Google Data Studio is quickly becoming an integral tool for digital marketing professionals due to its ease of use and the fact that it’s free. In the past year, Google implemented a number of product releases and improvements that we think are worth highlighting.

In this article, you’ll learn about three of the most important new Google Data Studio features.

Optional Chart Metrics

If you feel like your GDS charts have become a little too busy/congested, then this feature is for you. GDS now allows charts to include optional metrics that viewers can enable at their discretion.

For example, let’s suppose that you always want to see cost and conversion performance by channel. Additionally, you are sometimes interested in clicks and impressions. You can now create GDS charts and tables that accomplish this. All you need to do is:

1) Enable the Optional metrics option within the Data settings of your GDS chart
2) Add the optional metrics (i.e. clicks and impressions)

 

Chart of cost and conversions comparing Youtube, search and google analytics

 

How to add optional metrics

Treemap Charts

Google Data Studio now supports Treemap charts. Treemaps can be very useful for displaying data in a hierarchical fashion.

For example, suppose that you’d like to show how spend is distributed by channel and campaign tactic (i.e. Brand and Non-Brand). A treemap chart is a powerful way to show this.

You can add a treemap chart to your report by doing the following:

1) Click ‘Add a chart’ and select the last chart option or click ‘Insert’ and select ‘Treemap’

Treemap

2) Select the dimension that you’d like to emphasize as well as the key metric

How to select dimension

The chart below displays an example of what your treemap chart will look like. Note that this chart is primarily about visually showing what aspects of the selected dimension are the most prominent. You will not see numeric values in a treemap chart but you will get an immediate sense of performance trends.

Treemap chart

Add Images By URL

Finally, Google Data Studio now allows you to add images to your reports via URL. In the past, you would have to save any report images to your hard drive and then manually upload them to GDS. This process was quite time-consuming and cumbersome. With this new feature, your GDS reports can be much more visually engaging.

Here’s how to leverage this new feature:

1) Choose which report page you want to work in
2) Click the Image icon button on the components toolbar
3) Choose the ‘By URL’ option

upload by URL

Paste in the image URL that you’re using and click ‘Insert’

insert image by URL

And you’re done! In this example, I’ve added the Google Ads logo alongside of a scorecard. There are many different ways that you can leverage images to convey important trends.

Google Ads cost

I hope these features will be useful for your reporting in the future! Contact us if you’re interested in learning more.

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