A Guide to New Chart Types in Looker Studio

If we’re being honest, we all have our favourite charts in Looker Studio. It can be easy to stay in our visualisation comfort zone with bar charts, pie charts, and line graphs, but did you know there is a whole world of data storytelling possibilities waiting to be explored?

Over the past year, Looker Studio has unveiled a slew of new chart types that can take your dashboards to the next level. From exploring connections on maps to visualising complex journeys, these new additions will breathe fresh life into your data analysis. Let’s go through a few of the best new charts!

Combo Map

You can now combine the properties of a filled map and a bubble map with the new combo map, which allows you to go beyond the basic locations by adding additional layers of data. Locations are shaded based on one metric, like views in the example above, while bubbles of differing sizes represent another metric such as sessions.

Use a combo map if you want to:

• Show location alongside other data 
• Highlight variations within areas and reveal patterns, for example do locations with high revenue have a large number of users?

 

Waterfall Chart

The waterfall chart lets you visualise sequential positive and negative values that add up to a total, with each bar representing a positive or negative change. It’s a step by step breakdown of how your data contributes to a total with each layer building on top of the last, flowing like a waterfall. 

Use a waterfall chart if you want to:

• See how revenue streams or expenses break down, how different stages of a process contribute to a final yield, or how various adjustments lead to a final profit or loss
• Better understand the journey your data takes from point A to point B rather than just the total

 

Sankey Chart

Sankey charts are particularly effective for analysing the flow of data over time. It uses connected nodes to represent stages in a process, and the thickness of the links between them shows the volume moving between those stages, with wider links indicating a larger flow of traffic. 

Use a sankey chart if you want to:

• Better understand customer journeys, like how users are navigating through your site
• Visualise complex financial data and see how money flows through an organisation
• Better understand a process with defined stages

 

These are just a few of the new chart types that Looker Studio has introduced over the last year; there are plenty more for you to explore – happy reporting!

 

Want to Learn More About Looker Studio?

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