Which widgets to use in your dashboard and when

In two lines: a widget is each block of a dashboard. Choosing the right type makes the difference between a report that's understood at a glance and one that confuses. They're all added with Add Widget and chosen in Widget Type.

KPI

Shows a single metric in large, with its variation compared to the previous period. It's the first thing your client looks at.

Use it for the numbers that sum up the month: total spend, conversions, CPA, ROAS. The variation is painted green when it improves, red when it worsens and gray when it doesn't change. It supports number, currency, percentage and duration formats.

Reserve KPIs for the essentials. Four or five at the top communicate more than twenty piled up.

Chart

Visualizes the evolution or distribution of your data. It has several subtypes:

Lines — trends over time (day-by-day spend, weekly clicks).
Bars — comparisons (performance by campaign or by platform).
Area — accumulated volume.
Pie — how a total is split (share by channel).
Composite — combines types in a single chart.

You can show several metrics together, customize the colors and turn the legend and grid on or off.

When those metrics live on very different scales —impressions in the thousands next to a CTR of 2%— the chart splits them: it keeps one group on the left axis and moves the other to a right-hand axis, so no series ends up flattened against the floor. It's automatic, there's nothing to configure: each axis is tinted with the color of its series and the tooltip shows every metric in its own format.

Break one metric into several series

In a chart's settings, right below Dimension (X-Axis), the Break down into series by field opens a single metric into several lines (or bars) —one per value of the dimension you pick. Impressions by day become one line per country, per campaign or per device, and you see at a glance who is pulling the total.

Only the five biggest values of the period are drawn, ranked by volume of that metric; everything else is grouped into a single Others series, so the chart stays readable.
With a breakdown active, only the first metric of the widget is charted; the rest are set aside and the panel tells you so. If what you want is to compare two metrics, leave it on No breakdown.
The breakdown dimension can't be the same one you're already using on the X axis, and it isn't offered on Pie charts (there the split is the chart itself).

Use it to answer "where is this coming from?" without piling up five widgets: one line chart of impressions broken down by country says more than five KPIs side by side. And since every series is the same metric, they all share one axis and compare directly.

Table

Data in rows and columns, with the dimensions and metrics you choose. It's the view for the detail: campaigns, keywords, ads.

It includes an automatic totals row, a heatmap to spot high and low values at a glance, column sorting, compact mode and CSV download. Rate metrics (CTR, CPC, ROAS) are averaged in a weighted way, so the table total doesn't lie.

In a dashboard table you also have Row limit, which lets you show only the top rows —the ones that matter for the story you're telling— instead of the full list.

Use Row limit to leave a top 10 of campaigns or keywords in the client's report: you can set up to 100 rows, and the field only appears on flat tables (with nested dimensions it isn't available).

Choosing metrics and dimensions

KPIs, charts and tables all use the same selector to pick what they show: a search box plus the platform's fields grouped by category, and each field indicates its type (currency, percentage, duration, text, date and so on) in your language. You learn it once and it works the same in every widget, so switching format doesn't mean relearning where things are.

Ad Preview in tables

When you group a table by Ad ID and Ad Name, you can add the Ad Preview metric: each row shows a thumbnail of the ad's creative next to its metrics. It works with Meta Ads, TikTok Ads and Google Ads (responsive Display, uploaded banners, video with its YouTube thumbnail, and Demand Gen, including carousels). Click a thumbnail to open the full preview; Google search ads show an icon that opens their headlines and descriptions.

Combine Ad Preview with the heatmap: the client sees which creative is behind each number and the team can brief new pieces without leaving the dashboard.

Text and Image

Text lets you write notes, an executive summary or an explanation within the report: the context a number alone doesn't give. Image inserts logos, screenshots or fixed visual elements. Both are included when you export to PDF.

Control filters

These are special widgets that filter the data of the rest of the dashboard: by campaign, ad set, account and more, depending on the platform. Whoever looks at the report can narrow the view without editing anything. Active filters are shown at the top and are recorded on the PDF cover page.

A control doesn't replace each widget's own filters: it stacks on top of them, with the same "and". And it narrows data on the platforms that support data filters —Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Google Analytics 4 and Search Console. How those filters are built, operator by operator, is in Filter the data of a widget, block or table.

Beyond the type of widget, the metric you choose also has its own rules: a custom metric that combines several platforms works in KPIs and charts, but never in tables (there's no dimension shared across platforms to break it down by). See Create your own metrics with formulas.

A well-built dashboard usually has this order from top to bottom: KPIs (the summary), charts (the trend) and tables (the detail). That way reading goes from the general to the specific.

Still have questions?

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