Your business website generates valuable visitor data—but raw analytics aren’t always easy to interpret. Google Data Studio (formerly Looker Studio, rebranded back to Data Studio in April 2026) lets you turn that data into visual, shareable reports that make your metrics actionable. I’ve been using Google Data Studio for years now and have created it for clients (affiliate) as well. Today, I am going to share a 2026 version to help you understand what this free app is all about. I hope it helps you with your metrics and understanding all the updated information you may want to look for on your website.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to build a custom Google Data Studio report connected to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and other connectors, so you can track performance at a glance without digging through raw data.
Topics
Key Takeaways
- Google Data Studio Report allows you to create customizable, shareable dashboards from your visitor data.
- Before starting, ensure you have a Google account, a connected GA4 property, and access to GA4 data.
- GA4 introduces changes such as Engagement Rate in place of Bounce Rate, making reporting different from Universal Analytics.
- You can blend multiple data sources in Data Studio to create comprehensive views and analyze combined data easily.
- Explore templates and community connectors to enhance your Google Data Studio reports for specific business needs.
What is Google Data Studio?
“Data Studio is a free tool that turns your data into informative, easy-to-read, easy-to-share, and fully customizable dashboards and reports.” And creating a customized report will allow you and your company to see how your goals are progressing. Read more here for extra information.
But what do you need on your Google Data Studio customized report? Well, I’m glad you asked. These reports can hold whatever you want them to for your specific goals and focus. Feel free to read this post for tips to make business goals: Tips to make your business goals a success.
Now that you have determined the goal you want to achieve for your business blog, let’s show you how to create your customized report.
Prerequisites
Before you start building your report, make sure you have:
- A Google account (Gmail or Google Workspace)
- A GA4 property connected to your website (Universal Analytics was sunset in July 2024)
- At least a few weeks of collected data, so your reports have something to display
- Access permissions to the GA4 property (Viewer level or above)
Working with GA4 Data
If you’re coming from Universal Analytics, GA4 works differently. The biggest change: GA4 uses an event-based model rather than a session-based model. This means some familiar metrics have changed. See below.
Bounce Rate has been replaced by Engagement Rate (the percentage of sessions that lasted longer than 10 seconds, had a conversion event, or had 2+ page views).
Goals are now Conversions, which you adjust as events in GA4’s admin settings.
Page Views still exist, but you’ll also see Views (which includes both page and screen views for apps).
Average Time on Page is replaced by Average Engagement Time, which is generally more accurate.
When connecting GA4 as a data source in Data Studio, select “Google Analytics,” then choose your GA4 property (it won’t have a View dropdown like Universal Analytics).
Blending Multiple Data Sources
One of Data Studio’s most powerful features is data blending—combining data from multiple sources into a single chart or table. For example, you can blend GA4 data with Google Ads data to see how ad spend correlates with conversions, all in one view.
To blend data on Data Studio, do these steps.
- Select a chart, then in the Data panel click “Blend Data.”
- Add your second data source and choose a join key (a shared dimension like Date or Campaign Name).
- Configure which metrics you want from each source and save.
This is especially useful for marketing teams who want to see the full picture without switching between platforms.
BigQuery Integration
If your site generates high volumes of data, consider connecting Data Studio to BigQuery. GA4 has a free BigQuery export that lets you store raw event data, and Data Studio can query it directly. This gives you access to granular, row-level data that isn’t available through the standard GA4 connector—ideal for custom analysis, attribution modeling, or large-scale reporting.
To set this up, enable the BigQuery link in your GA4 Admin settings, then add BigQuery as a data source in Data Studio. NOTE: Be mindful that BigQuery queries can incur costs if you’re on a pay-per-query plan, so use date filters and partitioned tables to keep things efficient. This may be advanced for some start-up business owners.
Using Calculated Fields
Calculated fields let you create custom metrics and dimensions without modifying your underlying data. You can add them at the data source level (available across the whole report) or at the chart level.
Common examples you can use are:
- Conversion Rate: Conversions / Sessions
- Revenue Per User: Total Revenue / Active Users
- Traffic Source Grouping: Use a CASE statement to bucket your traffic into custom categories (e.g., “Brand Search,” “Non-Brand Search,” “Social”)
- Content Group: Use REGEXP_MATCH on Page Path to group blog posts, product pages, and landing pages separately
Sharing and Embedding Your Reports
Sharing helps everyone on your team review the data easily. I like to invite clients (affiliate) using their Gmail address for easy access.
Once the report is ready, you have several options for sharing it:
Share via link: Click the Share button to generate a view-only or edit link. You can restrict access to specific email addresses or open it to anyone with the link.
Schedule email delivery: Set up automated email reports to run daily, weekly, or monthly. Recipients get a PDF snapshot of the report.
Embed on your website: Use the embed code (File > Embed report) to add an interactive report to any webpage. This is great for client dashboards or internal portals.
Download as PDF: Export a static snapshot for offline use or attaching to presentations.
Community Templates and Connectors
If you don’t want to create from scratch as I do, Data Studio’s template gallery has dozens of pre-built reports for common use cases like SEO (affiliate) dashboards, social media tracking, and e-commerce performance. You can duplicate any template and customize it with your own data sources.
Beyond Google’s own connectors (Analytics, Ads, Search Console, Sheets, BigQuery), there are hundreds of community-built connectors for platforms like Facebook Ads, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Shopify, and more. Some are free; others require a subscription through the connector provider. Check the Data Studio connector gallery to see what’s available for your stack.
Customize your report for your business
In the Data Studio theme and layout, you can create your own report design to correspond with your business. You can upload your business logo and change the color and layout of all the pages.
You can also create more than one page if you can’t fit all the charts and graphs on one page. So, don’t feel the need to make your graphs and charts too small.
I hope this gives you a glimpse of the Data Studio application. If you decide to try it for yourself, please come back and leave questions or comments about this free service from Google. I would love to hear from you.
If you want help creating this report, feel free to contact me on my Website Help and Maintenance services page.
