Upgrade Google Analytics and web analytics with Looker Studio

From Data to Insight

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The Importance of Structuring Data

Digital tools such as Google Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook, CRM and e-commerce systems are overflowing with data. Many businesses face the challenge of converting this information into valuable insight. The problem intensifies when the data is unstructured and kept in isolated data silos, making it difficult to realize the real value they represent.

By consolidating the data, you have the opportunity to analyze, process and present the data in an easily accessible and sensible way. The highlight is a quick summary of the company's most important key indicators (KPIs), which can be calculated from the data collected.

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Use of Dashboards

Dashboards are the solution that enables an overview of performance, reporting - and data-driven decisions in a fast and efficient manner. They act as a visual representation of data, and are designed to convey information fast, often through common SEO metrics and key indicators. In addition, employees do not have to deal with many different tools and logins to check the status of their work.

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Keep an eye on your investments

Dashboards make it possible to monitor your investments for the growth of your business. Explore which investments are bearing fruit, and pick out the bad apples. By integrating cost data and revenue data into dashboards, the profitability of investments can be tracked. This allows companies to identify measures that generate positive ROI and adjust or discontinue the measures that do not live up to expectations.

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Advertising Campaigns

Statistics from ad platforms only tell half the story. Everything may look great in the report from Meta (Facebook), LinkedIn or Google Ads, but if your website metrics are poor you will struggle to convert traffic. Then it's a bit like hitting the target in a blindfold. No one hits the target on the first shot, so testing, follow-up and iteration are necessary.

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Optimization based on data

The ultimate goal is to optimize based on data. By analyzing data from dashboards, professionals and employees can devise more targeted plans for site content, architecture, and user experience to improve visibility, traffic, and conversions. A good overview facilitates rapid responses to unexpected changes such as algorithmic updates or technical issues that may affect the visibility of the site.

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6 quick reasons that make dashboards useful

Make fact-based decisions in real time

Dashboards with a clear and intuitive UX make complex data understandable and helps business make realistic decisions. Compare time periods such as the last week or 30 days and have it presented online, mobile or directly in your mail.

Make data more valuable

By presenting data in a clear and accessible way, dashboards can make data more valuable to all members of a business and help them perform their tasks better.

Consolidate data

Dashboards allow real-time data analysis from a single interface, saving time and avoiding the frustration of having to navigate between different systems.

Objective presentation

By providing a clear and objective representation of the business situation and performance, dashboards can effectively serve as a starting point for further dialogue between employees, so that desired changes can be identified and implemented.

The Big Picture

A good dashboard provides a holistic view of key metrics and KPIs from different sources, giving an instant understanding of the “big picture”.

Uncover problem areas

By not only reporting historical data but also providing insight into potential issues, dashboards can facilitate proactive management of businesschallenges.

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Data analysis and visualization with Looker Studio

Understanding Looker Studio's place in the analysis

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, is a vital tool for teams working with digital marketing and data analytics. It offers an intuitive platform for building reports and dashboards that convey important data both internally to the marketing team, and decision makers within the enterprise.

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Limitations with Google Analytics 4

Users of Google Analytics 4 often feel constrained by the tool's inflexibility. You get what you're served, and don't particularly have the opportunity to do anything beyond that.

Google has made many decisions that make GA4 a less intuitive tool than Universal Analytics was. This has led many to search for alternative solutions for data visualization and reporting the data they collect.

Typical pain points for marketers are:

• The new UX is less intuitive
• More events than before need to be set up by a developer or someone who can code
• Deep dives into data is hard to set up
• Lack of options for data filtering
• Reports need to be set up from scratch every time
• Lack of features

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Why use Looker Studio?

Looker Studio serves as a powerful supplemental tool for consolidating, visualizing, and reporting data. It provides the ability to link and process data from Google Analytics and many other platforms, to create in-depth, interactive and customized reports.

Easily accessible from the web, Looker Studio makes it convenient to collaborate on and share reports. Users can simultaneously work on the same report and assign specific permissions for access control.

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Possibility of multiple data sources

Looker Studio supports “out of the box” integrations with the rest of the Google environment, such as Google Sheets, Ads, Analytics, Search Console and Big Query. And with the introduction of “Community Connectors”, Looker Studio has become an even more universal tool that allows integrations with platforms such as Meta (Facebook).

If you have access to a developer, then there is also the possibility of retrieving data from CRM system, SQL databases, APIs and Webhooks. A recent update has also introduced Data Blending, which allows users to combine data from different sources into a single visualization.

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Tailor your reports

Looker Studio offers great freedom to customize your reports. While it may seem challenging at first, the reward is great visualizations of data that are as clear or deep as desired. The customizations allow you to explore the data with sorting, filtering, and bidirectional cross-filtering, among other things.

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Attribution

Freepik