How to Use the Sankey Data Visualization

A Sankey Diagram is one of the best ways to visualize the data in a system, like advertising, customer journey, energy, materials, etc. It shows the flow from one set of the data to the other. While there are a plethora of tools for visualizing data, some are misleading and difficult to use. Sankey diagrams are easy-to-use data visualization types that help you get quick insights into the data.

Once you know how to use a Sankey data visualization right, you can make sense of the complex data easily. Let’s discuss how to do it.

How Does A Sankey Diagram Benefit You?

In today’s digital landscape, data has become the lifeblood of marketing. However, just collecting data on your customers’ behavior isn’t enough. In fact, it won’t do anything good if you don’t put it into use. You need to understand the data to draw conclusions or take the right actions.

While there are many ways for visualizing data, Sankey diagrams help marketers to analyze the data easier and make smart decisions. Here are some of the benefits of a Sankey diagram-

● You don’t need a lot of data to draw a Sankey Chart. As a PPC advertiser. You just need a metric and two dimensions to draw Sankeys.

● You can integrate Sankey diagrams with Google Ads. ChartExpo is great that allows marketers to view the customers’ journey and find quick insights.

● A Sankey diagram shows the flow of energy clearly, or how values change from one category to the other. When you use Sankey diagrams in advertising, you can see where most of your traffic is coming from. So, you can focus your marketing efforts on the sources that get you high-quality traffic.

● Another significant benefit of a Sankey diagram is to visualize the data quickly and help you view insights. Thus, PPC advertisers can view how their Ads are performing without spending hours juggling the data.

How Does A Sankey Diagram Look Like?

Sankey diagrams have directed arrows whose widths are proportional to the quantity of the flow. The vertical bars that represent the value are called nodes, and the connection between the nodes is called a link.

A large width of the arrow means there is a large energy flow. Thus, you can detect the most significant flows in a system. Since the arrows show flows from one node to the other, they are a perfect data visualization type for production systems.

How To Use The Sankey Diagram For Data Visualization?

Sankey diagrams have a lot of applications in material flow, energy, supply chain management, marketing, advertising, etc. Here, we’ll learn to use a Sankey diagram in marketing and advertising for visualizing the customers’ journey.

As Sankey diagrams help you analyze the data through segmentation, they provide you with the quickest and the easiest way to get insights into the customers’ journey. You can find out the top-performing keywords or where the traffic is coming from.

Suppose you want to visualize a PPC metric and take three dimensions, i.e., match type, device type, and impressions. Take match type in the left, device type in the right, and impression share in the middle.

Reading The Sankey Diagram

In this Sankey diagram, a match will happen between a search query and the keywords. If they match, your Ad will get an impression, which is followed by the users’ action from a device. Thus, you see that this visualization can be read from both directions.

In Google Ads, the impression share is reported as a percentage. If the impression percentage is 70%, the Ad campaign is missing out on 30% of the opportunities. This means you need to look for ways to leverage the 30% opportunities.

You might find that the total percentage of the match types exceeds 100%. Therefore, in this chart, the percentage isn’t added. Reason? Each of the percentages depends on some other values. Similarly, the percentages of the device types are independent.

Don’t Overload A Sankey Chart

A Sankey Diagram Excel is a powerful tool for visualizing the customer journey in Google Ads or other PPC Ad campaigns. But, it’s best to limit the data analysis to multiple small sessions. If you load the chart with too much data, it will difficult to read it out or understand it.

Thus, it is recommended to focus on a single Ad at a time. You will be in a far better position to find out which keywords are performing the best or where the traffic is coming from.

What To Consider While Drawing A Sankey Diagram?

While a Sankey diagram is great data visualization, you need to be certain that this chart type is right for you. Thus, before you draw a Sankey diagram, below are a few things to consider and ascertain the usefulness of a Sankey-

● Do your audiences have experience with PPC charts?

● Do you want to tell a story or want your audience to take some action via a Sankey diagram?

● Which fact do you want to show via your Sankey diagram?

Conclusion

The Sankey Diagram in Google Sheets is a useful data visualization that helps you visualize data and make sense of what this data depicts. Whether it is sales, material management, supply chain, or marketing business, it comes in extremely handy. It is quite effective at visualizing the customers’ journey and showing how do different facts influence a PPC metric. The best part is, you can create a Sankey chart effortlessly. So, get started with creating a Sankey diagram and analyzing data!