Sankey Diagram – Ultimate Guide to Create the Chart

Step by Step Guide on How to Create Sankey Diagram in Google Sheets:

• Now let’s learn how to create this visualization in Google Sheets. For this first open your Google Sheets Application.
• Enter the data on which you want to plot Sankey Chart.
• Google Sheets does not contain Sankey Chart by default, for this, you have to use an add-on “ChartExpo”. You can install it from here.
• After installing the ChartExpo add-on, go to the top toolbar and click on Add-ons, now find “ChartExpo – Best Data Visualization Tool”.
• Now click on “Open”.

• A new window will open. Click on the “Sankey Charts” option then select “Sankey Chart”.

• • Select the sheet in which you have data and then select the respective columns. Now you can click on the “Create Chart” button. This will create a Sankey Diagram on your data.

• By doing this you will be able to Create Sankey Diagram as shown below.

• To learn in detail how to create Sankey Diagram using Google Sheets please refer to our guide on Sankey Diagram Google Sheets or you can directly install the add-on from the following link and start creating Sankey Diagram.

Step by Step Guide on How to Create Sankey Diagram in Microsoft Excel:

• To create Sankey Diagram in Excel first open Microsoft Excel on your desktop.
• Enter your data in the worksheet on which you want to create Sankey Chart.
• Then go to the “Insert” section on the top toolbar and click on “My Apps”.
• Here you will find “ChartExpo for Excel”, click on it.  You can install it from here if it is not appearing.
• A new window will open containing different chart categories. Select “Sankey Charts” from it. It will start showing you the “Sankey Chart” option. Click on it.

• Select the columns and rows in which your data is available.
• Now click on “Create Chart from Sheet Data” to draw the Sankey Graph on your data.
• This will create a beautiful Sankey Chart on your data in a few clicks without any coding. If you want to edit the chart to customize it, you can click on the “Edit Chart” option.

• By doing this you will be able to Create Sankey Diagram as shown below.

• To learn in detail how to create Sankey Diagram in Microsoft Excel please refer to our guide on Sankey Diagram Excel or you can directly install the add-on from the following link and start creating Sankey Diagram.

Components of the Sankey Visualization

Now that you know the benefits of using a Sankey diagram in advertising, let’s explain how to do use it.

There are two main aspects to a Sankey flow diagram.

The nodes in this type of flow diagram are essentially like a bar in a classic bar chart. The height of the bar represents the value.

The link is the connection between two nodes. This indicates the flow. In the figure below, you can see how the link color matches the node color.

This system is similar to an alluvial diagram, although the latter typically visualizes change over time, rather than depicting changes in several different variables.

Sankey Diagram Examples

Sankey Diagram Example 1: Electricity Usage Analysis

Sankey Diagram Example 2: Energy Flow Management

The following diagram shows the flow of energy up to 6 levels. The Sankey chart made it easy for everyone to understand the complex flow of energy just in a few clicks.

Sankey Diagram Example 3: Immigration Flow

In the following visualization, we are using Sankey Chart to show the Immigration Flow for the year 2019.

Sankey Diagram Example 4: PPC Advertising

Using a Sankey diagram for PPC advertising is one of the better ways to visualize the customer journey, as the segmentation analysis allows you to quickly find insights on which keywords are driving traffic, and also where that traffic is coming from.

In this visualization we’re showing three dimensions and one metric as follows:

• Left – Match Type
• Middle – Impressions
• Right – Device Type

Sankey Chart History

While the Sankey diagram is attributed to Irish Captain, Matthew Sankey, an earlier version has arguably achieved more acclaim. In 1869, Charles Minard created a flow map to analyze Napoleon’s Russian Campaign of 1812. This was almost 30 years before Sankey’s first diagram came to light in 1898, which suggests the possibility that Minard’s map may have been an inspiration for Matthew Sankey.

Regardless of who did it first, modern researchers and analysts have discovered that this form of visualization is a useful tool in all stages of data analysis.

How to Read the Sankey Visualization

Going from left to right, the data is laid out in sequence. First, a match happens between a search-query and a keyword, followed by an impression (or not), which happens on a specific device. The visualization is bidirectional, which means you can “read” the chart from left to right, or right to left.

The metric is impressions.

Google Ads reports Impressions as a percentage. The number in the brackets is a calculated value, which is the actual number of impressions.

