Google Data Studio hacks surely will make your life quite easier. Most things in the Data studio are automatic. With a few clicks — you’ve created a beautiful report. And now, coupled with Dataslayer, visualizing data becomes even more interesting and easier.

But, how do you smartly play along with this powerful tool?

Like many others, there are often the ‘pros’ only hacks that can significantly change how you use the tools. Luckily, Google Data Studio is not the exception. And the better you know, the more you can make the most from the platform.

As a marketer, you should not learn just the relevant skills to get by – you also need the hacks that can turn you into a pro. Today, this article will help you become a reporting pro by giving you the ten Data Studio hacks and tips you can use instantly to level up your skills. 

Ten Data Studio hacks to elevate your reports to the next level

Group Information or items

As humans, we perceive objects as systematized patterns. Therefore, you should organize your reports to create a good impression on the viewers. The grouping here means putting together items with the same theme or attributes for easier understanding. 

Here are three ways you can group your information for easier understanding in Google Data Studio:

• Similarity: Use a well-thought-out color set and visual hierarchy so that the users can easily understand a more comprehensive theme in just a few words. 
• Regionality: Use visual boundaries such as shapes and colors to enclose relevant information.
• Proximity: Always place related information sets close to each other for effortless interpretation of the whole story.

Use simple dashboards

Human beings, by nature, love interpreting things as simple as possible because we love using the least effort. Whenever we face challenges doing something, we become subconsciously resistant to understanding it rightfully.

This scenario also applies to dashboards. Your audience interprets what they see differently from what you want them to understand, depending on how you present the items on your reports.

To improve how you present your data, you can use colors to make interpretations quite simple. For instance, you can use red to indicate how good the data is and red to show how bad it is. 

Additionally, the use of icons can also make it easy for users to understand what you mean quickly. For example, you can represent mobile data with a mobile data icon.

Focus on important details

The interest of most users is the most important detail on your dashboard. That is why you should ensure your dashboard gives them the most critical information at a glance.

Ensure you position your key observations and main points in an area of the user touchpoint. While positioning, keep in mind the typical ‘Z’ pattern of reading that all of us employ. You can focus on the customer KPIs and the general point you want to make and put them up front. 

Breed familiarity

Google Data Studio is a nice way of displaying data, but how do you make your reports more attractive and unique? 

Of course, we all easily land where we get attracted to the same users. Most likely, your clients must be using other dashboards, hence familiar with certain features of the interfaces. 

Thus, while visiting your dashboard, they will expect the same visual consistency on what they are familiar with. Here are the things you should not forget to do to create familiarity:

• Position your logos in the top-right section of your dashboard.
• Make your control and filters highly manageable within the main header.
• The date range selector should be in the top-right area of the dashboard.

However, you should not worry much because you can use professionally made templates that are visually distinctive. Hence, you do not have to understand everything to do this.

Check out our beautiful Dataslayer themes for Google Data Studio here!

Know your audience

As a professional marketer, you should tailor your efforts to meet the levels of expertise of your users. Your users have different perspectives and expertise. If your users are less technical, they are unlikely to stay patient while trying to find what they are looking for. Instead, they will just want the bottom line so quickly. Therefore, try to be very concise as possible.

Conversely, you should not be too simplistic if the audience of your report is a data analyst or technically-minded individual. In this case, there will be no harm if you include plenty of details for those who may need them while keeping in mind the flow and arrangement.

Analyze your user’s journey

To deliver the reports in a better way next time, you need the ability to understand how your users interact with the pages in your report. And to do that requires you to install the Google Analytics tracker on your studio report.

To install it, select File, go to Report settings, and paste your tracking ID.

After implementing Google Analytics, monitor the interactions on your report by visiting the Behavior section. You can choose a Page title to see important information such as the time users spend on your page, page views, and others.

Create color palettes from images

Clients like it when you adopt their branding and colors in your reports. So, how can you do this? It’s easy. One of the Google Data Studio hacks will get you covered, but how?

All you should do is import a client’s branding and colors using the Extract Theme from Image feature. It will pull the client’s brand colors to your default graph colors, saving you time.

You can also use Photoshop or other similar tools by pulling colors from the client’s website and branding.

Elevate user interactions

You can boost the interaction of users with your dashboard by applying Filter on almost everything. Today, Google Data Studio is highly intuitive and user-friendly. For instance, users can click on an element on the pie chart and filter the whole report automatically.

Tell a story

Like a typical narrative, your report should have a beginning, middle, and end. So, while you build it, your aim should be to make your users understand what they see. Thus, it will make them decide on the appropriate actions to take while providing the findings to their internal teams.

The drag and drop function on Data Studio can tempt you to pepper a page with everything you have. So, you can spread your report across a few pages, which you will split into different topics like KPIs, sectors, etc. 

Also, create a good narrative path through the data to give your clients the appropriate visuals as they scroll across the report. In the layout or theme sidebar, choose left to create a contents page. 

Use advanced date ranges

Although Data Studio has a selection of date range options, there may be a need for a better solution. Consider a situation where a client wants to see the year-on-year performance but on a day-by-day level and not on a date-by-date basis. In this situation, advanced ranges can help to fulfill the client’s needs.

Such a situation is associated with a business whose calendar is trend-driven. And because of the day-by-day performance or any other custom date options that do not exist, you have to go that extra mile by ensuring that you avail of it.