Looker Studio gives you a lot of chart options. Scrolling through the Add Chart menu for the first time is overwhelming. The good news is that most performance marketing dashboards are built with four or five chart types, and understanding when to use each one is more important than knowing all of them.
Scorecard
A scorecard displays a single metric as a large number. Sessions: 14,280. Conversions: 342. ROAS: 4.2.
Use scorecards at the top of a dashboard for your most important KPIs. They give stakeholders an immediate answer to the question they actually care about before they read anything else.
You can add a comparison period to a scorecard — the number from the previous period appears below the main value with a percentage change indicator. This is almost always worth enabling. A number without context (342 conversions) is less useful than a number with trend (342 conversions, up 18% from last period).
Avoid using too many scorecards in a row. More than five or six starts to look like a spreadsheet header rather than a dashboard. Group the metrics that matter most and put everything else in a table further down the page.
Time Series
A time series chart plots one or more metrics over time on a line graph. This is the most used chart type in performance marketing dashboards.
Use it for any metric where the trend over time is what you care about: daily impressions, weekly conversions, cost over the campaign period.
A few configuration choices that matter:
Date granularity. Set this to match your reporting window. A 30-day report at day-level granularity shows you daily fluctuation. The same data at week-level granularity shows the weekly trend with less noise. Both are useful for different conversations.
Comparison line. You can add a second date range as a dotted comparison line on the same chart. This is cleaner than two separate charts when you are comparing this month versus last month.
Multiple metrics. You can plot multiple metrics on the same time series, but be careful. If one metric is in the hundreds (clicks) and another is in single digits (conversions), the conversion line will be nearly flat. Use the secondary axis for metrics on very different scales, or build separate charts.
Bar Chart
A bar chart compares a metric across categories. Top 10 campaigns by conversions. Revenue by traffic source. Clicks by device type.
Use a bar chart when you want to show ranking or relative size across a list of items. Horizontal bars work better when your category names are long — campaign names, keyword text, country names. Vertical bars work better for time-based comparisons where the left-to-right reading order is intuitive.
One frequent mistake: using a bar chart for time series data. A bar chart showing daily sessions makes it harder to see the trend than a line chart does. Use time series for time-based data and bar charts for category comparisons.
Table
A table displays multiple dimensions and metrics in rows and columns. It is the most flexible chart type because it lets viewers sort, scan, and read exact numbers.
Tables are indispensable for anything granular: a keyword performance breakdown, a campaign-level cost and conversion summary, or a page-by-page traffic report.
Enable the Heatmap option on metric columns to add background color intensity based on value. This lets viewers spot high and low performers at a glance without reading every number. This is one of the most underused features in Looker Studio.
Add pagination for large tables. A table that scrolls through 500 rows is not useful to a client. Set a max of 10-25 rows and let the viewer paginate if they need more.
Pie Chart
A pie chart shows the proportional breakdown of a metric across categories. Market share, traffic source split, device type distribution.
Pie charts work best with a small number of slices — ideally three to five. If you have 12 categories, a pie chart becomes unreadable. Use a bar chart instead.
Also avoid pie charts when the differences between categories are small. A slice that is 22% and a slice that is 19% are visually indistinguishable. A bar chart makes that comparison obvious.
Geo Map
A geo map plots data on a geographic map, shaded by intensity. Countries or regions with higher metric values appear darker.
This is useful for any business with international traffic or a regional focus. A client running campaigns across multiple countries can see at a glance which markets are performing and which are quiet.
The limitation: Looker Studio’s geo map requires location data in your source (country, region, city). If your data source does not include geographic dimensions, the chart will not work.
Bullet Chart
A bullet chart shows a metric against a target value. Think of it as a progress bar with context.
This is underused and worth knowing about. If you manage a client with a monthly conversion target, a bullet chart showing current conversions against target is immediately more useful than a scorecard showing the raw number.
Pivot Table
A pivot table breaks down a metric across two dimensions simultaneously. Conversions by campaign and by device. Revenue by month and by traffic source.
Use pivot tables for cross-dimensional analysis. They add complexity to a dashboard so do not use them on the main summary page — put them on a detail page or in a report designed for analyst use rather than executive review.
What to Avoid
Stacked bar charts with more than three categories. The stacking makes individual values hard to read. Use a grouped bar chart or a table instead.
Donut charts. They communicate the same information as a pie chart but are harder to read. Use a pie chart if you need a proportion chart at all.
Too many chart types on one page. A dashboard with eight different chart types looks like a design exercise, not a reporting tool. Limit yourself to three or four chart types per page and use them consistently.
The best dashboards are boring in terms of chart variety. Line charts, scorecards, tables, and bar charts cover almost every reporting need. The insight comes from the data, not the chart type.
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