Who To Follow for Google Data Studio?
– Updated November 12, 2019 –
This is a guide to 28 notable people and organizations that are active in supporting the Data Studio community.
Google Data Studio has only been around for a couple of years now, and only a few months as a product that has passed the beta stage and gone into general release. Even so, there have been numerous people publicly supporting its use and exploring the adoption and development of the service.
I have been fortunate to follow along as the product has gained popularity, and also participate along the way. For the last two years, I have been curating and reviewing content that people have published on the subject and have had the pleasure of interacting with many of the leaders in the field.
This guide is an attempt to provide new users with an “insiders guide” to some of the people in the Data Studio community. It’s not an exhaustive list and in no particular order. I have tried to group people and organizations into reasonable categories.
The Advocates
Folks at Google who support adoption and development.
Minhaz Kazi Twitter: @_mkazi_
Role: Developer Advocate for the Data Studio Developer Relations Team at Google
Minhaz has been supporting Data Studio users and developers for some time now. He is very active on Twitter and a great resource for connector development among other topics. He has written some of the best development resources and guides on the topic.
Minhaz and Felipe have collaborated on large projects and conference presentations.
Notable Resources:
The very comprehensive developers guide for Data Studio community connectors.
Excellent videos on this playlist at YouTube including DataVis Dev Talk – new video series about developing connectors.
PDF exporting from Data Studio posts by Minhaz on Medium
Announcing Kaggle integration with Google Data Studio – big integration with a huge store of public data!
Felipe Hoffa Twitter: @felipehoffa
Role: Developer Advocate for Google Cloud Products
Felipe works a lot with big data and highlights ways to use cloud services. His examples are thought provoking and warmly humorous. He has very good advice for efficiently and cheaply using cloud services, like Big Query, along with Data Studio. Also an open data advocate and very involved with public data sources.
Notable Resources:
Data Studio with BigQuery: 2018’s best practices – Tips that can save money and time!
When will Stack Overflow reply: How to predict with BigQuery – great example of methodology to answer questions with big data and ML .
Yulan Yin Twitter: @y3l2n
Role: Developer Advocate for the Data Studio
Yulan has developed some excellent visualizations and data studio apps. She follows #DataStudioDevs on twitter. She is super supportive of people using custom visualization libraries and the community visualizations features. If you are interested in custom graphing widgets capabilities in data studio Yulan is a great resource!
Notable Resources:
Cloud OnAir: How to build custom data visualizationds in Data Studio
Introducing the Data Studio Community Visualizations Developer Preview
Krista Seiden Twitter:@kristaseiden
Louis Gray Twitter: @louisgray
Role: Google Analytics Advocates, presenters, managers
Krista and Louis are the hosts of the Measure Matters YouTube monthly series about analytics, data studio and more. Louis also manages Data Studio development and releases.
Update: Krista has left Google for a new venture! Lewis has been presiding over releases and occasionally tweets clarifications and funny comments about releases.
They are fairly active Twitter but mostly visible in their role as media producers for data studio and analytics content.
Notable Resources:
Measure Matters Episode 12: Data Studio Report Showcase – Some of my work and others in the field.
The Trainers
Specializing in data studio courses and videos.
Benjamin Mangold Twitter: @BenjaminMangold @LovesData
Role: Co-Founder of LovesData. Trainer, author and video producer.
Benjamin has been producing content on YouTube and courses in analytics for several years now. He became the first trainer certified by Google for both Google AdWords and Google Analytics in 2010. He is fairly active on twitter and @LovesData announces their courses there. Produces very useful videos and provides training courses online.
Notable Resources:
Create a Social Dashboard with Google Data Studio // Tutorial Using Supermetrics to pull data into Sheets and report with Data Studio
Julian Juenemann
Twitter: @jjanalytics @measureschool
Role: Founder of
Julian is mostly active through his YouTube channel for
Notable Resources:
Google Data Studio Tutorial Playlist
Training courses at measureschool.com
David Murphy Twitter: @Datasaurus_Rex
Role: Data Visualization, video producer (and apparently works for Google as Head of TV Attribution in the APAC region)
David, AKA Datasaurus-Rex has been producing analytics training material for a number of years now. In addition to being
Notable Resources:
Data Studio Learning page
Ben Collins Twitter: @benlcollins
Role: Founder of the Collins School of
I put Ben in this section because of this work on data studio connectors and apps script. He is a fantastic resource for Google Sheets and is active on Twitter. He also has a nice weekly Sheets tips newsletter (recommended
In addition to his development work, he has been working on #MakeoverMonday visualizations in data studio and has some good examples!
