What is a secondary dimension?
Take a look at the image below. It's showing a metric (in this case sessions) and a dimension (in this case date).
But what if you want to split up that information even further, for example, to see sessions split by gender?
That's where secondary dimensions come in: In this example, gender is the secondary dimension.
Here's what the same "sessions" data looks like when we've chosen "gender" as a secondary dimension.
You still see sessions by date, but the extra dimension (gender) gives more detail to the chart.
Adding a secondary dimension
Secondary dimensions can be added to most line charts and column charts, on both reports and custom dashboards.
To enable a secondary dimension, first add a chart widget to your report or custom dashboard, then click the widget to open settings to the right. Click the Data tab to view dimension and metric options.
Available secondary dimensions for your selected metric will display in the dropdown. Click a secondary dimension to apply to the widget.
Line charts display multiple lines when a secondary dimension is active.
While column charts will display additional columns for the secondary dimension.
If you have a column chart, you'll see extra columns in the chart for your secondary dimension.
Stacked column charts
Secondary dimensions have additional settings found under the Display tab of the Edit Widget menu.
Depending on the metric selected, you may want to display stacked columns for more visual impact, like with this new and lost Backlinks graph.
