How to create great reports in Looker Studio

Hi everyone,

Welcome back to Mastering Marketing.

This week we're firstly going to look at some interesting headlines from the world of email and social media.

?? Enhancing Gmail security with new rules in 2024

?? Elon Musk's X Faces Steep Decline in Ad Revenue Since Takeover

And then we'll understand how to create great reports in Looker Studio. So, let's get started...

Enhancing Gmail security with new rules in 2024

Google's announcement of new Gmail protections is a welcome step in the ongoing battle against email spam and phishing threats. As email continues to be an integral part of daily communication, ensuring its safety and security is paramount. The requirements for bulk senders to authenticate their emails, simplify unsubscribe processes and adhere to a clear spam rate threshold are essential moves to enhance email hygiene and protect users. These measures not only reduce the clutter in our inboxes but also reinforce our confidence in email authenticity. It's encouraging to see industry leaders like Google and their partners taking proactive steps to create a safer, more user-friendly email environment, reminding us that email security is a collective effort requiring constant vigilance. It's also vital for Marketers to review their email strategies to avoid anything that could be spam, ensure their unsub processes are solid and focus on delivering value with every email. What do you think of these new measures?

Elon Musk's X Faces Steep Decline in Ad Revenue Since Takeover

The decline in ad revenue at Elon Musk's X, formerly known as Twitter, since his takeover in October 2022 is a clear indication of the challenges the platform has faced in retaining advertisers amid rapid changes. The reported 78% drop in U.S. ad revenue by December 2022 is a big hit and perhaps explains the rather desperate move to monetize the verified status. Musk has cited pressure from activists as a factor, but it's clearly bigger than that. It's promising to hear from X's CEO, Linda Yaccarino about the return of 90% of the top 100 advertisers to the platform and the potential for profitability by next year but there is still a lot of work to be done to re-establish trust and rebuild the brand (or build the new brand). It will also be fascinating to watch how X evolves under Musk's vision of becoming an "everything app" and whether it can strike a balance between innovation and maintaining advertiser and user trust.

????How to create great reports in Looker Studio

With digital technologies integrated into every area of modern companies, more data can be accessed by business leaders. It’s not only more available, but essential. Around seven in 10 leading marketers say their decision-making is supported by data. This group are also nearly two times as likely to believe better business performance will be driven by open data access.

Yet sharing and communicating data insights to the wider team can be a challenge. Pulling in data from various sources, different levels of understanding amongst colleagues and creating clear, easily accessible reporting formats are just a few hurdles businesses need to clear.?

Google’s Looker Studio is designed to help resolve these issues. It’s also an invaluable tool for our team. This article will explain exactly what it is and how marketers can use it to boost their performance.

What is Looker Studio?

Looker Studio is a data visualisation and insights tool. Designed by Google and previously called Data Studio, this platform pulls in data from connected sources so users can easily build custom report dashboards. A choice of templates, graph types and drag-and-drop usability makes it easy for insights and metrics to be clearly presented.?

Plus, once built, these reports can be easily shared with other colleagues directly from the platform. They can be embedded into web pages or intranets, making reports easier to distribute. Implementing the Looker Studio API also means data will be automatically updated, offering easy access to real-time information.?

The tool also encourages data collaboration. Widgets allow viewers to adjust or filter the data they see. Annotations can be added to the graphs as images, text or shapes. Granting edit access allows other team members to restructure the report. Embedded data sources mean all users need to do is click on the graph to access the original information.

Looker Studio Pro is the paid version of the reporting tool. This is great for enterprises looking to scale up their data reporting and sharing. The two key features this upgraded membership offers are team workspaces and links to Google Cloud projects. Both of these make collaborating on data reporting easier for colleagues.

Why use Looker Studio?

If you’re a marketer who wants to leverage the most value from your data, then Looker Studio is a great tool to use. The basic tool is free to use and makes it easier to:?

