Top SaaS Metrics and How to Track Them in Looker Studio
Suppose your dashboard shows 50,000 monthly visitors and a 2.3% conversion rate. What does that actually tell you about why customers choose your premium plan over basic, or why enterprise trials rarely convert? Most SaaS metrics dashboards in Looker Studio track website behavior instead of the business metrics that matter — and that's costing companies growth opportunities.
The disconnect runs deeper than vanity metrics. Marketing celebrates traffic spikes, product teams cheer over feature usage, and sales tracks pipeline progression — all from separate dashboards. Nobody sees how onboarding connects to upgrade behavior months later, so teams waste budget on high-volume, low-value channels instead of patterns that predict valuable customers.
The SaaS companies pulling ahead have cracked the code on unified analytics. They've moved beyond generic web metrics to purpose-built dashboards that connect behavioral data with revenue outcomes. This gives marketing, product, and sales teams shared visibility into SaaS adoption metrics that actually drive growth.
At Brights, we've guided dozens of SaaS teams through this shift from scattered reporting to strategic intelligence that aligns entire organizations around growth. This article is about sharing insights we’ve gained along the way.
Looker Studio dashboard implemented by Brights
Key takeaways
Siloed reporting creates expensive blind spots where teams celebrate traffic spikes while missing how onboarding connects to upgrade behavior six months later.
Attribution mismatches between GA4 and CRM systems create 20–40% variance in CAC calculations, requiring consistent UTM tracking and proper customer ID alignment.
MRR composition analysis reveals hidden problems when new customer revenue declines, while expansion revenue masks the broken acquisition engine.
Specific onboarding actions can predict expansion revenue months later, revealing which trial activities actually drive long-term growth.
Effective dashboards pass the 30-second comprehension test, where stakeholders immediately grasp the key message without explanation.
Tracking SaaS metrics: Looker Studio vs. CRM and other tools
Business health in B2B SaaS comes down to four critical areas: sustainable growth (acquiring the right customers), strong retention (keeping them engaged), operational efficiency (optimizing costs), and healthy cash flow (predictable revenue streams). Tracking these effectively requires tools like B2B SaaS reporting dashboards that can handle complex data relationships across multiple touchpoints.
While CRMs excel at managing customer relationships and spreadsheets offer flexibility, Looker Studio provides the perfect middle ground for SaaS analytics. It combines the data visualization power of enterprise tools with the accessibility and affordability teams need.
| Tool | Pros | Cons | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Looker Studio | Free, integrates multiple data sources, real-time updates, shareable dashboards | Requires setup knowledge, limited advanced calculations | Growing SaaS companies that need unified reporting |
| CRM dashboards | Built-in sales metrics, easy pipeline tracking | Limited behavioral data, siloed from marketing/product | Sales-focused teams, simple conversion tracking |
| Spreadsheets | Complete flexibility, familiar interface | Manual updates, version control issues, no real-time data | Early-stage startups, ad-hoc analysis |
| Power BI | Enterprise features, strong Microsoft integration | Costly, complex setup, requires technical expertise | Large enterprises with Microsoft ecosystems |
13 essential B2B SaaS adoption metrics to track
The metrics that matter most are the ones that reveal customer behavior patterns, not just traffic numbers. These metrics work together to tell your complete growth story, and Looker Studio's real-time data blending makes monitoring them seamless across teams.
Acquisition & activation
MQL to SQL conversion rate reveals how well marketing qualifies leads for sales. Blend your CRM data with GA4 in Looker Studio to see which content pieces and channels drive the highest-converting leads, not just the most volume.
Activation rate tracks users completing key onboarding actions. Connect product usage data with acquisition sources to understand which channels bring users who actually engage with your core features.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) measures how much you spend to acquire each customer. Formula: Total acquisition spend ÷ New customers acquired. Track this by channel in Looker Studio using calculated fields to identify your most cost-effective sources and adjust budget allocation in real-time.
Revenue & growth
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) form your growth foundation. Looker Studio's live billing integration shows real-time revenue trends, making forecasting more accurate than static spreadsheets. When you track MRR in Looker Studio, you gain visibility into revenue composition that reveals hidden growth patterns.
