Creating a dashboard for email campaigns in Looker Studio

In the digital marketing world, data-driven decision-making is crucial. By effectively combining data from various sources, marketers can gain comprehensive insights into campaign performance, optimizing strategies for better outcomes.

This article guides you through the process of setting up a dashboard in Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio), which integrates data from User.com and Google Analytics* to provide a holistic view of your email campaign performance.

* Note that you can skip adding Google Analytics as a data source if you want to create a dashboard that contains only email campaign data from User.com.

What you will achieve?

The goal is to create a dashboard in Looker Studio that presents a unified table combining data about email campaigns from User.com with conversion data from Google Analytics. This integration allows for enhanced analysis of how email campaigns contribute to your overall marketing goals.

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following:

- Access to a User.com account.
- Access to a Google Analytics account.
- Account in Looker Studio - https://lookerstudio.google.com

Before you start the configuration, please contact us via chat or directly with your Account Manager. Provide us with the email address associated with your Looker Studio account so that we can enable the use of the plugin for you.

Step 1: Configure the User.com Email Connector

1. Add the User.com connector to your Looker Studio account by visiting this link.

2. Authorize the connector: After clicking the link, allow the installation by selecting "Allow." If you don't see this option, you may need to adjust your Google account's security settings.

3. Configure the connector:

- Enter your application's API details: "appname.user.com" (replace with your app name) and your "API TOKEN" (you can find it in Settings -> Advanced -> Public REST API keys).
- Choose the data type "Email campaigns" and select "All email campaigns" for the campaign type.
- Click "Add" and then "Create report".

At this point, you should see a table with data about email campaigns from your application.

Step 2: Basic Table Configuration

When you click on the table while editing the dashboard, the Chart settings display on the right side.

1. Set up Dimensions:

- Define "Campaign Name" as a dimension for easy browsing.
- When integrating with Google Analytics 4 (GA4), add "UTM Campaign" as a second dimension.

2. Define all the parameters you're interested in as Data. Simply drag the parameter and drop in chart Data section.

3. Configure data controls from "Insert" top menu:

- Add a "Date Range Setting" to define the time frame for the data you want to retrieve (note, that it determines the date range for which we retrieve data about email campaigns - these will be data about messages sent in this date range)
- Implement an "Advanced Filter" to refine the data displayed in the dashboard based on specific parameters (e.g., to show campaigns with the phrase "saving" in the name, or campaigns from a selected category).

Step 3: Add Conversion Data from Google Analytics

1. Add Google Analytics as a data source and access its settings under "Resource" > "Manage data blends" > "Add connection."

2. Blend the data by joining the User.com and Google Analytics sources.

3. In the Google Analytics source, add the dimension "Campaign".

4. Configure the joint - choose the Left outer/Right outer option (indicating the side where the User.com source is). Join conditions: select the fields "Campaign" (GA) and "UTM_campaign" (User.com). Save and close.

5. Create a table (or edit an existing one) specifying "Combined data" as the data source.

Customizing Your Dashboard

Customize your dashboard to meet the specific needs of your report. This can include specifying built-in filters to show only certain types of campaigns (e.g., "Newsletters") and adding custom fields (e.g., "revenue to emails delivered ratio" which calculates the average revenue per delivered email) to assess specific performance metrics.