• Build custom reports quickly with drag-and-drop editing tools and a library of templates
• Feed in data from more than 800 sources, including automated and real-time updates via the API
• Share information and insights with clickable data sources, embeddable widgets and interactive dashboards
• Work on data visualisation and reporting projects with editable access, annotations and controls

In short, by signing up to the Looker Studio platform, marketers can start to access, understand and gain maximum value from their data.

How to use Looker Studio

The main benefit of using Looker Studio is that the tool is quick and easy to use. Within a few minutes, you can link up your business data platforms and create reports to share with your colleagues.?

Connect data sources

More than 1000 data sets from over 860 connectors can be accessed through the Google Looker platform. This includes information from BigQuery, Google Ads, Google Analytics and Google Marketing Platforms.?

To pull information into the platform, you need to link up to the relevant data source. This can be done as you’re building a report or before you start creating visualisations. Linking up to a data source directly from a report means it’s embedded into that single dashboard. Alternatively, connecting to a source from the home page means it can be reused across several reports.?

Either way, you can connect the Looker Studio to data sources using the following steps:

• Head to the Add data to report panel and click Connect to data
• Choose the connector you want to link to, this can be a Google product or a third party like Amazon or MySQL
• Follow the authorisation process, including providing the relevant account details
• This data source can then be managed from the properties panel or added to a report from the My data sources section

It is also possible to upload CSV data directly into the platform using the File upload data sources feature.?

Build data visualisations

Once you’ve connected data sources to your Looker Studio account, you can start to build out reports. This can be done by clicking the plus symbol at the top left of the studio’s home page or by selecting a prebuilt template from the top banner. This will open up the report editor tool.?

From here, you can:?

• Pull in data by selecting specific sources via the Add data to report panel
• Adjust the information that’s pulled in and the style of the graphic using the right-hand properties panel
• Use the Add in chart tool to bring relevant graphics into the report and drag and drop properties directly into graphs
• Depending on your needs, you can add controls to your graphs (using the Add a control feature) to allow users to filter or adjust the data they’re viewing
• Once the report is complete, you can see it in full and set up access to its data sources through data credentials or view and edit mode controls

If you need to adjust your report later, this is easy to do. Just select the report from the home page and click the Edit your report function.?

Continue reading the article on my blog.

Book Recommendation: Posts to Profits

by Simon Mitchell

This book offers a practical blueprint for online entrepreneurs, demonstrating how to generate leads and sales consistently without significant ad spending or exhausting hours on social media. Mitchell's method, rooted in direct marketing principles, is both effective and efficient. Whether you're a coach, course creator, or solopreneur, this book provides actionable insights to enhance your online presence and boost profitability. Happy reading!

Grab your copy here.

For The Love of Marketing is back!

Season 3 launches tomorrow so watch this space for episode 1 which is a fantastic conversation about how to create FOMO from the one and only FOMO Creator - May King Tsang .

Subscribe to the podcast:

Apple?|?Spotify?|?Google?|?YouTube?|?Amazon

Stay tuned for more??

Here's an interesting read from my strategic marketing agency, SK

A REVIEW OF GOOGLE BARD

If you are familiar with digital tech and AI, you probably know all about Google Bard. But here’s a brief overview. Google Bard is a Large Language Model just like ChatGPT and Bing AI which provides answers to queries from users, much like a search engine. The main difference is that the answers provided are in the form of lengthy and conversational text, instead of a collection of web pages that might answer the query. It can also generate text, produce written content, translate languages, solve maths problems, and even write and generate code. These are some bold claims to make – does Google Bard really work, and how does it measure up against its competitors??Read more

Thanks for reading!

I hope you found this week’s newsletter insightful. If you did, I'd be really grateful if you could share it with your network and tag your friends & colleagues. I’d love to grow a community of MM readers so we can all learn from each other and deliver our best results.

I have been helping companies with their marketing from start-ups to global corporates for over 20 years and I’m also the author of 2 best-selling books in the field. Whether it’s growth, branding, performance, content marketing, SEO or many other areas, I have helped companies all over the world to deliver market-leading results and I'd love to help you if I can.

Simon

simonkingsnorth.com