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A column chart displays a metric as vertical bars across categories or time. It’s the most common chart type for side-by-side comparisons — for example, spend by channel, conversions by campaign, or click-through rate by day.

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When to use a column chart

For direct comparisons across a small-to-medium number of categories or a short time window. When category names are long or the group is larger, consider a horizontal column chart. For trends across many time points, a line chart usually reads better.

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Configure a column chart

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Mandatory fields

1

Pick a data source

In the Data sources section, select the data source to include. Column charts support both ad and non-ad data sources and can pull from a blended source.
2

Pick a Y-axis metric

Click Edit on the Y-axis metric field to open the picker panel. Pick up to 20 metrics to make available in the widget’s dropdown, reorder them if needed, and set the active one shown by default. The active metric renders as the bar height — for example, Spend, Impressions, Conversions. New custom metrics can be created directly from the picker panel without leaving the chart widget.
3

Pick an X-axis

Click Edit on the X-axis field to open the picker panel. Pick up to 20 breakdowns to make available in the widget’s dropdown, reorder them if needed, and set the active one shown by default. The active breakdown renders as the horizontal axis — for example, a time unit (such as Day, Week, Month, Quarter, or Year) or a breakdown (such as Channel or Campaign). New custom breakdowns can be created directly from the picker panel without leaving the chart widget.Note: date breakdowns have per-connector lookback limits. See Breakdowns → Date breakdown limits.
4

Set the Group by

Click Edit on the Group by field to open the picker panel. Pick up to 20 breakdowns to make available in the widget’s dropdown, reorder them if needed, and set the active one shown by default. The active breakdown renders as sub-series grouping — for example, X-axis = Campaign name + Group by = Channel produces one sub-bar per channel per campaign. To show a single bar per X-axis position without sub-series, select the No grouping option.The Group by cannot be a date breakdown — dates belong on the X-axis.
Widget changes save automatically when the settings panel closes. Persist changes to the dashboard by clicking Save dashboard.

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Optional fields

  • Widget filter — narrow the data feeding the widget. See Filters.
  • Period — override the dashboard’s date range. See Date ranges.
  • Hide metric value — hide items whose Ad Spend, Impressions, or Link Clicks meet a threshold. Two blocks are available: a preset “Value = 0” checkbox per metric, and a custom threshold block with an operator (default ≤) and value. Both can be combined.
  • Trend line — overlay a linear trend across the items.
  • Display settings — controls Number of items (All, 5, 10, 15, 20; default 10), Sort order, and a Hide “others” toggle for the aggregate residual.
  • Y-axis range — defaults to auto-scale. Set a manual minimum and maximum to force the scale (useful for cutting off outliers or forcing the axis to start at zero).
  • Data labels — show the metric value on each item. Off by default.
  • Grid — toggle background gridlines.
  • Chart controls — toggle whether Chart controls render on this widget. On by default.

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Chart controls

Chart controls are toggled on or off per widget from the Chart controls switch in the widget settings panel. When off, Chart controls don’t render on the widget; when on, the dropdowns configured below appear on the widget. Some key settings can be updated directly from the widget header without opening the settings panel. The Chart controls on a column chart expose:
  • Chart type — a switcher on the left of the widget header to change to another chart type.
  • Y-axis — swap the metric shown as the bar height inline.
  • X-axis — swap the horizontal axis inline.
  • Group by — change the sub-series grouping inline.
Changes made in the Chart controls aren’t saved automatically — click Save dashboard to persist them. Chart controls are read-only when viewing a shared dashboard. In shared dashboards, Chart controls show only the items selected in each field, matching what the dashboard owner configured.

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Comparison mode

Column charts render comparison values as a line overlay across the top of the bars. The overlay only appears when both conditions are met:
  • The dashboard-level or widget-level Compare toggle is on.
  • The chart’s X-axis is a time unit — such as Day, Week, Month, Quarter, or Year.
The comparison line represents the previous period’s total across the visible window. If the chart has a Group by, comparison ignores it and plots only the aggregated total for the comparison window — so the comparison line is a single unbroken series, not one line per group. For any non-time X-axis, no comparison overlay renders even when Compare is on. See Date ranges → Comparison mode.

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Widget styling

Global widget style settings — font, border, background, and color themes — apply to every widget through the Dashboard style settings. On top of those, Column chart widgets have style options unique to this widget type:
  • Color type — toggle between Solid and Gradient for the fill of each column.
  • Trendline — when a trend line is enabled on a metric, its visual can be customized:
    • Color (HEX).
    • Line style — Solid, dashed, or dotted.
    • Line width (px).

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Troubleshooting

Confirm the selected Y-axis metric and X-axis produce values in the current date range. See Data not loading.
Comparison only renders when the X-axis is a time unit. Switch the X-axis to a time unit (such as Day, Week, or Month) to see the comparison overlay.
The chosen metric may have very low variance across the group. Try a metric with more spread (for example, Conversions instead of CTR) or narrow the data with a widget filter.
Increase Number of items in Display settings, narrow the data with a widget filter, or turn off Hide “others” to see the aggregate residual.

Horizontal column chart

Same idea rotated — handles more categories.

Line chart

Better for trends over many data points.

Filters

Narrow the data feeding the chart.

Date ranges

Set the reporting window.