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A horizontal column chart displays a metric as horizontal bars across a group of categories. It’s the right choice when the category labels are long, or when there are enough categories that a vertical column chart would look cramped.

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When to use a horizontal column chart

For side-by-side comparisons where a vertical column chart would fall short:
  • Long category names — for example, campaign names that would truncate in a vertical column chart’s X-axis labels.
  • Many categories — horizontal orientation lets more categories fit without crowding.
  • Ranked lists — horizontal bars read naturally as a top-to-bottom ranking.
For direct value-to-value comparisons across a small set of categories, a column chart is usually easier to read.

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Configure a horizontal column chart

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Mandatory fields

1

Pick a data source

In the Data sources section, select the data source to include. Horizontal column charts support both ad and non-ad data sources.
2

Pick an X-axis metric

Click Edit on the X-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 length — for example, Spend, Impressions, Conversions. New custom metrics can be created directly from the picker panel without leaving the chart widget. In a horizontal column chart the metric lives on the X-axis because the bars extend horizontally.
3

Pick a Y-axis

Click Edit on the Y-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 vertical axis — for example, a breakdown (such as Campaign name, Ad name, Country, or Landing page) or a time unit (such as Day, Week, or Month). 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, Y-axis = Campaign name + Group by = Channel produces one sub-bar per channel per campaign. To show a single bar per Y-axis position without sub-series, select the No grouping option.The Group by cannot be a date breakdown — dates belong on the Y-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.
  • X-axis range — defaults to auto-scale. Set a manual minimum and maximum to force the horizontal (metric) axis scale.
  • 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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Sort and Others

Sorting is applied to the bars — descending sort places the highest-value bar at the top. When more items exist than Number of items permits, the excess collapses into an others bar that is always placed at the bottom, regardless of sort order.

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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 horizontal column chart expose:
  • Chart type — a switcher on the left of the widget header to change to another chart type.
  • X-axis — swap the metric shown as the bar length inline.
  • Y-axis — swap the vertical 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

Horizontal column charts render comparison values as a line overlay across the bars, using the same logic as the column chart. The overlay only appears when both conditions are met:
  • The dashboard-level or widget-level Compare toggle is on.
  • The chart’s Y-axis is a time unit (such as Day, Week, or Month).
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 any non-time Y-axis, no comparison overlay renders.

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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, Horizontal 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

Increase the widget’s width on the grid, reduce the group cardinality with a widget filter, or pick a coarser Y-axis (for example, Campaign instead of Ad).
The data has a long tail — most items fall into others. Narrow with a widget filter, or increase Number of items in Display settings if the underlying data supports it.

Column chart

Vertical version — easier for small sets of categories.

Line chart

Trends over time.

Ads Table

Row-by-row breakdowns without visual truncation.