“MRR growth tells only half the story without understanding composition. If new customer MRR is declining while expansion revenue grows, your acquisition engine needs attention even though topline looks healthy.”
Revenue churn measures lost revenue from downgrades and cancellations. Formula: Lost MRR ÷ Starting MRR. Track this alongside customer behavior data to identify early warning signs.
Expansion revenue from upgrades and add-ons often drives profitable growth. Looker Studio helps identify which features correlate with expansion opportunities.
LTV:CAC ratio determines sustainable growth. Healthy SaaS companies maintain 3:1 or higher ratios.
Retention & engagement
Net Revenue Retention (NRR) combines churn and expansion into one powerful metric. Formula: (Starting MRR + Expansion - Churn) ÷ Starting MRR. Above 100% indicates growth from existing customers.
Customer Health Score combines usage, support tickets, and payment history. Create automated alerts in Looker Studio when scores drop below thresholds.
DAU/WAU/MAU ratios reveal engagement patterns. Looker Studio's cohort analysis helps identify when engagement typically drops and why.
“Billing cycle timing affects everything. Annual customers behave completely differently from monthly subscribers — they explore more features, engage deeper, and provide clearer upgrade signals. So, design your analytics to capture these behavioral differences.”
Operational metrics
Burn rate tracks monthly cash consumption for growing companies. Connect this with growth metrics to understand runway and efficiency.
Payback period shows how long it takes to recover CAC. Formula: CAC ÷ Monthly revenue per customer. Shorter periods indicate healthier unit economics.
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures customer satisfaction. Blend survey data with usage patterns in Looker Studio to understand what drives advocacy.
To understand how this works for real SaaS projects, our expert shares a brief Looker Studio SaaS case study for an athletics management app that serves educational institutions.
“Our clients needed to understand which app features drive the most engagement so they could identify expansion opportunities within their existing customer base. Looker Studio here was an obvious step for moving from static Excel reports to real-time insights, useful in both product development and sales strategy.
The dashboards we set up allow the team to track key engagement metrics like feature adoption rates, team creation frequency, student activity levels, and institutional usage patterns. Connecting usage data with institutional characteristics (school size, sport types, seasonal patterns) helped create a comprehensive view of customer health. Now our clients can identify which features to promote for upselling and which institutions need more support to increase adoption.”
— Anastasiia L., project manager and Looker Studio expert at Brights
How to track these metrics in Looker Studio: Proven flow on a real case study
Building effective SaaS dashboards requires connecting your data sources strategically. Let's walk through the essential steps to transform scattered metrics into actionable insights that drive business decisions.
Step 1: Set up GA4 events and conversions properly
Your customer journey events in GA4 should include trial sign-ups, feature activations, upgrade flows, and subscription milestones. Configure enhanced ecommerce tracking for subscription events, including trial starts, conversions, and cancellations — essential data points for effective subscription analytics in Looker Studio.
Conversion goals should align with your activation criteria, whether it’s completing onboarding, using core features, or reaching usage thresholds. A proper GA4 SaaS tracking setup includes consistent UTM parameter tracking across all marketing channels for accurate attribution.
Step 2: Connect and blend your data sources
The breakthrough happens when you blend GA4 behavioral data with your CRM and billing systems. In Looker Studio, you need to connect your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce) and billing platform (Stripe, Chargebee).
Customer email or user ID serves as your join key to blend datasets. This connection correlates website behavior with sales progression and revenue outcomes — essential for calculating trial-to-paid conversion and customer lifetime value.
Step 3: Design role-specific dashboard views
Targeted dashboards work better than one-size-fits-all reports. Marketing teams need acquisition metrics, while product teams focus on usage patterns and feature adoption. Sales dashboards, on the other hand, should emphasize pipeline progression and conversion rates. Executive dashboards require high-level KPIs like MRR growth, churn rates, and unit economics.
We recommend using Looker Studio's filtering controls to let each team drill down into their specific concerns while maintaining consistency in metric calculations.
Step 4: Implement cohort analysis and governance
Cohort tables track user behavior over time, revealing patterns in retention and expansion. Create automated alerts for metric thresholds — like when monthly churn exceeds targets or activation rates drop below benchmarks. Clear metric definitions ensure everyone understands how CAC, MRR, and other key metrics are calculated.
