Building dashboards in Google Analytics to get the right information for your client at the right time can be a real pain. Don’t get me wrong, Google has really improved the dashboards, but there is still a lot left to be desired. The thing is every client is different and teasing out those relevant metrics can be a pain, in the new or old GA dashboards.

I have recently come upon a new trend in the Internet Marketing world and that is using Google Spreadsheets to build demo apps and even using Google spreadsheets as a web scraper. This functionality is made using Google Scripts. Google Scripts is like VBA for Excel, but Google Scripts can work with Google Spreadsheets and other Google products. So what do I use it for? Well, Mikael Thuneberg of Automate Analytics made the Google Analytics Data Fetch Functions which is a utility that lets you access the Google Analytics API. I use it to pull in the exact information I want even segmented correctly for my clients. When I share the spreadsheet with my client they also have the ability to change the date and time ranges to see what they want within what I have set up for them.

This process makes it simple for the client to get the information they need in a helpful format. If you would like to build your own the information is here.