Building a good Looker Studio dashboard is half the job. Getting it in front of the right people, in the right format, at the right time — that is the other half. A report that requires someone to remember to check a link every Monday will get ignored. One that lands in their inbox automatically becomes part of their workflow.
Sharing a Report: The Three Options
When you click Share in the top right of the Looker Studio editor, you have three main paths.
Invite Specific People
Enter a Google account email address and set their access level: can view or can edit.
View access is the correct default for clients and stakeholders. They can interact with filters, change the date range, and explore the data — but they cannot move charts, rename fields, or accidentally break anything.
Edit access should only go to team members who are actively building or maintaining the report.
When you invite someone, they receive an email notification with a link. If the person does not have a Google account, they will need to create one to access the report — this is a common friction point. If a client does not want to use a Google account, use the link-sharing option instead.
Share With Anyone Who Has the Link
Click Manage Access and change the setting from Restricted to “Anyone with the link.” You can set link-level access to viewer or editor — always use viewer for client links.
This generates a shareable URL you can paste into an email, a Slack message, or a client portal. The recipient does not need a Google account to view the report.
The tradeoff: anyone who has the link can view the data. If a client forwards the link to a third party, that person can see it too. For sensitive financial or conversion data, think carefully about whether link-sharing is appropriate or whether you want to restrict access to named accounts.
Embed in a Website or Portal
Looker Studio reports can be embedded in a webpage using an iframe. The embed code is available under Share, Embed report.
This is useful if you run a client portal or a dashboard page on your own site. The embedded report is interactive — viewers can change date ranges and apply filters just like in the standalone version.
Embedded reports inherit the sharing settings of the original report. If the report is restricted to specific accounts, the embed will show an access error to anyone not on the list. For public embeds, the report needs to be set to “anyone with the link.”
Scheduling Automated Email Delivery
Looker Studio can send a PDF snapshot of a report to a list of email addresses on a schedule. This is how you replace the weekly manual export routine.
In the report, go to Share, Schedule email delivery.
Configure:
- Recipients: one or more email addresses (does not need to be a Google account)
- Subject line: defaults to the report name, customize it to something useful (“Weekly Campaign Performance - [Client Name]”)
- Message: optional body text
- Frequency: daily, weekly, or monthly
- Day and time: choose a time that makes sense for the client’s workflow (Monday morning before their week starts, for example)
- Page range: you can send the full report or specific pages only
The delivery sends a PDF with a static snapshot of the report at the time of delivery. It is not a live link — it is a fixed image of the data as it appeared when the email was generated.
One important limitation: the PDF snapshot uses the report’s default date range and filter settings. If the report is set to “Last 30 days,” the PDF will always reflect the last 30 days at the time of sending. If you want a “last week” snapshot, make sure the default date range is set to Last 7 days before scheduling.
Scheduled delivery does not replace the live report link. Use scheduled emails for stakeholders who are unlikely to remember to check the link. Keep the live link available for clients who want to explore data themselves.
Managing Data Source Credentials
This is the piece most people do not think about until something breaks.
When you connect a data source, Looker Studio records the credentials of the Google account that authorized it. This is called the data source owner. If that person’s access to the underlying data is revoked — because they left the company, changed their password, or lost access to the Google Ads account — the data source breaks for everyone who uses that report.
Two things to do proactively:
Check who owns each data source. In the data source editor, the owner’s email appears at the top. If it is a personal email for someone who has left or might leave, transfer ownership.
Use a service account or shared team account for data source connections. If your agency has a shared Google account used specifically for tool connections, use that account to authorize data sources. It does not change jobs, lose access by accident, or have two-factor authentication that causes authorization failures.
To transfer data source ownership or change credentials, open the data source editor and click Edit Connection. Re-authorize using the account you want to be the owner going forward.
Copying and Reusing Reports
Once you have built a report you are happy with, you can duplicate it for new clients rather than building from scratch each time.
Click the three-dot menu on the report in your Looker Studio home page and select Make a copy. In the copy dialog, you will see each data source in the original report and a dropdown to replace it with a different data source.
If you built the report for Client A using their GA4 and Google Ads data sources, you can duplicate it for Client B by swapping to Client B’s data sources. The chart configurations, layouts, and calculated fields all carry over. You just reconnect the data.
This is the workflow that makes Looker Studio efficient for agencies. Build a template report once, duplicate it for each client in ten minutes, update the data sources, and deliver a branded report with no rebuilding required.
What Not to Do
Do not give clients edit access by default. The most common support request is “my dashboard looks broken” — and the cause is usually a client who accidentally dragged a chart off the page or deleted a filter. View access prevents this entirely.
Do not send PDF exports when a live link would be better. Scheduled email PDFs are static. If a client wants to investigate why conversions spiked on a specific day, they cannot interact with a PDF. Send the live link in the email alongside the PDF, or instead of it, depending on how technical the client is.
Do not leave test reports shared with everyone. Reports set to “anyone with the link” stay accessible even after you stop using them. Periodically review your Looker Studio home page and revoke link-sharing on reports that are no longer in active use.
Do not forget to document the report. Add a text element on the first page with a brief note: data sources used, date the report was built, which conversion actions are tracked, and who to contact with questions. Three months later, when a new team member needs to understand the report, this saves significant time.
A well-shared report becomes infrastructure. The client opens it every Monday, sees their numbers, and has what they need without requiring anything from you. That is the goal.
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