Building comprehensive SaaS analytics takes time, but following this approach creates dashboards that answer strategic questions rather than just showing data.
Pro tips for Looker SaaS dashboard optimization
Once your data foundation is solid, success heavily depends on thoughtful UI/UX design. Here's how to build dashboards that teams consistently use and trust.
Looker Studio dashboard implemented by Brights
Avoid information overload: Limit each dashboard to 5-7 key metrics. More charts and widgets create decision paralysis rather than insights. Focus on metrics that directly influence the viewer's decisions.
Establish clear visual hierarchy: Place your most critical KPI prominently at the top, with supporting metrics arranged logically below. Use size, color, and positioning to guide attention to what matters most, allowing for customization based on each viewer's priorities.
Visualize trends, skip vanity metrics: Show MRR growth composition using time-series charts rather than just total numbers. Display churn trends by customer segment instead of overall percentages. Context beats raw numbers every time.
Design for quick comprehension: Stakeholders should understand your dashboard's key message within 30 seconds. Use clear labels, consistent color coding, and intuitive chart types that serve your audience.
Enable smart filtering: Provide date ranges, customer segments, and acquisition channels as filters, but set sensible defaults that immediately tell the story without requiring user interaction.
Optimize for mobile: Many executives review dashboards on phones. Ensure your most critical metrics display clearly on smaller screens with responsive design principles.
Build reusable frameworks and templates: For instance, you can create a SaaS revenue dashboard template that will be adapted for different teams while maintaining consistent data flow and metric definitions across your organization.
“Before we launch any dashboard, we always check for four things. Can someone understand it in no more than 30 seconds? Does it work on mobile? Does it actually answer the questions that person needs answered? And is the data staying fresh automatically? These might sound basic, but you'd be surprised how many dashboards fail such simple tests.”
— Anastasiia L., project manager and Looker Studio expert at Brights
For more tips on achieving better reporting, be sure to check out our article on implementing Looker Studio dashboards.
Common challenges and solutions
Even with the best setup, nobody's insured against common roadblocks. Here's how to navigate the most frequent challenges we see.
| What to be aware of | Problem | Solution |
|---|---|---|
| Attribution mismatches between GA4 and CRM | CAC calculations vary by 20-40% between systems, creating confusion about channel performance | Implement consistent UTM tracking across all campaigns and use GA4's Data Import feature with proper connectors to align customer IDs between systems |
| Missing product usage signals | Can't correlate engagement patterns with retention and expansion outcomes | Set up custom GA4 events for key product actions (feature usage, milestone completions) and blend this behavioral data with subscription information using calculated dimensions |
| Delayed or unaligned data sources | Teams make decisions on outdated information, missing critical trends | Set up automated refresh configuration for all data sources and add data freshness indicators to show when information was last updated |
| Reports confuse different stakeholders | Generic dashboards don't address specific team needs, leading to low adoption | Build role-specific views with relevant metrics and appropriate detail levels. Marketing needs acquisition-focused graphs, while product teams need engagement depth with audience segmentation |
| Inconsistent metric definitions | CAC calculated differently across departments creates conflicting strategies | Document all metric calculations clearly and audit against source systems regularly to maintain accuracy and team alignment |
Final thoughts
Getting your SaaS metrics right empowers your team to make more effective decisions faster. When you can see how marketing efforts connect to product usage and revenue outcomes, everything clicks. You stop guessing and start investing in what works.
Looker Studio makes this possible without the complexity of enterprise tools. Its real-time data blending reveals patterns like which trial users become your highest-value customers, or why certain customer segments have 3x better retention rates. These insights directly impact your bottom line when you can act on them quickly.
Working with SaaS teams, we've helped our clients discover that their cheapest acquisition channels actually deliver the stickiest customers, or that specific onboarding actions predict expansion revenue months later. So, if you're tired of making strategic decisions with incomplete data, we'd love to help. Check out our Looker Studio consulting services to get started — or drop us a line right away.
FAQ.
When it comes to B2B products, the best KPIs for SaaS in Looker include customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), Net Revenue Retention, and activation rates. These metrics reveal your complete customer journey from acquisition through expansion. Focus on tracking these in a unified SaaS metrics dashboard in Looker Studio to see how user behavior connects to revenue outcomes.
