How to Create a Metrics Dashboard in Google Analytics with AI
Building a useful Google Analytics dashboard often feels like a task that requires a data science degree. With dozens of metrics and hundreds of dimensions to choose from, it's easy to get lost. This article will show you how to cut through the complexity and create a meaningful metrics dashboard, first using GA4's native tools and then with the powerful simplicity of AI.
Why You Need a Dashboard in the First Place
Google Analytics 4 is packed with data, but its standard reports are built for everyone, which means they might not be perfect for you. A custom dashboard is your personal command center for your website's performance. Instead of clicking through five different reports to piece together a story, a dashboard brings the most critical information into a single view.
A good dashboard helps you:
Save Time: Get answers to your most common questions in seconds, not minutes.
Spot Trends Faster: See at a glance if your sessions are trending up, your conversion rate is dropping, or a new campaign is taking off.
Stay Focused: By displaying only the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that matter for your goals, you can ignore the noise and focus on what drives results.
Communicate Clearly: Easily share a single, digestible view of performance with your team or stakeholders, rather than sending a dozen confusing screenshots.
But before you start adding charts, you need a clear goal.
Before You Build: Define Your Dashboard's Purpose
The difference between a useful dashboard and a cluttered one is clarity of purpose. Don't start by asking, "What charts can I make?" Instead, ask, "What questions do I need to answer?"
Your goal will determine which metrics you include. Here are a few examples:
For a Website Health Dashboard: You'd focus on high-level engagement. Key questions might include: "How many people are visiting our site?", "Are they new or returning?", and "Which channels are bringing them here?"
For an E-commerce Performance Dashboard: You're focused on revenue. Key questions might include: "How much revenue did we generate this week?", "What are our top-selling products?", and "What's our overall conversion rate from session to purchase?"
For a Content Marketing Dashboard: You care about readership and engagement. Key questions might be: "Which blog posts are getting the most traffic?", "How long are people staying on our pages?", and "Which articles are driving newsletter signups?"
Once you know the questions you need to answer, you can start building.
Method 1: Creating a Dashboard Inside Google Analytics 4
GA4 has a built-in report builder that allows you to create custom overview dashboards. While it can feel a bit clunky, it's a good starting point if you want to stay within the Google Analytics ecosystem.
Step-by-Step Guide to the GA4 Report Builder
Navigate to the Library: In the left-hand menu of GA4, click on Reports, then at the bottom of the list, click Library. This is where all default and custom reports are managed.
Create a New Report: Click the "+ Create new report" button and select "Create overview report" from the dropdown. An overview report is GA4's term for a dashboard-style report made of summary "cards."
Add Your Cards: You'll see an empty report canvas. Click "+ Add cards" to open a gallery of pre-built data cards. These are your dashboard widgets. You can search for cards based on dimensions (like Source / medium or Page path) and metrics (like Users, Sessions, or Conversions).
For example, to build a simple Website Health dashboard, you could add cards for:
Users and New Users
Sessions by Default channel grouping
Views by Page title and screen class
Conversions
Arrange and Save: Drag and drop the cards to arrange them in a way that makes sense to you. A common layout is to have top-level metrics (like Users and Sessions) at the top, followed by more detailed breakdowns. Click "Save," give your report a name like "My Custom Dashboard," and click "Save" again.
Add it to Your Navigation: Your report is saved, but it won't appear in the left-hand navigation yet. In the Library, find the "Collections" section and either edit an existing one or create a new one. Drag your newly saved report from the right panel into a topic in your collection. Click "Save," and your dashboard will now appear in your Reports menu for quick access.
Pros and Cons of the Native GA4 Builder
Pros:
Completely free and already part of Google Analytics.
The data is pulled directly from the source without needing external connectors.
Good for creating simple, high-level overviews for daily check-ins.
Cons:
It's not very intuitive. The process of saving and adding it to the navigation is confusing.
Customization is limited. You're mostly stuck with the predefined cards.
It can be slow and requires a lot of clicking to find and add the specific cards you need.
If you've ever spent 20 minutes clicking around the GA4 interface just to find one metric, you know there has to be a better way. And there is.
Method 2: Using AI to Build Your Google Analytics Dashboard
The biggest hurdle in traditional data analysis is the "translation layer." You know the question you want to ask in plain English, but you have to translate it into a series of clicks, filter configurations, and report selections within a complex tool like GA4. AI eliminates that translation step.
Instead of learning the software, you just state what you need. This fundamentally changes how you interact with your data.
Speed: Think about asking, "Show me a line chart of our sessions from organic search over the last 90 days." In GA4, that's several clicks. With AI, it's one sentence.
Accessibility: You no longer need to be a "data person." Anyone on your team who can ask a clear question can get a clear visualization in response. This empowers junior team members and non-technical staff to make data-driven decisions.
Exploration: Often, one chart leads to more questions. AI makes this conversational. You can get an initial chart and then ask follow-up questions like, "Now break that down by landing page" or "Which of those pages has the highest conversion rate?" This process of drilling down, which is cumbersome in GA4, becomes a fluid conversation.
Example: Building a Campaign Performance Dashboard with AI Prompts
Let's walk through how you would use AI prompts to build a dashboard that answers questions about your marketing campaigns. The process typically looks like this:
Step 1: Connect Google Analytics
The first step is always to securely connect your Google Analytics account to the AI tool, usually a simple one-time process using your Google login.
Step 2: Start with Simple, High-Level Prompts
You can begin by asking for the most important KPIs one by one, like you're talking to an analyst. For a campaign performance dashboard, you might start with:
"Create a line chart of total users from Google Ads over the last 30 days"
The AI tool instantly generates this chart for you.
Step 3: Drill Down with Follow-Up Prompts
Now, you can build on that initial request with more specific questions to get deeper insights:
"Turn that into a table and break it down by campaign"
The system updates the visualization to a table showing user counts for each Google Ads campaign.
"Add two columns to the table: Sessions and Total Conversions"
The table is instantly enriched with more data.
"Now sort the table by Total Conversions in descending order"
This simple command immediately shows you your top-performing campaigns. Creating the same view in GA4 would require navigating to the advertising reports, setting the right date range, and configuring table filters.
Step 4: Ask Business Questions Directly
AI tools aren't just for building charts, they're for answering questions. You can ask directly:
"Which campaign had the highest conversion rate last week?"
Rather than manually calculating this, the AI does the analysis for you and provides a direct answer, often with an accompanying chart. Piece by piece, you can ask for all the visualizations you need and arrange them into a single, cohesive dashboard that tells the full story of your campaign performance - all without ever wrestling with the GA4 interface.
Final Thoughts
Creating a metrics dashboard in Google Analytics doesn't have to be a manual, frustrating process of clicking through endless menus. Whether you use the built-in GA4 library for a simple overview or embrace AI to have a conversation with your data, the goal is to get a clear, consolidated view of your performance so you can make smarter decisions faster.
The most time-consuming part of analytics is often the "busy work" between the question you have and the visualization that answers it. At Graphed, we use AI to eliminate that work entirely. Instead of struggling with the complex GA4 interface, you can just connect your account and ask your questions in plain English. We instantly build the charts and assemble them into a live dashboard that updates automatically, turning hours of reporting work into a 30-second conversation.