Reading about Looker Studio is useful. Building something in it teaches you the rest. This is a step-by-step walkthrough for creating a basic marketing performance dashboard — the kind you would share with a client or use as a daily performance monitor.
By the end you will have a working report with a date range filter, key metric scorecards, a trend line, a channel breakdown table, and a campaign performance view.
Step 1: Create a New Report
Go to lookerstudio.google.com and click Create, then Report. Looker Studio will immediately prompt you to add a data source.
For this walkthrough, connect Google Analytics 4. Select your account and property and click Add to Report. Looker Studio creates the report and drops you into the editor.
The editor has three main areas: the canvas (the white page where you build), the toolbar at the top, and the properties panel on the right that appears when you select an element.
Step 2: Set the Report Theme and Page Size
Before adding charts, set up the page dimensions and theme. This determines how the report looks when shared.
Click Theme and Layout in the toolbar. Set the canvas size to 1200 x 900 pixels — this works well for screen viewing on most monitors. You can adjust later, but starting with a defined size prevents layout drift as you add elements.
For the theme, either use one of the built-in themes or customize the primary and secondary colors to match your client’s brand. The font, background color, and accent color you set here apply to all charts by default, so choosing these before building saves restyling later.
Step 3: Add a Date Range Control
This is the first element to add to every report. A date range control lets viewers change the time period without you needing to rebuild anything.
Click Add a Control in the toolbar and select Date Range Control. Place it in the top right corner of the canvas.
In the properties panel, set the default date range. For a client-facing report, Last 30 days or Last month is usually the right starting default — recent enough to be relevant, defined enough to be consistent.
Every chart on the report page will respond to this control by default. When a viewer changes the date range, all charts update simultaneously.
Step 4: Add KPI Scorecards
At the top of the canvas, add a row of scorecards for your most important metrics.
Click Add a Chart and select Scorecard. For a GA4 data source, add one scorecard each for:
- Sessions
- Conversions (or the key conversion event you track)
- Conversion Rate
- Engaged Sessions
For each scorecard, open the properties panel and enable the comparison date range. Set it to the same period type as the default date range (previous period or same period last year depending on what is relevant).
Arrange the scorecards in a horizontal row across the top third of the page. Keep even spacing between them. Select all four and use Arrange, Distribute Horizontally to space them automatically.
Step 5: Add a Sessions Trend Line
Below the scorecards, add a time series chart showing daily sessions over the report period.
Click Add a Chart and select Time Series. Set:
- Dimension: Date
- Metric: Sessions
- Date Range Dimension: Date
Resize it to span the full width of the canvas below the scorecards. This gives viewers an immediate visual of traffic trend when they open the report.
Optionally, add a second metric — Conversions — plotted on the right-hand axis. This lets you see at a glance whether traffic and conversion trends are moving together or diverging.
Step 6: Add a Channel Breakdown Table
In the lower half of the page, add a table showing performance broken down by traffic channel.
Click Add a Chart and select Table. Set:
- Dimension: Session default channel group
- Metrics: Sessions, Conversions, Conversion Rate, Engaged Sessions
Enable the heatmap on the Sessions and Conversions columns — click the metric in the properties panel and toggle the heatmap option. This adds background color intensity that makes high and low performers immediately visible.
Sort the table by Sessions descending by default. Set the row limit to 10.
Step 7: Add a Second Page for Campaign Detail
Keep the first page as an executive summary. Add a second page for campaign-level detail.
Click the + icon at the bottom of the editor to add a new page. Name the first page “Summary” and the second page “Campaigns”.
On the Campaigns page, add a table with:
- Dimension: Campaign
- Metrics: Sessions, Conversions, Conversion Rate, Bounce Rate
If you have Google Ads as a second data source, add a second table specifically for Google Ads campaigns showing: Campaign, Clicks, Cost, Conversions, Cost per Conversion.
Step 8: Add Report-Level Filters
On each page, add a dropdown filter control so viewers can segment by dimension without changing the date range.
Click Add a Control and select Drop-Down List. Set the dimension to Device Category. Place this next to your date range control.
Now every chart on the page responds to both the date range and the device filter. A client asking “how did mobile perform last month?” can answer that question themselves.
Step 9: Review the Report Before Sharing
Before sharing, switch to View mode (the toggle in the top right). View mode shows exactly what recipients will see — edit controls are hidden, the layout is locked.
Check each chart loads correctly with the default date range. Test the date range control and confirm all charts update together. Test the dropdown filter. Click to the second page.
If anything looks broken in View mode, go back to Edit mode to fix it.
Step 10: Share the Report
Click Share in the top right. You have two options:
Invite people — send a link to specific Google accounts with view or edit access. Good for client stakeholders you want to track.
Manage access — set the report to “Anyone with the link can view”. Good for sharing with clients who do not have Google accounts or who you do not want to manage individually.
Do not give clients edit access by default. If they accidentally move a chart or change a filter setting, restoring it requires you to undo their changes or rebuild. Give view access and keep edit access for yourself.
Common First-Build Mistakes
Not grouping elements. If you build a header area with a logo, title, and date range control as separate elements, moving them later is painful. Group elements you always want to move together.
Mixing data sources in a single chart. Each chart can only draw from one data source. A single table cannot show GA4 sessions alongside Google Ads cost. Use blended data sources for that (covered in a later post in this series) or keep them as separate charts.
Building before deciding on the audience. An executive summary page looks different from an analyst detail page. Decide who you are building for before you start placing charts. The answer changes what goes on the first page and how much granularity to expose by default.
Build the structure first, add data second, style last. That order prevents you from spending time formatting a chart you later decide to remove.
Related Posts
Looker Studio Calculated Fields: Build the Metrics Your Data Source Does Not Have
Sharing and Scheduling Reports in Looker Studio
Looker Studio Chart Types Explained: When to Use Each One
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