diff --git a/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/__mocks__/cloudMonitoringInstanceSettings.ts b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/__mocks__/cloudMonitoringInstanceSettings.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..ad219a42330
--- /dev/null
+++ b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/__mocks__/cloudMonitoringInstanceSettings.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,25 @@
+import { DataSourceInstanceSettings, DataSourcePluginMeta } from '@grafana/data';
+import { GoogleAuthType } from '@grafana/google-sdk';
+
+import { CloudMonitoringOptions } from '../types';
+
+export const createMockInstanceSetttings = (
+  overrides?: Partial<DataSourceInstanceSettings<CloudMonitoringOptions>>
+): DataSourceInstanceSettings<CloudMonitoringOptions> => ({
+  url: '/ds/1',
+  id: 1,
+  uid: 'abc',
+  type: 'stackdriver',
+  access: 'proxy',
+  meta: {} as DataSourcePluginMeta,
+  name: 'stackdriver',
+
+  jsonData: {
+    authenticationType: GoogleAuthType.JWT,
+    defaultProject: 'test-project',
+    gceDefaultProject: 'test-project',
+    clientEmail: 'test-email@test.com',
+    tokenUri: 'https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token',
+  },
+  ...overrides,
+});
diff --git a/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/__mocks__/cloudMonitoringQuery.ts b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/__mocks__/cloudMonitoringQuery.ts
index a5aa7e49749..f41e0d8c8bb 100644
--- a/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/__mocks__/cloudMonitoringQuery.ts
+++ b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/__mocks__/cloudMonitoringQuery.ts
@@ -1,5 +1,9 @@
 import { AlignmentTypes, CloudMonitoringQuery, EditorMode, MetricQuery, QueryType, SLOQuery } from '../types';
 
+type Subset<K> = {
+  [attr in keyof K]?: K[attr] extends object ? Subset<K[attr]> : K[attr];
+};
+
 export const createMockMetricQuery: (overrides?: Partial<MetricQuery>) => MetricQuery = (
   overrides?: Partial<MetricQuery>
 ) => {
@@ -9,6 +13,9 @@ export const createMockMetricQuery: (overrides?: Partial<MetricQuery>) => Metric
     crossSeriesReducer: 'REDUCE_NONE',
     query: '',
     projectName: 'cloud-monitoring-default-project',
+    filters: [],
+    groupBys: [],
+    view: 'FULL',
     ...overrides,
   };
 };
@@ -28,12 +35,17 @@ export const createMockSLOQuery: (overrides?: Partial<SLOQuery>) => SLOQuery = (
   };
 };
 
-export const createMockQuery: (overrides?: Partial<CloudMonitoringQuery>) => CloudMonitoringQuery = (overrides) => {
+export const createMockQuery: (overrides?: Subset<CloudMonitoringQuery>) => CloudMonitoringQuery = (overrides) => {
   return {
+    datasource: {
+      type: 'stackdriver',
+      uid: 'abc',
+    },
     refId: 'cloudMonitoringRefId',
     queryType: QueryType.METRICS,
     intervalMs: 0,
     type: 'timeSeriesQuery',
+    hide: false,
     ...overrides,
     metricQuery: createMockMetricQuery(overrides?.metricQuery),
     sloQuery: createMockSLOQuery(overrides?.sloQuery),
diff --git a/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/datasource.test.ts b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/datasource.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..792544145cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/datasource.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+import { TemplateSrv } from 'app/features/templating/template_srv';
+
+import { createMockInstanceSetttings } from './__mocks__/cloudMonitoringInstanceSettings';
+import { createMockQuery } from './__mocks__/cloudMonitoringQuery';
+import Datasource from './datasource';
+
+describe('Cloud Monitoring Datasource', () => {
+  describe('interpolateVariablesInQueries', () => {
+    it('should leave a query unchanged if there are no template variables', () => {
+      const mockInstanceSettings = createMockInstanceSetttings();
+      const ds = new Datasource(mockInstanceSettings);
+      const query = createMockQuery();
+      const templateVariablesApplied = ds.interpolateVariablesInQueries([query], {});
+      expect(templateVariablesApplied[0]).toEqual(query);
+    });
+
+    it('should correctly apply template variables', () => {
+      const templateSrv = new TemplateSrv();
+      templateSrv.replace = jest.fn().mockReturnValue('project-variable');
+      const mockInstanceSettings = createMockInstanceSetttings();
+      const ds = new Datasource(mockInstanceSettings, templateSrv);
+      const query = createMockQuery({ metricQuery: { projectName: '$testVar' } });
+      const templatedQuery = ds.interpolateVariablesInQueries([query], {});
+      expect(templatedQuery[0]).toHaveProperty('datasource');
+      expect(templatedQuery[0].metricQuery.projectName).toEqual('project-variable');
+    });
+  });
+});
diff --git a/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/datasource.ts b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/datasource.ts
index 20b28f7a229..178c72d3c37 100644
--- a/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/datasource.ts
+++ b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/datasource.ts
@@ -57,16 +57,12 @@ export default class CloudMonitoringDatasource extends DataSourceWithBackend<
     return super.query(request);
   }
 
-  applyTemplateVariables(
-    { metricQuery, refId, queryType, sloQuery, type = 'timeSeriesQuery' }: CloudMonitoringQuery,
-    scopedVars: ScopedVars
-  ): Record<string, any> {
+  applyTemplateVariables(target: CloudMonitoringQuery, scopedVars: ScopedVars): Record<string, any> {
+    const { metricQuery, sloQuery } = target;
     return {
+      ...target,
       datasource: this.getRef(),
-      refId,
       intervalMs: this.intervalMs,
-      type,
-      queryType,
       metricQuery: {
         ...this.interpolateProps(metricQuery, scopedVars),
         projectName: this.templateSrv.replace(
diff --git a/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/functions.ts b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/functions.ts
index fb7c1ab2ccb..598053ebf87 100644
--- a/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/functions.ts
+++ b/public/app/plugins/datasource/cloud-monitoring/functions.ts
@@ -7,8 +7,6 @@ import { AGGREGATIONS, ALIGNMENTS, SYSTEM_LABELS } from './constants';
 import CloudMonitoringDatasource from './datasource';
 import { AlignmentTypes, CustomMetaData, MetricDescriptor, MetricKind, PreprocessorType, ValueTypes } from './types';
 
-const templateSrv: TemplateSrv = getTemplateSrv();
-
 export const extractServicesFromMetricDescriptors = (metricDescriptors: MetricDescriptor[]) =>
   uniqBy(metricDescriptors, 'service');
 
@@ -79,6 +77,7 @@ export const getAlignmentPickerData = (
   perSeriesAligner: string | undefined = AlignmentTypes.ALIGN_MEAN,
   preprocessor?: PreprocessorType
 ) => {
+  const templateSrv: TemplateSrv = getTemplateSrv();
   const alignOptions = getAlignmentOptionsByMetric(valueType!, metricKind!, preprocessor!).map((option) => ({
     ...option,
     label: option.text,