What Analyze is
Open Analyze from the Lens sidebar. Analyze answers "what do I want to know?": how many orders came from paid search last month, which campaigns grew, how sessions trend by week. You get a number, a chart or a table in a few seconds, and you never pick a data table, a column or a join.
That works because Analyze reads an analysis area: a set of measures (Orders, Revenue, Sessions) and fields (Source, Campaign, Device, Date) that your Lens admin has defined once over your data tables, with business names and agreed formulas. See Semantic Models for how an analysis area is set up.
Analysis areas
| What you see | What it means |
|---|---|
| Analyzing area name, top left | The area every answer on the page comes from. Analyze opens the property's default area. |
| Other areas in that menu | Pick one to switch. Areas that are not ready are listed as "Needs setup before it can be analyzed" and cannot be opened. |
| "There is nothing to analyze yet" | No analysis area is set up for this property. Ask your Lens admin. |
| "Area needs setup before it can be analyzed" | The area exists but is not active, or its checks have not passed. Analyze stays closed rather than show answers that might be wrong. |
Every answer comes from the area's own definitions, so the same question always gets the same number, whether you ask it in words, build it in Explore, or open it from an Insight.
One analysis, two ways to edit it
The page holds one analysis at a time. It is shown as chips under Your analysis: the measures, the breakdowns, any Top N, the filters, the date range and the comparison.
| Way in | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Ask Lens (the question bar) | You can say what you want in a sentence. See Ask Lens a Question. |
| Explore (the side panel) | You want to pick measures, breakdowns and filters yourself. See Build an Analysis in Explore. |
They are not separate modes. Ask a question, then open Explore and change the date range; or build something in Explore, then type "only paid search" to refine it. Each change is a step in the same analysis.
- Undo goes back one step.
- History lists every step, marked as asked or edited, and lets you jump back to any of them.
- + Add on the chip strip adds a measure, breakdown or filter without opening Explore.
How the answer is shown
The answer shows the value, its name, the date range with its exact dates and, when you compare, the change against the comparison period. Pick a view on the right of the result:
| View | Available when | Default for |
|---|---|---|
| Number | The analysis has no breakdowns | A total with no breakdown |
| Line | The only breakdown is the date | A breakdown by date alone |
| Bar | Always | Never the default |
| Table | Always | Any breakdown by a field, or several breakdowns |
The view never changes a number: it only changes how the same answer is drawn. Several measures of different kinds or very different sizes are shown as a table, because they cannot share one axis.
Under some answers Lens shows a line of context it was not asked for, such as the change against the previous period. It is marked as context and is not part of your analysis; click Add this comparison to make it part of it.
Funnel
If your analysis area is set up for session funnels, a Funnel tab appears next to Explore. It counts how many sessions reached each step of an ordered sequence of events. See Build a Funnel in Analyze. Switching between the tabs keeps each one's work as it was.
Saving and sharing
Save Analysis keeps the question, not today's numbers: opening it later shows the data as of then. Share gives you a link that opens the exact analysis. See Save and Share an Analysis.
Limits
| Limit | Value |
|---|---|
| Measures in one analysis | 4 |
| Breakdowns in one analysis | 3 |
| Top N choices | All, 5, 10, 25 (a question can ask for another number) |
| Question length in Ask Lens | 300 characters |
| Funnel steps | 2 to 10 |
| Funnel date range | Up to 92 days |
Analyze shows each day, week or month and the total, but does not work out an average per day, week or month. Divide the total by the number of periods shown.