Notable Resources:
Apps Script Blastoff! Free Google Apps Script course.
A 10-minute crash course on Google Data Studio
Community Connectors: Access all your data in Google Data Studio Building community connectors.
You can find more selected resources from Ben in the Google Data Studio Resource Finder
The Visionaries
These people push the boundaries of the tool for data visualization.
Marc Soares Twitter: @Marc_Soares
Role: Digital analytics consultant & problem solver at ClickInsight
In addition to producing great posts over at ClickInsight, Marc has been on the cutting edge of visualization using Data Studio. He is one of the first people to seriously push Data Studio into #MakeoverMonday, an arena dominated by Tableau users. Throughout 2018 he showed could be a serious tool and he continues to push the envelope on storytelling with data. He also has some great how to blog posts! Those of us on Twitter wonder when he sleeps
Notable Resources:
Posts by Marc Soares at ClickInsight
Makeover Monday Gallery from Marc Soares
VIZ FROM THE 6IX – Marc and his brother Ryan have a new site!
Riccardo Zagaglia Twitter: @zagoz
Role: Web Analytics, Music Marketing, Interactive Data widgets
I love Riccardo’s work because I love the idea of embedded data widgets. When I was just starting working on mine, Riccardo was producing very fine work that was included in online media magazines like SENTIREASCOLTARE. His visualizations are great examples of interactive infographics, and he often has cool hacks to solve sticky layout problems. He is active on Twitter.
Notable Resources:
Riccardo conveniently has posted most of his work in a collection so you can see it all in one place.
Data Studio Dashboards – a large collection of media based creations mostly centered on music.
Spotify – Most Played Songs on Spotify by Decade – Update 10/2018
Sian Miller Twitter: @sianmiller141
Role: Technology and innovation manager at SearchStar, Speaker
Sian is another #MakeoverMonday participant. She has produced some stunning and innovative data visualizations. Active on Twitter.
Notable Resources:
Makeover Monday – 2018 W05 – What Companies Earn in a Second
Daniel Waisberg Twitter: @danielwaisberg
Role: Founder of Online
I always found Daniel’s storytelling with data to be inspirational. Most of his work, that I see, is found on his blog over at Online Behavior so I forget he is a Google Advocate. He produces thoughtful data journalism oriented works and writes about design.
Notable Resources:
Ralph Spandl Twitter:@ ralph_spandl
Role: Information Architect, founder of r42 communication
Ralph has been very supportive in the area of Community Visualizations. In addition to providing inspiration and sharing his own conversions of visualizations to the community, he has also created a Codelab to help new developers set up their local development environments
You can see some of his work in the Data Studio Custom Visualization Report Gallery.
You can also find more from Ralph at his Sketchbook site
Notable Resources:
Sunburst Visualization with drill-down
Timeplot- Similar to a scatterplot, but accepts only dates on the x-axis
Hexbin Map Usage Guide – A full guide to a data studio implementation of hex based mapping
Codelab – Data Studio Community Visualizations – Local Development Guide
The Professionals
Individuals who’s focus is marketing measurement and reporting.
Sam Marsden Twitter: @sam_marsden
Role
Sam has been contributing to the adoption of Data Studio by marketing agencies and other organizations by speaking and providing examples from his own work. As an SEO manager, he has produced a number of posts and presentations that dive into the details of Search Console and Page Speed reporting. He has provided some excellent presentations about using analysis and reporting to communicate insights to different parts of the business organization.
I recommend seeing him live if possible. If you can’t catch him at one of the larger conferences, check out his presentations on slide share and articles on popular blogs such as SEO Journal.
Notable Resources:
SMX replay: Create dashboards that inform and persuade
Sam Marsden of DeepCrawl explains how to use data visualization to get faster buy-in from management and stakeholders.
How to Build Speed Dashboards in Google Data Studio
A Digital Marketer’s Guide to Levelling up With Data Studio
Excellent presentation on Slideshare
Jonathan Jones Twitter: @Jonny_J_
Role: SEO Manager @moneysupermkt.
Jonathan has recently started posting some great stuff on data studio. Mostly focused on SEO, Search Console and Adwords currently, Follow him on Twitter for his helpful discussions and post announcements.
He is also a freelancer and consultant.
Notable Resources:
Use Google Data Studio to Export Google Search Console Data by Date
Manuel Martinez Twitter: @MforManuel
Role:
As he says in his Twitter profile “Dallas-based Swede with a Spanish name. ” Manuel is a developer, blogger, SEO, and speaker. He has been active in developing reports and dashboards in data studio for quite a while now, and I have had the pleasure to work on a couple of issues with him. He is active on twitter and has focused mostly on SEO topics and reporting.
