Chapter 3: Dashboard Planning & Bringing in Your Data
3.6. Looker Studio Partner Connectors
There are notable Partner connectors that you might want to consider when connecting your non-Google tools or datasets to Looker Studio.
Notable Partner Connectors
Not all data sources are hosted on Google tools or within the Google Marketing Platform. To bridge this gap, several partner connectors can be used to connect to other data sources. Here are four notable partner connectors:
- Supermetrics: Connects to over 70 different marketing analytics tools and data sets. Most of its connectors are live connections, although some use snapshot data or apply different levels of caching. Supermetrics can work around Universal GA sampling and provide fields not available in Google's built-in connector and also provide access to more fields in Google Analytics 4 than the built-in connector does. It can also perform data transformations, join data, and aggregate data from multiple accounts at once. Data can be sent to Looker Studio, Google Sheets, or BigQuery.
- Power My Analytics (PMA): Offers 40+ connections, with connectors using a data warehouse approach. This makes loading data quicker and faster compared to live connections. PMA can send data to Looker Studio, Google Sheets, and BigQuery as well.
- Funnel.io: A warehouse-based connector with many data sources available. It includes built-in data transformation features, allowing you to perform resource-intensive transformations before connecting to Looker Studio. Funnel.io supports additional destinations like BigQuery, Snowflake, and Tableau.
- Dataddo: A newer player in the market with 90+ connectors. It can be a live connection or use a snapshot feature for warehouse connections. Dataddo includes built-in drag-and-drop data transformation features and supports various data destinations, including Looker Studio, Redshift, Power BI, and Tableau.
These partner connectors enable you to expand the range of data sources you can access and visualize within Looker Studio. By incorporating data from various marketing and analytics tools, you can create more comprehensive and insightful reports.
Connecting Data Sources
Connecting data sources in Looker Studio using partner connectors is relatively simple:
- Choose the connector you want to use.
- Select the account and table within the marketing or analytics tool you want to connect to.
- Verify that you want to add the data source to your report.
- Looker Studio uses the connector to create a data source and places a table on the canvas.
Understanding how to connect data sources and use partner connectors in Looker Studio can significantly enhance your data visualization capabilities. By incorporating diverse data sources, you can create more comprehensive reports and extract valuable insights from your data.
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