Google Data Studio is a data visualization tool that allows you to create custom dashboards and reports that are easy to read and share.

Over the last month, we put Google Data Studio’s PPC reporting features to the test. We found that diving in was easy, the tool itself is free, many of the data connectors are free, and the other connectors have free trials. Learning the interface was mostly a breeze.

On a mission to create a PPC report, I used AdStage’s Data Studio Connector to bring my paid search and paid social campaigns (AdWords, Bing, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter) into Data Studio. After playing around with the new tool for a while, I finally got a good grasp on how it works and thought I’d share what I learned.

In this tutorial, I cover how to create a PPC report with Google Data Studio.

1. Building Charts

Data Studio offers about a dozen chart options. In this video, I call out high-level KPIs with the Scorecard widget, show spend across networks with an area chart and pie chart, and visualize conversions over time with a bar chart.

2. Customizing Your Report

More than just styling, which I do cover, Data Studio offers filter control where viewers of your report can adjust key aspects even if they don’t have edit access. I expose date range and ad networks, so viewers can adjust the global date range and the specific networks included in the report.

3. Filtering Data

Data Studio has a lot of great filtering options, from Spend > 0 , to Ad URL does not contain ‘blog’ . You can create multiple filters using OR and AND and save them for future widgets.

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