Google Analytics Dashboard Widget: Why are Widgets Important?

Google Analytics is transforming the global business landscape, one digital marketing professional at a time. This advanced web reporting technology empowers digital marketing professionals to study web traffic, visitors and other relevant data. That way, these business users can find ways to drive web engagement and support.

Furthermore, Google Analytics even offers in-depth dashboards that help take the guesswork out of web data analysis.

Google Analytics dashboards are interactive and easy to understand. They highlight a broad assortment of web insights, ensuring digital marketing professionals can make informed decisions faster than ever before. Let’s not forget about the benefits of Google Analytics dashboard widgets, either. With widgets in place, digital marketing professionals can reap the benefits of custom Google Analytics dashboards.

How to Add Widgets to a Google Analytics Dashboard?

Before a digital marketing professional can utilize widgets, he or she first will need to set up a Google Analytics dashboard. Fortunately, the setup process for Google Analytics dashboards is fast and simple and requires the following steps:

1. Sign in to Google Analytics.
2. Navigate to your view.
3. Open Reports.
4. Select CUSTOMIZATION > Dashboards.
5. Click +New Dashboard.
6. When you reach the Create Dashboard dialog, select either Blank Canvas (no widgets) or Starter Dashboard (default set of widgets).
7. Add a title to your dashboard, then click Create Dashboard.

Next, digital marketing professionals will want to consider which widgets they want to add before they set up custom Google Analytics dashboards.

Here are the Google Analytics dashboard widgets that are available:

• Metric: Highlights a simple numeric representation of a single metric.
• Timeline: Features a graph of a specific metric over a set period of time.
• Geomap: Offers a map of a set region, along with a specified metric plotted on the map.
• Table: Illustrates up to two metrics at the same time.
• Pie: Serves as a pie chart visualization.
• Bar: Provides a bar chart of a selected metric group.

Now, here is what digital marketing professionals will need to do to add a widget to a Google Analytics dashboard:

1. Create a Google Analytics dashboard and select Blank Canvas. Or, click +Add Widget on an existing dashboard to use the widget editor.
2. Choose the type of widget that you would like to add to the dashboard.
3. Customize the widget’s dimensions and metrics. Configuration options will vary based on the widget that you select.
4. If you want to limit the data shown by a widget, you can select Add a filter. This option enables you to include or exclude data based on assorted criteria. You also can add multiple rows to a filter definition as needed.
5. Link the widget to a Google Analytics report or URL. This enables you to create a custom report for a specific web page.
6. Enter a Widget Title.
7. Click Save.

For digital marketing professionals who want to get the most out of Google Analytics, widgets are essential. Thanks to widgets, business users can track extensive web insights and use these insights to help a company optimize its web pages, boost web traffic, and much more.

Are Google Analytics Dashboards Sufficient for Digital Marketing Professionals?

Widgets offer a great option to transform an ordinary Google Analytics dashboard into an exceptional one. But for digital marketing professionals, additional support may be needed to optimize the value of Google Analytics. For example, Google Analytics dashboards are readily available if business users have access to an internet-enabled device.

The dashboards can be exported into reports, but even these reports serve as basic PDFs that lack the interactivity of online dashboards. When it comes to Google Analytics, digital marketing professionals require anywhere, anytime access to dashboards. Yet Google Analytics fails to provide a quick, easy way to analyze interactive dashboards from any device, in any location, at any time.

At PPCexpo, we’re committed to helping business users retrieve and analyze Google Analytics dashboards. We also want to empower business users to enjoy interactive Google Analytics dashboards, regardless of location.

To support Google Analytics users, we’re introducing a dashboard in a file. This free service allows business users to produce interactive PDF (iPDF) reports that contain Google Analytics dashboards. That way, business users can go beyond basic PDF reports and access Google Analytics dashboards at all times. Stay tuned for additional updates about the dashboard in a file.