If you’re using Google Analytics for your website or app analytics, well, you’re in good company. Google Analytics is one the most used and best web analytics platforms. When paired with Google Data Studio, marketers can customize report views to target the most important KPIs. There are number of connectors, both free and paid, which assist with this and each has it’s own benefits.
In this post, we’re going to review your options for connecting Google Analytics with your Google Data Studio reports and dashboards.
Data Studio Connectors Which Integrate With Google Analytics
| Connector | Data Sources | Pricing | Read Review | Free Trial | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Supermetrics | 35+ Data Sources | $39/Month | Read Review | Free Trial | facebook ads, google analytics, custom, adform, adobe analytics, adroll, amazon ads, bing ads, facebook insights, public data, google ads, adsense, my business, search console, google+, instagram insights, linkedin ads, mailchimp, company pages, pinterest, quora, reddit, search 360, semrush, stripe, tumblr, twitter, vimeo, yahoo, yandex metrica, youtube, criteo, outbrain, hubspot, snapchatads, verizon, taboola | @supermetrics |
 Power My Analytics | 25+ Data Sources | $9.95 Per Source | Read Review | Free Trial | facebook ads, adroll, amazon, bing, constant contact, criteo, ebay, insights, google my business, instagram ads, instagram insights, instagram media insights, linkedin ads, linkedin company analytics, listrak, mailchimp, paypal, pinterest, shareasale, tripadvisor, twitter, walmart, yahoo, snapchatads, perfectaudience, quickbooks, taboola, hubspot | @powermyanalytics |
 | 18+ Data Sources | Free | Read Review | Free | google analytics, file upload, bigquery, campaign manager, cloud spanner, cloud sql for mysql, display & video 360, extract data, google ad manager 360, google ads, google analytics, google cloud storage, google sheets, mysql, postgresql, search ads 360, search console, youtube analytics, tv attibution | |
 Funnel | 400+ Data Sources | $499/Month | Read Review | Demo Available | adobe analytics, adjust, salesforce, shopify, instagram ads, google ads, bing ads, doubleclick, facebook ads, linkedin, twitter, appnexus, criteo, mediamath, snapchat, tradedoubler, yahoo, adform, adroll, appsflyer, google analytics, has offers, perfect audience, performant, ebay, google search console, impact radius, listrak, mailchimp, outbrain, peperjam, propel media, quora, reddit, taboola, yandex, pinterest | @funnel |
 Tapclicks | 16+ Data Sources | Custom Solutions | Read Review | None Currently | facebook ads, | @tapclicks |
Choosing the Best Google Analytics Connector
As will almost all Google products, Google Analytics can be connected to Google Data Studio using both free connectors and paid connectors. There are features and benefits of each so consider these things when choosing.
- Roll-Up Google Analytics Accounts: If you are simply connecting to a single Google Analytics account in your dashboard, the free Google version is almost always the best way to go. Google offers a very stable daat studio connector for this. However, if you need to connect to multiple Google Analytics accounts in roll-up view, you’ll need to use a 3rd party connector to do so. This is common if you’re reporting on multiple web properties at once and want to group them all in terms of reporting.
- Data Control Feature: You may be aware of GDS’s (Google Data Studio’s) data control feature. This is a great feature which let’s you create a report template and then allow the user to access their own Google accounts via your template with access only to their own data. If this feature is something you need, you’ll need to use Google’s free connector as data controls don’t currently work with 3rd party connectors.
- Direct Connection vs Data Warehousing: With some connectors, you connect directly to the Google Analytics API in real time. This means that you’ll pull data from Google Analytics each time your report loads. With others (typically paid connectors), the connector itself will warehouse your data. This is done sometimes to improve performance and to ensure a more stable data connection. For Google Analytics, we don’t see a benefit or problem specific to data warehousing so this is a matter of preference.
Final Thoughts
Looking for a fast, free solution? Go with Google’s free Google Analytics Connector for Data Studio. Need to blend data or connect to multiple accounts at once, paid connectors like Supermetrics are the way to go as you can easily connect to 1-100s of accounts at a time for great roll-up reporting.
Related Resources
- Learn more about Google Data Studio Connectors
- Supermetrics (free/paid depending on your needs)
- Google Data Studio Homepage
- Google Analytics Homepage
- Free Data Studio Templates