Integrate Marketing Data to Google Data Studio: A Comprehensive Guide
Author: Nikhil Annadanam
Why Data Integration Matters for Marketers?
This blog aims to show you how you can connect marketing data to Google Data Studio. But before that, let us look at why data integration is essential to succeed in marketing.
Google Analytics, Facebook, Mailchimp, LinkedIn, Twitter… As marketers, you are on so many platforms. All of them are generating marketing data and managing all of them at the same time gets complicated. To acquire new customers, retain existing ones while knowing which platform is creating what sort of impact, marketers need constant access to data.
You could have the largest pile of data in the world, but if you don’t see the complete picture, any conclusions you come up with are bound to be erroneous.
Your marketing data might be coming from dozens of different sources. Integrating your data from so many locations to one place will determine whether your marketing campaign will achieve success or simply die away. Data Integration is indeed the future of marketing.
Here is an overview of what you will cover in this blog:
- Problem with Data Silos
- Why You Need Google Data Studio
- Steps to Connect Marketing Data to Google Data Studio
- What is Missing on Google Data Studio?
- Using HevoIQ
- Conclusion
HevoIQ: Get Analytics-ready Marketing Data in Minutes
HevoIQ gives you a platform to store data from different sources which can then be easily visualized in Google Data Studio or any other BI tool.
Checkout HevoIQ’s awesome features:
- Completely Automated: The HevoIQ platform can be set up in just a few minutes and requires minimal maintenance.
- Real-time Data Transfer: HevoIQ provides real-time data migration, so you can have analysis-ready data always.
- 100% Complete & Accurate Data Transfer: HevoIQ’s robust infrastructure ensures reliable data transfer with zero data loss.
- 100+ Data Sources: HevoIQ has in-built integrations for 100 plus sources from which you can get data.
- 24/7 Live Support: The HevoIQ team is available round the clock to extend exceptional support to you through chat, email, and support call.
- Historical Data Load: When you connect HevoIQ to your marketing sources for the first time, it will automatically pull all your historical data.
- Secure: HevoIQ offers two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption to make sure that your data is secure.
Try HevoIQ for free here!
Problem with Data Silos
Your marketing campaign feeds on the feedback from the market and a great chunk of feedback is in the form of data. The problem is every source of data has its own special form. They don’t sit together very well. This creates invisible barriers between marketing data coming from different sources. Unless the barriers are broken, clarity in your campaign will always be elusive.
These barriers, also known as data silos, will not only hide the complete picture but will slow down your pace. You will only have access to your fragment of data, and often you won’t even know what you might be missing. It might take ages to get the data you need.
You end up waiting for things to move forward most of the time. Frustration will be the norm rather than the excitement of discovery!
And we all know that in today’s volatile world, waiting for data means getting outdated data. Which means wasting your budget and campaigns that simply don’t take off. While the opposite is also true. The guys who simply see the whole picture quickly actually end up winning without breaking too much sweat.
Why You Need Google Data Studio
Analyzing Excel files to create reports is the old way. Why would you do that when you have a free tool by Google that lets you pull data from Google Ads, Analytics, Search Ads 360 and so many other sources? Google Data Studio has pre-built connectors for each of these sources to ensure ease of use. You can build awesome marketing dashboards using Google Data Studio.
A marketing dashboard is a window into your performance in the market. It should show the important metrics and KPIs in a visual form. The metrics could be with regard to customers, the product, or the sources, etc.
Some of the metrics that are usually tracked are the number of leads generated, the number of deals closed, ROI of Ads, weekly or monthly performance, future goals, etc.
You can drag and drop to build a cool, compact, and interactive dashboard in a matter of minutes! You don’t need any technical knowledge to use Data Studio. So, it saves you from spending hours poring through spreadsheets.
You can also blend data from various sources with JOIN keys to create visualizations.
Google Data Studio lets you select from a wide range of visualization tools. You can modify the visualization to suit your needs and all of this is very intuitive.
In order to visualize your data, you need to first connect all your marketing data to Google Data Studio. You will have to use Google’s connectors to do this.
Google Data Studio currently provides 17 Google connectors. Check out the connectors list:
- Google BigQuery
- Campaign Manager
- Cloud Spanner
- Cloud SQL for MySQL
- Display & Video 360
- Extract Data
- File Upload
- Google Ad Manager
- Google Ads
- Google Analytics
- Google Cloud Storage
- Google Sheets
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
- Search Ads 360
- Search Console
- YouTube Analytics
Google Data Studio reports can be shared very easily using links and can be downloaded as a PDF. If you want to see how easy it is to make a Google Data Studio report, look into this.
To sum up, Data Studio is a Google product, you can connect with many sources to get a unified look, you can blend data from different sources, it is very easy and intuitive to use, you can make cool and interactive reports super-fast, it is easy to share and it is free. So just try it out!
Steps to Connect Marketing Data to Google Data Studio
It is really simple to connect Google Data Studio to your data source. Your data can be in a Google Sheet, Google Ads, or in a database. It doesn’t matter. The steps are the same.
Step 1: As soon as you try to create a new report in Google Data Studio, you will be prompted to add data to the report. You will see the list of connectors and you can select the source. In this case, I want to connect Google Ads marketing data to Google Data Studio. So I will select Google Ads.
Step 2: Next you need to authorize Google Data Studio to connect to the data and add your account details.
Step 3: Select the item you want to add to the report.
That’s it, you have connected your marketing data to Google Data Studio!
What is Missing on Google Data Studio?
Although the above process looks very simple, it is not complete. There are 17 Google Connectors as of now. But you might be having data that you need to access from dozens of other sources. You probably need to connect to Hubspot, Stripe, Facebook Ads, etc. Google Data Studio doesn’t have in-built connectors to these sources.
Using HevoIQ
Using spreadsheets to get data from multiple sources is tiring. Using formulas to clean data is tedious. Because of the existence of so many data sources, you will have to deal with data loss and inconsistency. This is where HevoIQ can save the day.
How HevoIQ Helps
- Connect with a wide range of marketing applications and pull data in minutes.
- Automated Data flows in Minutes — Quick setup, Zero maintenance.
- Provides a single source of truth for your marketing data.
- Provides access to the most accurate and real-time data without any coding.
- Flexibility to choose multiple data sources & visualize it in the BI tool of your choice
Benefits of HevoIQ
- Say Goodbye to Data Silos.
- Focus on Insights, not on Data Preparation.
- More time for doing research, identifying opportunities, and new customer acquisition.
- Improve sales, retain customers, and increase profitability.
Conclusion
You simply cannot afford to wait for data to cross the organization’s silos, which act as barriers. The only way to leverage the data that flows in through so many sources is to get them in real-time and from an integrated source.
HevoIQ has been designed specifically to solve the marketer’s problem.
Don’t wait for data anymore.
Just provide your credentials to connect with your sales/marketing data, get all of it into HevoIQ, which is fully managed, and make it ready for analytics.
Steps to use HevoIQ
- Connect: Connect your sales & marketing data sources with HevoIQ just by providing the credentials.
- Integrate: Integrate your data from multiple sources, store it in the fully-managed data storage, and make it analytics-ready.
- Analyze: Connect & visualize your unified data in Google Data Studio or your preferred BI tool and derive actionable insights in minutes.
If you are interested, please sign-up for HevoIQ’s 14-day free trial here.
You have now seen why you need to integrate your marketing data and how you can connect your marketing data to Google Data Studio. Share with us the challenges you face when trying to analyze marketing data in the comments below! We would love to hear from you.
