^This one was built with the Facebook connector from Supermetrics. They're my go-to for figuring out how to add complex data to Data Studio.


It has been a wild year for all of us. Lots of challenges and lots of changes. But for those of us working with data there is one small bright spot in all of the chaos: Google Data Studio.

The platform has pushed a constant stream of new and innovative features over the past year and has grown into an incredibly robust data visualization and BI system that can be used for free.

You can connect data from almost any source (anything from an Excel file to a CRM to your social media) and then quickly and easily build professional performance dashboards and visualizations. That's a big shift in the world of BI. The barrier to entry has been lowered a lot in the past few years.

Here are a few of the best free templates I've spotted over the last year and one or two that I built myself.

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#1 - The All-in-one Search Console from Data Bloo. Beautiful design. Useful insights into your search performance. Just a great all-rounder for someone working in the SEO space. 

#2 - Google Ads by Search Foresight. A simple breakdown of your Google Ads performance with an intuitive interface. 

#3 - Acquisition Trend Spotter by Yours Truly. This is a high-level analytics overview dashboard that you can copy and adjust for you own use case. All the KPIs can be swapped out for whatever your team or your clients want. 

#4 - Google Analytics Audience by Region by Yours Truly.  I built this report as a way for folks to add some extra value to their existing GA designs. This is a more exciting alternative to the existing geo visualizations that can easily be added to your own reports.
 

And there is more to come! I'll keep adding to this list throughout the year as new and interesting options are added. 

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Josh Cottrell
Building Data-Focused Products

Where to find all my other stuff:
Supermetrics (Data Connectors for Data Studio) - supermetrics.com
Data Studio Project Requests: datastudiopro.com
Visually stunning Excel templates: exceldashboardtemplate.com
More data musings: https://medium.com/