This past week, our Customer Success team hosted a webinar on a powerful feature in the AgencyAnalytics platform: Embed Widgets.

Embed Widgets allow you to add any external URL into a dashboard and display externally hosted data such as websites, videos, and so on. In this article, we’ll go over several key takeaways from the webinar, including:

• What is Embedding?
• Benefits of Embed Widgets
• Use Cases of Embed Widgets
• Embed Widget Dashboard Examples
• How to Add Embed Widgets to a Dashboard
• Limitations of Embedding

If you prefer to watch the webinar yourself, you can find it the recording below:https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/CCg5LC9L-ys

What is Embedding?

Embedding simply refers to integrating content from one location online to another.

Embed widgets within the AgencyAnalytics platform allow agencies to add data and content from other websites into their reports and dashboards. Below is an example of a dashboard that uses embed widgets to include a slideshow, YouTube videos, Google Sheets, and more. We’ll go through each of these use cases in more detail below.

Embedding data from another website into your AgencyAnalytics campaign gives you the opportunity to further customize the look and feel of your campaigns and impress your clients in the process.

Benefits of Embed Widgets

Before we get into examples and use case, a few of the main benefits of embed widgets include:

• Integration: Embed widgets are incredibly useful to display data and pages from most external websites and platforms.
• Better visualization: These widgets can also elevate your campaign and report presentation.
• Instant access: Finally, they provide instant access to different websites and platform’s data in one place.

Now that we know what embed widgets are and their benefits, let’s look at a few real-world use cases.

Use Cases of Embed Widgets

Below are a number of ideas and examples of what you can embed in a dashboard or report:

• Social media posts and feeds
• Videos, music, slideshows, and images
• Highlight your agency’s services, for example, your offerings and pricing
• Full websites
• Landing pages
• Third-party dashboards
• Google Sheets data
• Ad creative
• Local or map listings
• Calendar apps
• Survey forms
• Data from unsupported integrations, such as Google Data Studio
• Graphs and data from third-party platforms

With these use cases in mind, let’s look at several dashboard examples to showcase what can be done with embed widgets.

Embed Widget Dashboard Examples

Dashboard 1: Social Media Performance Dashboard

The dashboard below highlights a client’s social media performance. In particular, the dashboard below complements social media metrics for LinkedIn and Facebook with an embedding of the best performing post for each account: 

Below that we’ve added a form to capture a survey and an embedded calendar app where clients can book a meeting with you directly with the dashboard:

Dashboard 2: Rankings, GMB, and Site Health

The next dashboard starts off with both a textbox alongside an embedded YouTube video in order to explain to clients exactly how the dashboard works.

Below that, we have a traffic analytics section that includes Google Analytics metrics that is complemented with an embedded Google Data Studio report and a line chart pulled directly from Google Sheets:

Next, this dashboard features a section that embeds Google Maps and Google My Business performance data:

Finally, the dashboard features a section for tracking the performance of the client’s site with our Site Auditor as well as the website itself in an embed widget:

Dashboard 3: Internal Use for Agencies

This dashboard is built for internal use at an agency and includes search engine ranking data alongside an embed widget for keyword volatility from an external tool Algoroo:

Below that, we have a Google Sheet that can be edited directly within the sheet. If you’re interested in learning more about how to use Google Sheets with AgencyAnalytics, check out our previous Customer Success webinar on the topic here: 

Finally, we’ve also included a section for HubSpot data, which as you can see can be used to create a powerful all-in-one dashboard that combines multiple tools within one platform:

Embed Widgets for Reports

Everything we’ve shown so far has been used in a dashboard, although keep in mind that embed widgets can also be used in a report as well.

Below you can see an example of a report that includes an embedded landing page from Unbounce alongside the page’s visitors and conversion metrics:

On the next page we have an embed widget for a local visibility report that pulls third party data across various external platforms: 

Finally, the last page is dedicated to results and includes an embedded slideshow, which in this example is being used to upsell clients on additional services.

How to Add Embed Widgets to a Dashboard

Now that we’ve reviewed several examples, let’s look at how to actually add these widgets to a blank dashboard. For many cases, you can simply use a URL, although in some cases you may need an embed code.

To start, simply click on “Edit Dashboard”, “Add Widget”, and select the “Misc” option. From there, you’ll have the option to select “Embed” and finally you’ll be prompted to either add a URL or an iFrame:

Each of these embed widgets can then be resized to fit your dashboard with our drag-and-drop feature. 

Embedding a Social Post

If you want to embed a post from a social platform, for example, you will often need to generate an embed code. For example, below you can see the option to generate an embed code for a post on LinkedIn:

Similarly, if you want to include a Google Data Studio report you will need to generate an iFrame code. 

Limitations of Embedding

It’s important to note that there are certain limitations to Embed Widgets as certain websites simply don’t allow embedding—for example, Trello boards don’t allow for embedding.

One trick to know if the platform does support embedding is to simply Google “platform + embed options” to see if the site allows for embedding.

Another limitation to note is that dashboard and report users will need to be logged into each of the embedded platforms to view them. For example, if your client does not have access to HubSpot you will need to grant them access before they can view the data.

If you do find a platform that says it supports embedding but it doesn’t seem to be working, you can simply contact our support team for further assistance. To conclude, if you have any requests for future webinars you can also let our support team know, and if you’d like to request features for the platform you can do so here.