Supermetrics for Google Sheets vs. Supermetrics for Data Studio: which product should you go with?

Can’t make up your mind between Supermetrics for Data Studio and Supermetrics for Google Sheets (or Excel)?

While we’d naturally recommend that you get both — Data Studio for data visualization and reporting and one of the spreadsheet products for data crunching and analysis — there are a few things you should consider before you make up your mind.

But before we get to the comparison, let’s quickly look at what each of these products can do for you.

What is Supermetrics for Google Sheets?

Supermetrics for Google Sheets is a Google Sheets add-on that you can install from the Google Workplace Marketplace. 

Once you’ve installed the add-on, you can open the Supermetrics sidebar from within any of your spreadsheets by clicking on Add-ons → Supermetrics → Launch sidebar.

The Supermetrics sidebar looks a little something like this.

It allows you to pull data from 60+ popular marketing data sources directly into your spreadsheet.

This way, you’ll never have to copy/paste the metrics you want to analyze from the reporting interfaces of Facebook, Google, HubSpot, Salesforce etc. again. 

Instead, simply open the Supermetrics sidebar, choose the data you want to pull with the drop-down menus, and sit back, as the sheet will automatically populate with the data you’ve selected.

With Supermetrics for Google Sheets, you can also set up automatic data refreshes, schedule email updates, and trigger email notifications based on cell value. 

Alright, but what the heck is Supermetrics for Data Studio, then?

What is Supermetrics for Data Studio?

Google Data Studio is Google’s free data visualization tool.

And Supermetrics for Data Studio is a data pipeline that allows you to bring both Google (think Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google Ads etc.) and non-Google data (think Facebook, HubSpot, Salesforce etc.) directly into your Data Studio dashboard.

It looks a little something like this.

The big benefit of Google Data Studio is its flexibility. You’ll start from a blank canvas, and can basically create any kind of a report with it. 

You can also add all kinds of filters to your dashboard, making it possible for anyone with view access to change the data ranges, data sources, campaigns, product categories etc. shown in the dashboard.

The other main feature is that your data will update automatically every time you refresh the browser window.

You can also easily get started with our standard reporting templates and simply customize them to your needs. This way, you’ll end up with a good looking dashboard that only contains the data you want to report on.

To start your free 14-day trial of Supermetrics for Data Studio, choose the first data source you want to pull data from.

How to compare Supermetrics for Google Sheets and Supermetrics for Data Studio?

Okay, now that you know what the two products are all about, it’s time to evaluate them across three main areas:

1. Your use case: reporting vs. analytics
2. Your data crunching needs: basic vs. complex
3. Your notification preferences: static vs. dynamic

Let’s go!

1. Your use case: reporting vs. analytics

You know how there are two main things people generally do with data? They either crunch it and analyze it to inform their decision-making or they report on it to show progress to others — typically clients or internal stakeholders.

Well, luckily for you, Supermetrics can help you do both.

But as for which product is better for which purpose, let’s put it this way:

If I wanted to quickly analyze the organic traffic of individual blog posts to figure out which posts need updating, I would use Supermetrics for Google Sheets.

Why? Because there’s no better way than a massive table to analyze data like this. Besides, since I’m not planning on sharing this data with anyone else, it doesn’t really matter that my spreadsheet isn’t exactly the prettiest.

But if, on the other hand, I wanted to frequently report on how much traffic, organic traffic, and/or trials our blog has generated to my boss, I would definitely go with Supermetrics for Data Studio.

Why? 

Because dashboards like this one tend to be easier to read than spreadsheet monsters. Besides, the data range, product category, and product ID filters make it easy for internal stakeholders to drill down to specific time periods or a specific product’s performance.

TL;DR: Supermetrics for Google Sheets is great for all kinds of quick, one-off deep dives, where you really don’t care what the output looks like. Supermetrics for Data Studio, on the other hand, is better suited for shareable reports and dashboards, where you want to track the same metrics over a longer time period.

2. Your data crunching needs: complex vs. basic

Your second consideration should be this: are you simply trying to visualize and present the data from your marketing platforms OR do you need to manipulate, combine, and/or pivot the data somehow?

The simpler your data crunching needs, the more likely it is that Google Data Studio can do everything you need it to do.

Simply want to create visual reports of your marketing data? You can definitely do that in Data Studio.

Or want to blend data from (up to five) different sources with a shared join key (like a date)? Also possible with Data Studio.

But if you need to do anything more advanced like group data with pivot tables, join data with LOOKUP functions, or play around with IF statements, Google Sheets is truly your best bet. 

Psst! Did you know that you can also use Google Sheets as a data source to Google Data Studio? 

In other words, you can use Supermetrics for Google Sheets to move all the marketing data you need into Google Sheets, and then use Data Studio as your final reporting destination anyway. 

TL;DR: If you’re happy with simple data blending or presenting the same data you can see in your marketing platforms, Google Data Studio will get the job done. However, for anything more advanced, we’d strongly recommend Google Sheets.

3. Your notification preferences: static vs. dynamic

If you want to automate weekly or monthly report sendouts to your customers, you can easily do that with Google Data Studio’s native “Schedule email delivery” feature.

However, the one thing Google Data Studio doesn’t do is alert you if a certain value (let’s say your ad spend) goes under or over your budget.

As you can probably guess by now, in addition to recurring data refreshes and emails, Supermetrics for Google Sheets can deliver dynamic alerts to your email — allowing you to focus on more pressing matters than manually observing your cross-channel ad spend.

TL;DR: You can automate your reporting and emails with both products, but Supermetrics for Google Sheets allows you more flexibility in terms of the trigger events and the contents of those emails.

Wrapping up

Long story short, you should go with Supermetrics for Data Studio if you’re looking to:

• Build visual, shareable reports
• Don’t have complex data blending or pivoting needs
• Are happy with static/recurring email reports

But Supermetrics for Google Sheets is the right product for you, if you:

• Are an advanced spreadsheet user
• Need to perform complex data analysis
• Want to trigger conditional email alerts based on cell value

If you still can’t make up your mind about whether to go with Supermetrics for Google Sheets or Supermetrics for Google Data Studio, you might want to trial both products at the same time.