Notable Resources:
Although he is busy in the competitive gambling SEO space he blogs about various topics, including data studio on his site
Michael Howe-Ely Twitter: @Howe_Ely
Role: Digital Analyst in Cape Town, South Africa
Michael has been on a tear! He has produced numerous “How-To” Data Studio posts over the last few months. These posts are very popular, clear and focused. He has done a great job documenting new features with his examples.
He is very active on Twitter, very helpful and great to collaborate with!
Notable Resources:
Michael has been so prolific lately (almost 50 data studio posts!) I will just put in his main blog link.
Mehdi Oudjida Twitter:@wissi_analytics
Role: Digital Analytics Consultant, Freelancer / Google and Adobe marketing platforms based in Lyon, France.
Mehdi is another active Data Studio resource on Twitter. Clever, insightful and has a deep understanding of both analytics and data studio report design. He has created some really great visualization hacks and continues to publish.
Notable Resources:
Google Data Studio – Report enhancements for more data context
Mehdi Oudjida’s analytics blog
Josh Cottrell Twitter: @joshua_cottrell
Role: Developer / Consultant based in Asia
Josh has a unique style that shows in his reports: They are clean but colorful.
Notable Resources:
Grant Kemp Twitter: @ukdatageek
Role: Analytics and Conversion specialist –
Update November 2019: Grant is now working for Google!
Grant is very active on Twitter, and is a big proponent for Data Studio and is out there on the cutting edge. As his handle suggests, he is a data geek and very involved with data and reporting. He has done presentations in England for the Brighton SEO conference and is interested in enabling teams to use data through the tool. Grant is a valuable critic of the tool as well and often puts in bug reports. I believe he is working on a data studio cookbook for the open source community.
Notable Resources:
Diving into Data Studio – Brighton SEO, September 2018 – Audio podcast
Gerry White Twitter: @dergal
Role: Organizer, Speaker, SEO
Gerry gets around! Besides being a frequent speaker on the SEO circuit he consults on analytics through his agency UsableContent. He is often running experiments for technical SEO and is a thought leader in the area. Very active on Twitter he is an excellent follow to keep up on the latest in a number of areas including Data Studio.
Notable Resources:
Neil Shapiro Twitter: @NH_SHAPIRO
Role: Freelance and in-house data studio developer
Neil works with data studio in-house as a full-time job and also freelances doing analytics and report development on Fiverr. He works a lot with clients pulling data into Google Sheets. Active on Twitter.
If you are looking for a freelancer you can check out his gig here!
The Publishers
Marketing agencies and analytics consultants sharing their insights about Data Studio. These are the most active ones producing posts, how-to guides and reference info. Always good to follow!
LunaMetrics (Bounteous) Twitter: @BounteousData
Role: LunaMetrics was a leading analytics agency. Now part of Bounteous as part of a larger eCommerce agency. They produced a very nice collection of posts.
LunaMetrics has produced a large number of fine posts covering many different areas of data studio. With their recent acquisition, it may be harder to find this content as it has been shifted to the Bounteous domain ( I couldn’t easily find a blog on their site but it is under the “insights” section) These links to their content still work at this date. We will have to see if they continue to pursue publishing this kind of content. So far they haven’t produced new content on the subject since July 2018.
Notable Resources:
Google Data Studio posts category on Bounteous
Data Studio Template: Cohort Analysis For Blogs And Articles
MarketLytics Twitter: @MarketLytics
Role: Analytics and strategy agency
MarketLytics is another analytics oriented group that focuses on agency reporting. They have produced good blog content on a number of Data studio related topics. They are reasonably active ( a few posts a month) on Twitter and mostly tweet about their own content. They do seem to monitor for questions if you mention them. You can find some of their posts in the Data Studio Resource Finder.
Notable Resources:
Data Studio M.D: Dashboard for Google Analytics Audit
Data Studio Connectors: Why & How to Use
Using Data Studio to Understand What We are Working On
Data Runs Deep Twitter:@datarunsdeep
Role: Digital Analytics consultants
“The only digital analytics consultancy with its own rooftop herb garden” based out of Melbourne, Australia. Most of their articles are written in a friendly accessible style. Most of the posts are written by Nick Hood (digital analytics lead), Damian Brown(founder), and Alex Reddie (digital analyst). I’m not sure I have run across these folks in the
Notable Resources:
You can see their collection of Data Studio articles on their site.
How to choose colours for your dashboard
Data Visualisation Techniques for Great Dashboards
How To Create A Session ID In Google Data Studio
Free Data Studio Icon Set – Really helpful!
