Week 11— My Journey into Data Analytics — DA Minidegree Review — CXL Institute
Welcome to the 11th Week of my Digital analytics journey with CXL. This was the last second week of the course, after learning about Data Collection, Analytics, I finally learned “Data visualization” through Google Data Studio. As a marketer, it is very important to understand the bigger picture and drill down to the smallest details. Google Data studio ensures smooth, no hassle, and power-packed reporting.
Google Data Studio (GDS) is a great, free data visualization tool that lets you build interactive dashboards, and customized, insightful reporting.
Some of the Benefits of Data Studio are
- A FREE Reporting and Visualisation Tool
- Sharable Customizable Report Dashboards
- Automated Reports with Real-Time Data
- Data Studio Exports
- Connection to Multiple Data Sources
- Filter Tools and Drill-Down Capabilities
- Calculated Fields and Function Formulas
Data source
A “data source” in Google Data Studio is like a pipeline that feeds data into your Data Studio report/dashboard. It’s what feeds the raw numbers into the platform so that you can actually make pretty charts and graphs.
Data sources use connectors to fetch your data from a specific platform, system, or product. You can use free connectors built by Google to access data such as Google Sheets, Google Ads, Google Analytics, and other Google Marketing Platform products, and more.
For the connectors, You can choose either Owner’s or Viewer’s credential Access.
Owner’s credentials let other people view or create reports that use this data without requiring them to have their own access to the data set.
Viewers credentials require each user of the data source (or reports built using the data source) to provide their own credentials to access the data set. If they do not have access to the data set, they won’t be able to view the data in reports or edit the data source fields.
Data Studio Explorer (Labs)
Explorer is an experimental tool that lets you experiment or tweak a chart without modifying your report itself. There are a lot of similarities between reports and explorations. But there are several key differences, as well: i.e Explorations are temporary unless you save them, they are private to you and optimized for filters
Most Commonly Used Charts
Scorecard — The scorecard is the best tool to show KPIs or key performance indicators. You can add comparison metrics, and adjust the color in the Style panel.
Time Series — A time-series chart in Data Studio displays the time dimension as the X-axis or horizontal axis, with the Y-axis or vertical axis representing the measurement scale. There are 3 types of default time series charts available in Data Studio.
Time series chart types
- Time series chart
- Sparkline chart
- Smoothed time series chart
Bar charts — A bar chart in Data Studio uses horizontal or vertical bars to show comparisons among categories. There are 6 types of default bar charts available in Data Studio.
Tables in Data Studio display the data in a grid of rows and columns. Each column represents a dimension or metric, while each row is a record of the data. There are 3 types of default tables available in Data Studio.
Table types
- Table
- Table with bars
- Table with heatmaps
Date Range Filter
Most Business owners and Teams want to see how Brands are performing over a certain time period. With date range filters, you can group data by specific date ranges.
To add a date range filter, you can select the icon, and then draw a shape on the report where you want the filter added. Within the date range properties panel, there is a “Data” tab. Use the default date range selection. In the “Style” tab, you can change the look of how the data appears on the report. Similar to GA, you can select predefined options like the Last 7 days or Last quarter, or you can customize the data.
Note : You can either apply it to certain charts by grouping the charts and applying the filter or you can apply the filter to all the pages of the report by selecting “Make report-level”
Add filter controls
You can give your audience more flexibility with filter controls. For example, If someone filtered out everything besides organic traffic, all the reports on that page would show data for organic traffic specifically.
Filter Controls are added in the same way as a Date Filter, by selecting the icon and then dragging out the required shape in your report.
Interactive chart filters
Chart interaction filters turn your charts into filter controls. When interactions are enabled on a chart, you can filter the report by interacting with that chart in two ways:
- Clicking one or more dimension values in the chart.
- Dragging, or “brushing,” your mouse across a time series, line chart, or area chart.
To enable a chart control, select the appropriate chart. In the right-hand panel, scroll to the bottom and check the box labeled “Apply filter.”
Calculated Fields
Calculated fields allow you to create new or custom metrics or dimensions in Google Data Studio from your existing data. You can perform calculations, create categories, or transform your data with calculated fields.
Calculated fields come in a few basic forms, including:
- Arithmetic: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division
- Mathematical Formulas: Examples include REGEXP_MATCH(), POWER(), MIN(), MAX(), SUM()
- Data Transformation: Convert your data to text, numerical values, or even dates. Use functions like LOWER() to standardize text. Re-name fields according to company acronyms, or add unique identifiers.
- Logical Comparisons: Utilize branching, IF/ELSE, or CASE/WHEN statements within your data to apply categorical connections
Sampling in Google Data Studio
Google Analytics applies sampling techniques to large data sets to improve the performance of its reports. You can see if Google Analytics-based charts in a Data Studio report are using sampled data.
A Show Sampling link appears in the report footer on any page that contains charts based on Google Analytics. This link is available to all viewers of the report. (There’s no way to hide the link.) Click the Show Sampling link to place a highlight box around any charts that show sampled Google Analytics data.
