Combining Google Analytics From Two Websites in Google Data Studio |Arekibo blog
We’ve had a few requests recently from our clients around combining data from two separate websites in Google Data Studio in various ways, so why not write a quick blog post about the topic?
Is it possible to combine data from two websites in Google Data Studio?
In short — yes. Google Data Studio allows you to add multiple data sources to a single report including 2 or more Google Analytics Properties. You also have the option of blending data from two sources into a single chart/table if they have at least one common dimension that you can use as a join key.
Specifically, we have been asked questions around:
- Comparing data from two websites side by side in seperate charts
- Comparing data from two websites in a single chart
- Viewing combined data from two websites in a single chart
In this post I will give a brief overview of how to accomplish each of these three objectives.
1. Comparing data from two websites side by side in separate charts
This is remarkably simple to do with Google Data Studio.
- Open up a new Blank Report in Google Data Studio:
2. Connect your first Google Analytics property when prompted to “add data to report”.
3. To add data from a second Google Analytics property click on “Resource” > “Manage added data sources”, then “+ Add A Data Source” and select your second Property then click “Add”.
4.Now add whatever type of chart you would like and choose your dimension and metric(s)- for example a time series chart.
5. At this point you can also easily edit the “Sessions” metric name to something more unique like “Site A Sessions”
6. Now simply copy and paste this chart and change the Data Source to your other Google Analytics property.
7. Edit the “Sessions” metric name to something more unique like “Site B Sessions” and change the line colour in the “Style” tab in order to differentiate the charts a little better. Resize as required and voila, you should end up with something like this:
2. Comparing data from two websites in a single chart
So the charts above are fine, but obviously it would be easier to compare these two line charts if they were combined into the one chart with a the same axes.
Luckily, once you’ve got this far this is really straightforward — just select both charts, right click and select “Blend Data”.
And you end up with something like this…
3. Viewing combined data from two websites in a single chart
So now we know how to compare traffic (or some other metric) between two of our own sites in a single chart. But what if we want to look at combined traffic (or some other metric) for two or more of our one sites (e.g. to get a quick overall view of the combined traffic load on a number of our own sites that share the same server)?
Once we have already created our combined comparison chart above, this is fairly straightforward.
- Just select the comparison chart that you’ve just created and on the right hand sidebar, click “+Add Metric”, then “+ Create Field”.
2. Name your new metric something like “Combined Sessions” then in the Formula box type in “Site A Sessions + Site B Sessions” , then click “Apply”.
3. Now simply remove the other two individual metrics from your chart (Site A Sessions and Site B Sessions) and you are left with the following chart — showing you the combined sessions for both sites:
Conclusion
The ability to add multiple data sources into one single report and blend data from multiple sources into single graphs and charts is one of the many benefits of Google Data Studio as a reporting tool. These are just a few examples of where this functionality can come in handy — if you have any queries on how to combine certain data sets in Google Data Studio feel free to get in touch.
For more of an overview of the benefits of Google Data Studio for reporting on your web analytics data — see our post on Google Analytics Dashboards vs Google Data Studio for Reporting.
About the Author
Originally published at https://www.arekibo.com on July 16, 2020.