Setting Monthly Targets in Google Data Studio
ClickInsight Twitter: @ClickInsight
Role: Digital analytics experts offering consulting, auditing and training.Google – exploring, visualizing and telling stories with data.
Located in Toronto, Canada (eh?) ClickInsight is probably the most prolific publisher of Data Studio material besides Google (maybe even more!). They in addition to services they provide in-person training courses for Data Studio. As noted before, the chief author over there is Marc Soares. He has the lion share, but there are several other bloggers on the topic on their site.
For the past 2 years, they have produced the “12 days of data studio series”. These are really nice medium length, focused posts on a particular aspect or application of data studio. I count 33 posts listed under their data studio section!
I already listed some of Marc’s posts, so here are some of the others located on their site
Notable Resources:
Which Chart Should be Used to Tell Your Data Story? by Jonathan Ludica
Visualizing Winter Olympics Medal Results with Data Studio By Jonathan Ludica
Inside A Marketer’s Toolbox: Google Data Studio By Sarah Liou
Data Studio Course –
Supermetrics Twitter:@Supermetrics
Role: Data Studio connector developer/vendor
Supermetrics is the most visible supplier of third party data connectors for Data Studio (and Google Sheets, Excel etc.). Naturally, they blog about data studio as part of their marketing efforts to promote their own product, but they also have some great articles that apply regardless of the connection vendor. They also have posts related to their own connectors, and usually, offer free templates to go along with them.
I am fairly frugal and normally prefer free options. In this case, though I took the plunge and I have been a full subscriber to their data studio connector suite ($99/month) for two years now. Several people have noted their versions sometimes give more reliable data than Google’s own native connectors (Search Console).
If you care about your time and making really useful reports you may find them to be very cost effective too. If you are interested in Supermetrics connectors please check them out through this affiliate link. If you do sign up, it will help support show support for my blogging and sharing of templates. Free trials and first-time signups get discounts!
Notable Resources:
Jeffalytics Twitter: @jeffalytics
Role: Jeff Sauer does digital marketing analytics and is also a speaker, teacher, podcaster and consultant.
Jeff Sauer has started producing some pretty good Data Studio materials lately. He has been around for some time building his agency and personal brand through videos and podcasting. One thing he does really well is market! You can get his tutorials on YouTube and his latest templates are free, but you will have to go through a (painless) signup process to get them. It’s good to see an example of someone working to monetize their data studio work in a rational way!
Notable Resources:
Google Data Studio Tutorial 2018 – YouTube video playlist
One-Click 2018 Digital Marketing Report Template [Google Data Studio]
Google Data Studio Tutorial: A strategic guide to building powerful reports
The Speakers
More notable people who are publishing, speaking or have different perspectives on Data Studio
Dana DiTomaso Twitter: @danaditomaso
Role
Dana has done well with her 2018 appearances on the Moz Whiteboard Friday series. Highly recommended! She has a knack for boiling things down to basics and making things accessible! Active and responsive on Twitter.
Very knowledgeable in local SEO and GMB reporting.
Notable Resources:
How to Create a Local Marketing Results Dashboard in Google Data Studio – Whiteboard Friday
Aleyda Solis Twitter: @aleyda
Role: International SEO Consultant, Speaker & Author.
Aleyda is super popular on the speaking circuit, and in SEO circles, and has produced some very good Data Studio content also! Very active on Twitter, but much sought after with 60K followers!
Notable Resources:
Using Google Data Studio for a more actionable Google Search Console Performance Dashboard
GSC Dashboard – Aleyda’s update of the standard Google Search Console report
Please Note:
This guide is based on my personal experience and who I am familiar with. There are still pockets of community I am not aware of. I have tended to focus on Twitter participants because that is where I spend most of my time interacting.
I have left many people out and will be adding more over time. This post is focused on people who are consistently producing content or interacting. I put people in categories that make sense to me – In most cases, they could fall into several areas but I put them in the area I think they have the biggest impact.
If you feel I have overlooked someone obvious to you, or a community hiding somewhere in plain site, please let me know in the comments below or reach out to me on Twitter @Helpfullee
If you are looking for specific topics please try the Data Studio Resource Finder – It has over 330 curated and rated guides, templates and videos. In addition, it has a searchable indexes of over 40,000 Tweets related to Data Studio. And hey, it IS a data studio report itself!
GDS is a fantastic tool. Just had a go on it and for sure this will save me some precious time trying to create custom reports from all Google assets.
Glad you are getting something out of the tool!
Thanks so much for the list. You are really helpful Lee!!!