The combo chart in Looker Studio

This is one of my favorite visualisations when I want to show two distinct metrics for the same category.

To create a combo chart, you can start with a bar or column chart and make modifications in the Style settings, but choosing the combo chart from the beginning makes it much quicker.

Remember, visit the post on how to add charts to your report in Looker Studio, if you need a refresher.

1. Example

In this example, we will continue working with the dataset of the top movies of 2019.

So far, we’ve looked at the revenue by main genre in the post about the bar and column charts in Looker Studio, now we will also see how many movies there were among the top revenue-generating films for this category.

To do this, in your chart set-up, choose Top Genre 1 as the dimension, and for the metrics, select both Record Count and Revenue.

Sort the chart by revenue as shown under the Sort section in the image below.

This is the result after following the configuration for the combo chart with revenue and the number of movies by Top Genre 1, sorted by descending revenue.

You might be wondering why the number of movies (Record Count) isn’t showing. The reason is that both metrics are using the same axis, and since Record Count is significantly lower than Revenue, it isn’t visible. Let’s make the necessary modifications in the Style column to ensure they appear.

2. Specific Customisation Options for the Chart

To change the axis for one of the metrics, you can do this as we saw for the bar or column chart in Looker Studio. This is available in the Style settings by going to the metric number and selecting Left Axis or Right Axis. When I mention metric number, I’m referring to Series 1, 2, 3, etc. You will have as many series as metrics in your chart (in this case, 2).

Once we change the axis for Revenue, we can now see Record Count in the chart.

The other options are very similar to those we already saw in the bar or column chart. The main difference is that to have a chart with dual axes, you need to choose, series by series, within the Style settings, which axis it will use.

What do you think of this visualisation? Do you have any questions or comments?

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