As a writer for the marketing blog, I frequently use various types of charts and graphs to help readers visualize the data I collect and better understand their significance. And trust me, there's a lot of data to present.
In fact, the volume of data in 2025 will be almost double the data we create, capture, copy, and consume today.
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A lot of people think charts and graphs are synonymous (I know I did), but they're actually two different things.
Charts visually represent current data in the form of tables and diagrams, but graphs are more numerical in data and show how one variable affects another.
For example, in one of my favorite sitcoms, How I Met Your Mother, Marshall creates a bunch of charts and graphs representing his life. One of these charts is a Venn diagram referencing the song "Cecilia" by Simon and Garfunkle.
Marshall says, "This circle represents people who are breaking my heart, and this circle represents people who are shaking my confidence daily. Where they overlap? Cecilia."
The diagram is a chart and not a graph because it doesn't track how these people make him feel over time or how these variables are influenced by each other.
It may show where the two types of people intersect but not how they influence one another.
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Later, Marshall makes a line graph showing how his friends' feelings about his charts have changed in the time since presenting his "Cecilia diagram.
Note: He calls the line graph a chart on the show, but it's acceptable because the nature of line graphs and charts makes the terms interchangeable. I'll explain later, I promise.
The line graph shows how the time since showing his Cecilia chart has influenced his friends' tolerance for his various graphs and charts.
I can't even begin to tell you all how happy I am to reference my favorite HIMYM joke in this post.
Now, let's dive into the various types of graphs and charts.
I strongly suggest using a bar graph to avoid clutter when one data label is long or if you have more than 10 items to compare. Also, fun fact: If the example below was vertical it would be a column graph.
Bar graphs can help track changes over time. I've found that bar graphs are most useful when there are big changes or to show how one group compares against other groups.
The example above compares the number of customers by business role. It makes it easy to see that there is more than twice the number of customers per role for individual contributors than any other group.
A bar graph also makes it easy to see which group of data is highest or most common.
For example, at the start of the pandemic, online businesses saw a big jump in traffic. So, if you want to look at monthly traffic for an online business, a bar graph would make it easy to see that jump.
Other use cases for bar graphs include:
Use consistent colors throughout the chart, selecting accent colors to highlight meaningful data points or changes over time.
You should also use horizontal labels to improve its readability, and start the y-axis at 0 to appropriately reflect the values in your graph.
A line graph reveals trends or progress over time, and you can use it to show many different categories of data. You should use it when you track a continuous data set.
This makes the terms line graphs and line charts interchangeable because the very nature of both is to track how variables impact each other, particularly how something changes over time. Yeah, it confused me, too.
Line graphs help users track changes over short and long periods. Because of this, I find these types of graphs are best for seeing small changes.
Line graphs help me compare changes for more than one group over the same period. They're also helpful for measuring how different groups relate to each other.
A business might use this graph to compare sales rates for different products or services over time.
These charts are also helpful for measuring service channel performance. For example, a line graph that tracks how many chats or emails your team responds to per month.
A bullet graph reveals progress towards a goal, compares this to another measure, and provides context in the form of a rating or performance.
In the example above, the bullet graph shows the number of new customers against a set customer goal. Bullet graphs are great for comparing performance against goals like this.
These types of graphs can also help teams assess possible roadblocks because you can analyze data in a tight visual display.
For example, I could create a series of bullet graphs measuring performance against benchmarks or use a single bullet graph to visualize these KPIs against their goals:
Seeing this data at a glance and alongside each other can help teams make quick decisions.
Bullet graphs are one of the best ways to display year-over-year data analysis. YBullet graphs can also visualize:
Column + line graphs are also called dual-axis charts. They consist of a column and line graph together, with both graphics on the X axis but occupying their own Y axis.
These graphs are best for comparing two data sets with different measurement units, such as rate and time.
As a marketer, you may want to track two trends at once.
Use individual colors for the lines and colors to make the graph more visually appealing and to further differentiate the data.
Tired of struggling with spreadsheets? These free Microsoft Excel Graph Generator Templates can help.
