Google is building a great ecosystem of free and paid connectors for Data Studio. As of this writing (latest update) in January 2021 there are more than 300 data studio connectors available. We’ve reviewed them and want to provide an overview of the data studio best connectors available. We’re focusing on the non Google connectors here as the Google connectors already with great documentation and are in general very reliable .
To make the navigation easy we split them into sections:
Facebook Ads
This connector pulls all information you need from the Facebook Ads API into Google Data Studio. Inside Google Data Studio the data can then be blended with your analytics or CRM data.
Bing Ads / Microsoft Ads
Similar to the Google Ads connector provided by Google this connector allows to pull performance data from your Microsoft Ads (formerly known as Bing Ads) account and visualise it in Google Data Studio.
LinkedIn Ads
This connector connects to your LinkedIn Campaign Manager account and extracts all metrics and dimensions to Google Data Studio. Similar as with the other connectors the data can either be shown in an own dashboard or it can be blended with Analytics data sets.
Twitter Ads
Connects to your Twitter Ads account and pulls your performance data into Google Data Studio. Once your data is in Data Studio you can blend it with your Analytics data.
TikTok Ads
This connector allows you to load all your TikTok Ads related performance data and visualise it in Data Studio.
Pinterest Ads
Connects all your Pinterest Ads campaigns to Data Studio. Includes a easy to use template.
Snapchat Ads
Get all your Snapchat Ads performance data into Google Data Studio in a few clicks.
Criteo
Loads all performance data available from Criteo and makes it available in Data Studio.
Google Display & Video 360 (DoubleClick Bid Manager)
Connects and loads your DV360/DCM data into Google Data Studio in a few clicks. Clicks, impressions, campaigns, line items, … all available in Data Studio.
AppNexus
Connects all your AppNexus campaigns to Data Studio. If you UTM tag the ad’s which you are ad serving through AppNexus you can blend them with your Google Analytics data.
Attribution Connector
In the above connectors I mention the data blending feature of Google Data Studio quite frequently. In certain instances when working with many different channels it can get to its limits. We built this Attribution connector which helps you to connect you all the marketing data you might have before they enter Data Studio. This could be analytics (Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics), media (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Bing Ads, …), CRM (Salesforce, Hubspot, Marketo, …) or offline conversions data.
Salesforce
This connector connects your Salesforce CRM data to Data Studio. Unfortunately it does not allow blending of data between Salesforce and your CRM platform but it provides the basics you’ll need to visualise Salesforce data in Data Studio.
Hubspot
Similar to the Salesforce connector, this connector helps you visualise your Hubspot data in Data Studio. It does however not provide matching of customer journeys between analytics and CRM data.
Stripe Connector
Are you using Stripe to manage your transactions? With this connector you can get all your Stripe transaction data into Google Data Studio with a few clicks. It also allows you to blend data together so that you can link e-commerce transaction data from Google Analytics together with your Stripe data to understand net revenue impact.
Shopify
Connects your Shopify data to Data Studio. As with the Magento connector, an additional added value of having this data present in Data Studio can be for data blending purposes. So instead of simply visualising the Shopify data on it’s own you can use Data Studios built in data blending feature to blend your Google Analytics e-commerce data together with your Shopify data and have a cancellation adjusted dashboard providing you useful insights.
Amazon Seller Central / Amazon MWS
Connects to your Amazon Seller Central data and pulls both Advertising as well as sell in and sell out data for the products you sell on Amazon.
Adobe Analytics
This connector works similar to the Google Analytics connector and pulls your Adobe Analytics (aka Omniture) data into Data Studio.
Awin (Affiliate Window)
If you work with affiliates, chances are high that you use Awin. This connector gets all your Awin data into Data Studio so you understand the ROI of your affiliate publishers.
Build your own
If you need a data set available in Google Data Studio which does not have a connector you can develop one yourself (https://developers.google.com/datastudio). There is also an active community of developers on GitHub (https://github.com/googledatastudio/community-connectors) where you can find code examples to get started. If you don’t have the time or don’t know how just drop us a line here and we’re happy to help.
Wrapping up
If you are an agency or an in-house media buyer chances are high that you will need at least one of the connectors mentioned above to get the Data Studio reports you want. In case you decided to go for one of the connectors above, you can get much deeper insights when you start connecting the data sets and blend the data. On their own they can be useful but blending the data is where the magic happens. In case you have a connector and would like to have it listed here, just drop us a note on the chat and we’ll be happy to add it.
