In this short post, I’ll show you how to embed a YouTube video in a Google Data Studio report.

In a follow up blog post, I’ll give more examples of embedding external content.

Below is the video I want to embed in my Data Studio report.

I’m sure we can all agree it’s great video about data visualization.

Below is the Data Studio report with the video embedded on the left.

Notice that there is a white block where the video content should be.

You’ll need to click the Google Data Studio logo to ‘Open report in Google Data Studio’, as shown below.

This is one of the limits of embedding which I will discuss below.

Limits of Embedding

Unfortunately, you can’t view embedded content in an embedded Data Studio.

Below is how the Data Studio report (with embedded video) looks when it is embedded on my site.

And below is what it looks like when viewed in Data Studio.

So while embedding videos and other content looks great when opened in Data Studio, it looks less impressive embedded on your site.

And the video screenshot will not appear in your Data Studio report if you download it as a PDF, as shown below.

Therefore embedding video content should be kept for reports that will mostly be viewed live in Data Studio itself.

Otherwise you’ll end up with awkward white blocks in your report.

How to Embed a YouTube video in Google Data Studio

To embed a YouTube video, the first step is to click the Embed URL button in the Data Studio toolbar.

A plain, white box will appear.

You will then need to copy and paste the YouTube video URL into the “External Content URL” space provided.

Note that for YouTube videos you only need to paste the URL, not any type of embedded video code.

You then have your YouTube video embedded in the data studio report.

For more examples of embedded content, read this official guide on how to Embed external content in reports from Google and view their Sample Report showing examples.