How to Create a Dashboard in Google Analytics

Tired of bouncing between a dozen different reports in Google Analytics just to get a simple overview of your website’s performance? Building a custom dashboard lets you see all your most important metrics in a single, consolidated view. This article will walk you through exactly how to create a useful dashboard directly within Google Analytics (Universal Analytics and GA4), step-by-step.

What Exactly Is a Google Analytics Dashboard?

Think of a Google Analytics dashboard as your website's command center. It's a single page where you can arrange "widgets" - mini-reports dedicated to a specific metric - so you can see at a glance what’s happening without having to manually pull up individual reports.

Instead of clicking through Audience &gt, Geo &gt, Location to see which countries drive traffic, you can just add a "Users by Country" widget to your dashboard. Want to monitor mobile traffic versus desktop? Add a pie chart widget for that. It’s all about creating a personalized view of the data that matters most to your business goals.

Custom dashboards are most powerful in the older version of Google Analytics, commonly known as Universal Analytics (UA). While Google Analytics 4 handles "dashboards" a bit differently through its "Reports" section, we'll cover how to achieve a similar result in both platforms.

How to Create a Dashboard in Universal Analytics (Step-by-Step)

If you're still using Universal Analytics, you have access to a robust and highly customizable dashboard feature. Here’s how to build one from the ground up.

Step 1: Navigate to the Dashboards Section

In the left-hand menu of your Universal Analytics property, go to Customization > Dashboards. This is where all your custom dashboards will live. To create a new one, simply click the red Create button.

Step 2: Choose Your Starting Point

A pop-up will appear giving you two options:

• Blank Canvas: This is a completely empty dashboard, allowing you to add every widget yourself. This is the best option for a truly custom report.
• Starter Dashboard: This option automatically populates your dashboard with a pre-selected set of common widgets (like New Users, Users, Sessions, etc.). It’s a great way to see what’s possible and you can still edit, remove, or add new widgets later.

For this tutorial, select Blank Canvas, give your dashboard a name (e.g., "Monthly Marketing Overview"), and click Create Dashboard.

Step 3: Add Your First Widget

You'll immediately be prompted to add your first widget. A widget is a single data visualization showing one type of information. Give your widget a title, such as "Traffic Sources."

Next, you’ll choose a widget type. Universal Analytics offers several visualization styles:

• Metric: Displays a single, simple number (e.g., total Sessions, Bounce Rate). Great for KPIs.
• Timeline: A line chart showing a metric's performance over your selected date range. Perfect for spotting trends.
• Geomap: A world map showing a metric by country or region.
• Table: The most common widget. It shows a dimension (like Traffic Channel) alongside multiple metrics (Sessions, New Users, Conversions).
• Pie/Bar: Great for visualizing proportions, like the percentage of traffic from mobile versus desktop.

Step 4: Configure Your Widget with Metrics and Dimensions

This is where you tell Google Analytics what data to show. Every report is built from Dimensions and Metrics:

• A Dimension is a descriptive attribute of your data. Think of it as the "what" or "who." Examples include: Campaign, Device Category, or Page Title.
• A Metric is a quantitative measurement - the numbers you see. Examples include: Users, Revenue, or Average Session Duration.

For our "Traffic Sources" widget, let's make it a Table. For the Dimension, start typing "Default Channel Grouping" and select it. Then add your desired Metrics, such as Users, Sessions, and Goal Completions. Click Save when you're done.

Step 5: Add More Widgets and Customize Your Layout

Your dashboard will appear with your first widget. To add more, just click the +Add Widget button at the top of the screen and repeat the process. You can click and drag the widgets to rearrange them on the canvas. Use the Customize Dashboard link to change the layout (e.g., from a 3-column to a 2-column layout).

Creating a "Dashboard" in Google Analytics 4

GA4 is structured differently and doesn't have the same drag-and-drop dashboard feature as UA. Instead, you create customized "reports" that function as dashboards by pinning the specific data cards you want to see.

Step 1: Go to the Reports Section

In the main GA4 menu, click on Reports.

Step 2: Customize an Existing Report or Create a New One

You can create a custom view by either modifying an existing summary report (like "Traffic acquisition") or building a new one from scratch.

To modify one, go to a report like "Traffic acquisition," then click the pencil icon in the top right to Customize report. Here, you can change the "cards" (which are similar to widgets) that appear in the report summary.

Step 3: Pin a Comparison to Create a Realtime Monitoring Dashboard

Here’s another cool way to use real-time reporting as another dashboard within GA4. Just go to Reports > Realtime from the left menu. In the top right corner of any data card, you have an option to include new comparisons.

GA4 provides various filters as the default choices for the dimension. All you must do is select the relevant dimension along with the criteria to include only some of the metrics you want to see. The user type can be ‘Non-registered users’ visiting a certain portion using a relevant filter for user segments only. Hit the Apply button on the pop-up where you added your criteria.

You can create various audience segments. You should see what GA4 is offering to users who opt for the Realtime feature!

4 Essential Widgets for Your First Marketing Dashboard

Not sure where to start? Here are four must-have widgets for any marketing dashboard to get you started on the right foot (these can be built in UA or approximated in GA4):

1. Overall Site Traffic (Timeline): A simple line chart showing Sessions or Users over the last 30 days. This gives you an immediate pulse check on your site's health and helps you spot sudden drops or spikes.
2. Traffic by Channel (Pie Chart): Use a pie chart to visualize which channels (Organic Search, Social, Direct, Paid Search) are driving the most traffic. Dimension: Default Channel Grouping. Metric: Sessions.
3. Top Landing Pages (Table): See which pages are your most popular entry points for new visitors. This helps you identify your most valuable content. Dimension: Landing Page. Metrics: Users, Sessions, Avg. Session Duration.
4. Mobile vs. Desktop Performance (Table): It's no longer enough just to know how many mobile users you have. You need to know how they behave. Dimension: Device Category. Metrics: Users, Goal Conversion Rate, Bounce Rate.

Building a dashboard with just these four widgets will give you more actionable insights in 30 seconds than you'd typically get from 15 minutes of digging through standard reports.

Limitations to a Google Analytics Dashboard

While useful, native Google Analytics dashboards do have some limitations:

• Data is Siloed: Your dashboard can only show you data from within Google Analytics. It can't tell you how much you spent on Facebook Ads to generate that traffic or which CRM contact converted on your website.
• Limited Widgets: Universal Analytics dashboards are limited to just 12 widgets, which might not be enough for a comprehensive overview.
• Static Sharing: When you share a dashboard (by exporting to PDF or emailing), you're just sending a static snapshot. The recipient can’t interact with the data or see live updates.

It's an excellent starting point for website analytics, but to get a full picture of your marketing and sales performance, you'll eventually need to pull in data from other sources.

Final Thoughts

Building a custom dashboard in Google Analytics is one of the fastest ways to cut through the noise and focus on the website metrics that truly impact your growth. By curating your own view of users, traffic sources, landing page performance, and conversions, you can get actionable insights in a fraction of the time.

While a GA dashboard is perfect for monitoring website performance, creating a true single source of truth often means connecting data from many platforms - your ad accounts, e-commerce store, CRM, and email software. At Graphed, we created a tool that does this instantly. We connect all your marketing and sales data sources into one place, allowing you to ask questions in plain English like, "show me a dashboard of Shopify revenue broken down by Facebook campaign," and get a live, automated dashboard in seconds.