How to Create a Dashboard with Google Analytics Data?
Tags: analytics, datascience
Published: 2022-06-17 09:10:45

Google Analytics is one of the best technologies that you can implement to monitor different data operations across your website. However, statistics have revealed that 53% of marketing executives tend to get overwhelmed by the data generated by different marketing technologies. This results in a case where most of the data end up in cabinets and cannot be used again.
The most valuable solution is to create a dashboard with Google analytics data which will enhance the availability of all the crucial data and enhance its access to every team member. A dashboard offers the most straightforward way that you can utilize to manage and utilize all the vital data elements at your disposal.
Google analytics data requires you to have a unique approach that you will use to manage and present information to generate insights from the data for the well-being of your business. Besides, it’s one of the simplest methodologies that you can utilize to make your data easily accessible and digestible.

## What is a Google Analytics Data Dashboard?
A dashboard refers to displaying data in a more simplified format that is easy to read and comprehend. Besides, it is not only used by a specific frame of data but any framework that you can choose to pull data and make it easy to read and interpret. It doesn’t matter the approach you choose to use, as much as data is displayed in a simple to read format.

### Identifying the Nice Vs. the Necessary Metrics
Before you even think about customizing a dashboard with Google Analytics (Soon to become [Google Analytics 4](https://measuremindsgroup.com/set-up-and-understand-google-analytics-4) only) data, you need to give your mind a bit of serious thinking about the most important metrics to prioritize during customization. You need to identify the key selling points for your business that best suits your data mission and align with your data.
For instance, if your organization is working towards raising awareness about health-related issues, you will probably prioritize downloads of informational pamphlets, a sign-up for regular newsletters, and other forms of informational resources that will benefit your readers. The goal is to ensure that your target audience has a clear grip on the data you are displaying.

### Establish a Feedback Loop
Once you are done with creating a data dashboard, you can opt to automate it to either send daily, weekly, or monthly reports depending on what works well for you. When picking out your business KPIs, you need to be keen on your preferred time frame. Sometimes, you may realize that all you need is an update or a referral source every month, although you may check the top content on your site every week.
Regardless of your business's key selling points, you should choose a date range that works as a comparison to the past schedule of your content report. Remember that a number without context has little or even zero meaning.

## Customize Your Dashboard Based on Departments
Always remember that different team members have different needs and interests. This means that if you are building a data dashboard for your team members, keep in mind their unique KPIs and timeframes that will be valuable for their content, executive, and marketing needs. 
For instance, you might want a weekly Google ad to report for your marketing team, a monthly social media report, and a weekly content performance report for your content writers. You can create custom reports by using a [data visualization tool](https://chartexpo.com/).
You need to be extremely keen based on what your team members prefer to ensure that you are growing together for the business to make significant milestones.

## Creating a Dashboard with Google Analytics Data
The first step is to open your Google Analytics page. On the left of your analytics page, there is the "Dashboards" menu. Click on the button and select "New Dashboard." At this point, you can choose whether you want a blank canvas or the Google starter dashboard, depending on what works perfectly for your data needs.
Once you [create a website](https://www.thenexthint.com/how-to-create-the-perfect-website-for-your-business-needs/11498/) and have an analytics dashboard, you can now customize the data dashboard based on the key selling points that you have chosen for your business. Remember that every widget on the dashboard can be edited by clicking on the edit button within the dashboard located at the top right corner of the page.
Upon clicking the edit button, it will open the widget settings. You can customize everything displayed depending on what you need.

### Standard vs. Real-Time Widget
You should choose the display method that makes sense for the metrics you are dealing with. If you want to showcase things such as raw numbers, consider using metrics. On the hand, if you want to display the bounce rate, use a table to display the content. You should always play around with different types of data visualization until you get what works well for your data.

### Metric
Identify the metric you intend to display on your dashboard. This includes the time on site, bounce rate, and the page title.

### Link to Report or URL
Creating a link to a report enables you to find more relevant reports, especially when you intend to dig deeper into the widget. Ensure that the URL you use is functional to avoid inconveniences when users click on the provided links.

### Delete/Clone
This option gives you a chance to clone a widget to maintain all the settings that you have made. The clone option works well, especially if you intend to make another similar widget. Note that Google analytics gives you the freedom to add about twelve widgets to every Google analytics data dashboard you create.

### Compare and filter
The compare and filter button lets you drill down deep into your data elements. For instance, when making a mobile traffic dashboard, you will automatically filter every widget to make it showcase only the mobile traffic.

### Automating the Google Dashboard Emails
After creating stunning dashboards for your team members, it’s now time to use the Google analytics automation feature. You can set up automatic emails that will be attached to the dashboard in the form of PDF. You create this prompt by clicking on the email available at the top of the dashboard and selecting the frequency as well as the day of the week when you want the email to be sent to the respective recipients.

#### Final Verdict
Following the impact of data dashboards on the growth and development of businesses, approximately 54.3% of businesses have installed the dashboards to enhance their performance. This article has an in-depth guide that can help you set up a Google analytics data dashboard to help you monitor your progress in the business.