report, you can leave the default display as it is.

3. Pull down the data control option you have added, and you will see all the Google Analytics sites associated with the Google account you are currently logged in to. Simply select the site you wish to view and the report will switch. Very convenient.

(Advanced) Introduction to Google Looker Studio Features

Use data extractors to speed up slow-loading reports

Since Looker Studio accesses the original data and retrieves the latest data each time a report is updated, loading time can be long if the original data is large. This data extraction function can be used in such cases.

The data extraction function creates intermediate data (static data temporarily stored like a web browser's cache) from the original data and uses it for the intermediate data, greatly reducing loading time compared to accessing the original data each time.

inhouse+ provides Looker Studio reports for social media and non-Google advertising data using paid connectors such as Supermetrics. Still, Supermetrics can also take a long time to load if you just connect directly to the original data, so we often use the feature below.

Now we will introduce how to set up this feature.

1.Select the "Extract Data" connector from the connector list screen.

2. After selecting a connector, make various settings on the screen below and select "SAVE AND EXTRACT".

1. Data Source: Select the original data source.
2. Dimensions: Select the dimension you wish to extract. (For some reason, this is the only place where the word "size" appears, but never mind, let's proceed.)
3. Metrics: Select the indicators you wish to extract.
4. Date range: Select the date dimension you want to use in the period setting of Looker Studio.
5. Auto Update: If you want to get repetitive data, set it here as well!

3.Finally, check that the data is extracted correctly in the field and the data extraction setup is complete. Note that the field type is rarely switched to something unexpected.

Use the data integration feature to combine multiple data sources into a single graph

The data integration function allows you to integrate multiple data sources and present them in a single chart.

For example, you can use this function when you want to integrate Google Analytics, Google Ads, Yahoo Ads, Facebook Ads, and other advertising data into a single chart to check the results of your advertisements.

1.first, add one of the multiple data sources of interest to the report and select "BLEND DATA".

 

2. On the screen below, set a key to connect multiple data, select Dimensions, Metrics, and Date range you wish to display for each data, and then select "Save". In this case, the common key is a date, but you can select any dimension, such as user ID, device, landing page, and so on.

3.  This is now complete. Adjust the dimensions and metrics to finish the report.

Presents GA4 free templates

This is Looker Studio's versatile GA4 report template , which can be used for both report automation and efficient daily monitoring. Just select a site in the pull-down menu to view the report. The powered-up Looker Studio's official Google GA4 connector allows you to retrieve historical data for the entire period of time.

Report List

• Monthly
• Weekly
• Daily
• Acquisition：Channel
• Acquisition：Source/Medium
• Acquisition：Source/Medium/Campaign
• Engagement：Page
• Engagement：Landing Page
• User：User Attribute
• User：Device
• Region

How to use (3 easy steps)

• Step1：Submit the form
• Step2：Open the introduction manual you receive by email and open the free GA4 template.
• Step3：Select the GA4 account you want to appear in the report from the pull-down menu at the top of the report

Notice

The free template is based on the [one-time purchase]GA4 Standard Report Template[4004] with the following limited features.

All of the features will be available in the paid version, so please purchase the one-time purchase template if you need the following features.

• Select Date range
• PDF download and URL sharing of reports
• Logo change
• Keyword reporting using Search Console
• Customize data items and layout

Get Free GA4 Looker Studio Report Template