In the May 2016 Google Performance Summit, Google announced the launch of Data Studio; a free, new, data visualisation product.
Following Google’s announcement earlier in the year as part of the Google Analytics 360 suite and the new Data Studio 360 feature, last month’s Google Performance Summit announced an extension of this – a free version of Data Studio.
Primarily for smaller teams and individual users, Data Studio has some cool features like
- Simplifying the way you share data within your organisation
- Stylisation tools to customise your reports and data
If you’re wondering what the primary difference is between Data Studio 360 and the free version, it is simply the number of reports you can create. Both version support unlimited; data sources, report viewing, editing and collaboration – thanks Google!
Unfortunately, you’ll have to sit tight. As expected, Data Studio is currently only available in the United States with plans to roll out to other geographical locations throughout the year.
Let’s take a look at just a few of the features that you can use.
Making it easy to share data within your organisation
The Data Studio dashboard can easily connect with multiple types of data sources where users can mix and match data sources within a single report. For example, Google Analytics and Google Adwords data can be combined into a single report.
Data Studio offers ‘true collaboration’ with similar usability as Google Docs, so you can edit reports together, in real time. This is a great feature if you want to combine data from multiple teams and need others to add analysis and context to the report.
Visualisation tools to style your reports and data
Data Studio includes features which allows users to transform marketing data into something beautiful. Expect to see the usual bar charts and pie charts but also check out heat mapping and bullet charts that help you visualize progress towards a business goal.
Data Studio also features tools to help you customise how you present your data including stylistic tools that allow you to design your reports in line with your business branding, interactive data controls like date picker and dynamic filters, that enable report editors to make reports interactive for viewers.
