One of the most difficult parts of creating digital marketing reports is effectively and efficiently communicating the results of your online efforts. To help you create more intuitive Google Data Studio reports, I have compiled three great suggestions for you to use. Since these posts are written in a longer “how-to” format, I have spliced them up into three different blogs, making them more digestible. This suggestion is all about using conditional formatting to focus your reader’s attention on specific attributes of your report.
When Conditional Formatting Can Provide Extra Value to Your Reports
Traditionally conditional formatting is used to highlight different thresholds in your reporting. For example, you could highlight in green landing pages that received more than 200 sessions in the past month and had a conversion rate greater than 5%. You could also highlight in red landing pages that had received more than 200 sessions in the past month and had a conversion rate of less than .25%.
You can even use conditional formatting in a less orthodox way, such as highlighting:
- Pages where you are performing A/B testing
- Pages with a certain version of your contact form
- Pages with that highlight a certain brand message
- Locations with more than four review stars on Google
- Blogs written by certain authors
How To Employ Conditional Formatting in Data Studio Reports
To add conditional formatting to your existing charts, mouse over the right hand side of your screen, where you can select the style tab.
Once you select “Add,” a bar will appear at the bottom giving you the option to create a rule. For a simple rule, select your condition and an input value, then click “Save.”
For a more complex rule, you’ll follow the same process, but the condition selected should be REGEX. If you are not familiar with regex, read my regex 101 blog. Although a much more manual process, it will help you highlight data that doesn’t fit within traditional threshold rules.
Summary
The easier you make it for people to read your reports, the quicker and more likely they are to understand your key takeaways. Highlighting aspects of your reports with conditional formatting will draw your reader’s attention to key takeaways in a visually stimulating way. For other ways to make your Data Studio reports more intuitive, read my other two blogs about cleaning up your URLs and renaming metrics and dimensions.