How to Make a Bubble Chart in Google Analytics with AI
Creating a bubble chart from your Google Analytics data is one of the best ways to see three different metrics at once, helping you spot opportunities or problems you might otherwise miss. This article will show you exactly how to do it using AI, so you can skip the tedious process of exporting data and wrangling spreadsheets.
What is a Bubble Chart (and Why Use It for GA Data)?
A standard bar or line chart is great for comparing two variables, like sessions per day or conversions by channel. But what if you want to understand the relationship between three variables? That's where a bubble chart comes in.
A bubble chart is a variation of a scatter plot that displays three dimensions of data:
Metric 1: Position on the x-axis (horizontal)
Metric 2: Position on the y-axis (vertical)
Metric 3: The size of the bubble
For Google Analytics data, this is incredibly powerful. You can instantly see which marketing channels are not just driving traffic, but also converting well and generating revenue. For example, you could plot:
X-Axis: Sessions (Traffic Volume)
Y-Axis: Conversion Rate (Traffic Quality)
Bubble Size: Total Revenue (Business Impact)
With a single glance at this chart, you could identify a channel with high traffic and high revenue (a big bubble on the right side of the chart) or a channel with a great conversion rate but low traffic (a small bubble high up on the chart). This kind of multivariate analysis helps you move beyond simple metrics and make more strategic decisions about where to focus your resources.
The Old Way: Building a Bubble Chart Manually
Traditionally, creating a bubble chart from Google Analytics involved a multi-step, manual process that was both time-consuming and prone to error. If you've ever felt this pain, you're not alone. The process typically looks something like this.
Step 1: Export Your Data from Google Analytics
First, you have to find the right report in Google Analytics. Let's say you want to analyze channel performance. You'd navigate to the Traffic acquisition report, add your desired metrics (like Sessions, Conversion Rate, and Revenue), set the correct date range, and then export the entire data set as a CSV file or into Google Sheets.
Step 2: Clean and Prepare the Data in a Spreadsheet
This is where the real "fun" begins. The raw export from GA often includes extra rows, summary totals, or formatting that can mess up your chart. You'd need to manually:
Delete summary rows or unnecessary headers.
Ensure your columns are formatted correctly (e.g., numbers are seen as numbers, not text).
Reorganize columns so your X-axis, Y-axis, and bubble size data are next to each other, which most spreadsheet tools prefer.
Filter out any data points you don't want to include, like "(not set)" values.
Step 3: Create the Bubble Chart in Google Sheets or Excel
Once your data is clean, you can finally create the chart.
Highlight the relevant columns (the channel name, plus your three metric columns).
Go to Insert > Chart.
From the Chart Type menu, you have to scroll and find "Bubble chart."
Now, you have to map the columns correctly. You'll need to specify which column should be the X-axis, the Y-axis, the bubble size, and the ID (the label for each bubble). Getting this right can sometimes feel like a game of trial and error.
The biggest problem with this approach isn't just the time it takes. It's that the moment you export the data, your chart becomes a static snapshot. If you want to see updated numbers next week, you have to repeat the entire process from scratch. If a teammate asks a follow-up question, you have to go back to the spreadsheet, re-format, and re-build the chart. It's a reporting treadmill that prevents you from actually analyzing the information.
The New Way: Create a Live Bubble Chart with AI Instantly
Instead of wrestling with CSVs and chart editors, AI-powered analytics tools let you bypass the manual work entirely. The process becomes a simple conversation where you simply ask for what you want in plain English.
Step 1: Securely Connect Your Google Analytics Account
First, you connect your Google Analytics account to the AI tool. This is usually done with a few clicks through a secure authentication (OAuth) window - the same way you'd sign into an app with your Google account. You don't need to hunt for API keys or ask an IT team for help. The tool gets read-only access to your data, and you're ready to go in minutes.
Step 2: Ask a Simple Question
This is where the magic happens. Instead of clicking through menus and manipulating spreadsheets, you just type what you want to see. Your request can be simple and conversational, just like you're talking to a data analyst.
For example, you could ask:
Or if you want to analyze landing pages:
The AI understands these natural language prompts. It knows what "sessions," "conversion rate," and "channel" are in the context of Google Analytics. It figures out the dimensions and metrics you need, pulls the live data directly from the API, and generates the chart for you on the fly.
Step 3: Refine and Ask Follow-up Questions
Unlike a static spreadsheet-based chart, an AI-generated chart is just the start of a conversation. You can immediately refine your view or dig deeper with follow-up questions.
"Cool, now filter out 'Direct' traffic." The chart instantly updates without the 'Direct' channel, allowing you to focus on your marketing-driven traffic sources.
"Change the bubble size to show total users instead of revenue." The visualization adjusts to give you a different perspective on your data.
"What explains that outlier with a super high conversion rate?" The AI can provide more context, tables, or a summary of the data point you're interested in.
This iterative process allows you to explore your data freely, following your curiosity to uncover insights that would have been completely buried in the manual export-and-build process.
Reading Your Bubble Chart: Practical Examples for GA
Once you have your chart, interpreting it is simple. Think of it as a 2x2 matrix, divided into four quadrants. Here are a couple of common use cases.
Example 1: Finding Your Best and Worst Marketing Channels
Let's use our first example: Sessions (X-axis), Conversion Rate (Y-axis), and Revenue (Bubble Size).
Top-Right (High Sessions, High Conversion Rate): These are your champions. A big bubble here (like Organic Search) is your main engine. A smaller bubble could be a high-performing niche channel that's ready to be scaled up.
Bottom-Right (High Sessions, Low Conversion Rate): This quadrant flags potential problems. You might have a Paid Social campaign driving tons of clicks but very few sales. It’s a sign that you need to optimize the landing page experience or refine your ad targeting.
Top-Left (Low Sessions, High Conversion Rate): These are your hidden gems. Email or a specific referral partner might have a small audience, but they convert exceptionally well. The question here is: how can you get more of this type of traffic?
Bottom-Left (Low Sessions, Low Conversion Rate): These are channels to deprioritize or investigate. They aren’t driving volume or quality, so your time is likely better spent elsewhere.
Example 2: Discovering Landing Page Opportunities
Now let's analyze landing pages with Entrances (X-axis), Engagement Rate (Y-axis), and Conversions (Bubble Size).
Top-Right: High-traffic, highly engaging pages that convert well. These are your best-performing pages. Protect them and see what you can learn from their layout and content.
Bottom-Right: Popular pages that users bounce from quickly (low engagement). Check if the content matches what the user expected. The page might be confusing, slow to load, or not mobile-friendly.
Top-Left: Pages with low traffic but high engagement. This suggests the content is really good, but not enough people are finding it. This is a great candidate for promotion or internal linking strategies to drive more traffic.
Final Thoughts
Bubble charts are an incredibly effective tool for understanding the complex relationships within your Google Analytics data, but the manual process of creating them is often more trouble than it's worth. By visualizing three metrics at once, you can quickly move from asking "what happened?" to "why did it happen?" and make smarter, data-driven decisions for your business.
At Graphed, we've designed our entire platform around this idea of effortless analysis. We built Graphed so you can connect your Google Analytics account in seconds and create rich visualizations, like bubble charts, simply by asking for them in plain English. There’s no more exporting CSVs or fighting with spreadsheet menus - just fast, clear answers from your data so you can get back to growing your business.