In the middle is the impressions dimension. The impression share is 73.7%, which means this campaign missed out on 26.3% of the “opportunity”. The campaign manager can take steps to capture the remaining 26.3%.

Benefits of Using a Sankey Chart

In the current digital landscape, data analytics is an integral component in marketing success. But collecting the data isn’t enough on its own – you need to be able to analyze it to produce actionable takeaways.

Consider the data below:

There are a lot of better ways to visualize tabular data. By using a Sankey flow diagram, marketers, researchers and data analysts can perform a much easier analysis, forming a strong basis for smarter decisions.

Here are some great benefits of using Sankey Visualization:

1. You Don’t Need a Lot of Data

The minimum requirements to create a Sankey diagram aren’t much at all. You just need:

• Two Dimensions
• One Metric

2. You Get a Clear Picture of the Customer Journey

This type of path analysis clearly shows how different values transition from one category set to another. In advertising, knowing where your traffic is coming from is extremely useful information.

3. It Provides Quick Insights

The ability of a Sankey chart to visualize user flows from one dimension to the next is very powerful. CEOs and CMOs will be able to get a good overview of how their ads are performing without having to spend a long time trawling through data.

4. Easy to Integrate with Google Ads

Many users of Google Analytics are already familiar with the concept of a Sankey diagram. However, before now, using this type of segmentation analysis in PPC advertising simply wasn’t possible.

PPCexpo is the first company to make it possible to create Sankey Plot easily for every kind of data, allowing users to visualize the large data and quickly find insights through their visualization library, ChartExpo.

Why do the percentages not add up?

Impressions percentages are not additive, and if you try adding them, you will end up with values greater than 100%.

Let’s look at the match types, where we have 85.4% exact match and 47.0% broad match. Adding them will exceed 100%, and that’s before you even include the other match types.

The reason for this is that each percentage is independent of the other values in that category.

What that means is that out of all the exact match keywords in your ad campaign, 85.4% matched the user’s search queries. Similarly, out of all the broad match keywords in your campaign, 47% of them matched the search queries.

On the right-hand side, the percentages for the devices are also independent of each other.

Having ‘63.7% on Desktop’ means that out of all the possible impressions you could have got on ‘Desktop’, your keywords matched a search query and earned an impression 63.7% of the time.

Less is More when Visualizing Data with a Sankey Diagram

The Sankey diagram is a great tool to show the flow in the system, such as visualizing the customer journey in marketing, or energy or material flow, but it is important to limit your analysis to single sessions. If you overload the chart with too much data, it can quickly become unreadable.

By focusing on a single ad, you can perform analysis to discover where your traffic is coming from, and which keywords and match types are working best for your campaign.

Customer journey is the next big thing. If you can measure it well, you can optimize it much better. Omnichannel customer journey would help brands to seamlessly approach audiences on different channels with personalized brand messaging and to create a unified customer experience across channels.

FAQs:

Why is it called Sankey diagram?

History. Sankey diagrams are named after Irish Captain Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey, who used this type of diagram in 1898 in a classic figure showing the energy efficiency of a steam engine.

What are Sankey diagrams used for?

A Sankey diagram is used for the visualization of material, cost, or energy flows. They show energy or mass flows with arrows proportional to the flow quantity. When you show the flow of Energy using Sankey Chart, it is called Energy Flow Diagram. Using Sankey diagrams you communicate your data effectively and get your message across: Whether it is to external stakeholders or within your project team.

How do you create a Sankey diagram?

By using Sankey Chart Maker, you can create Sankey Chart in very few clicks without any Coding. Sankey Chart maker makes it easy for everyone to create Sankey Diagram in Excel and Google Sheets just by clicking a few buttons. Just select your Sheet containing data, then respective columns, and click to create.

How do I create a Sankey chart in Excel?

By using Sankey Chart Generator, you can create Sankey Diagram in very few clicks without any Coding. Sankey Chart Generator makes it easy for everyone to create Sankey Diagram in Excel just by clicking a few buttons. Just select your Sheet containing data, then respective columns and clicks to create.

How do you find the efficiency of a Sankey diagram?

In a Sankey diagram with a node, the nodes in this type of flow diagram are essentially like a bar in a classic bar chart. The height of the bar represents the value. The link is the connection between two nodes. This indicates the flow. In the figure below, you can see how the link color matches the node color.