How to connect GA4 to Looker Studio
Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio) is Google's free dashboard tool, and it reads GA4 directly, so you can build shareable, client-ready reports. Connecting it takes a couple of minutes; building it well takes a little care.
The connection steps
- In Looker Studio, create a report and add a data source.
- Choose the Google Analytics connector and pick your GA4 property.
- Build charts by dragging in GA4 dimensions (like session source) and metrics (like key events).
Settings that matter
- Date range control: add one so viewers can change the period without editing the report.
- Metric choice: be deliberate about active vs total users, and sessions vs engaged sessions, or your numbers will confuse people.
- Filters: apply them consciously; forgotten filters are the top cause of surprise numbers.
Expect some differences from GA4
Looker numbers will not always match the GA4 interface exactly, because of sampling, date ranges and thresholding. That is normal and explained in why Looker Studio differs from GA4. Build the dashboard, then sanity-check a couple of headline figures against GA4 before you share it.
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