How To Track Facebook Ads in Google Analytics [The Easy Way]

Accurately tracking Facebook ads in Google Analytics consists of two primary steps:

1. Clearly defined and consistent UTM Parameters so that you can identify Facebook traffic in Google Analytics
2. Import cost, impression, and click data into Google Analytics so that you can map platform and session data

Analyzing performance holistically can be a daunting task given that Facebook and Google don’t always play nicely together.

But as a data-driven marketer accurately tracking Facebook ads in google analytics is crucial to understanding campaign performance.

So let’s explore a method for efficient Facebook ad tracking after we take a look at the current problem.

Tracking Facebook Ads in Google Analytics is Time Consuming

Reporting works well within the confines of one specific vendor.

Google products, for example, work well together in that they allow the linking of Google Analytics (reporting) and Adwords (advertising platform), enabling one to see all data seamlessly in a single reporting interface.

Although Facebook has become a prominent advertising platform, it does not, like Google, have a diverse product portfolio and does not provide reporting outside of platform-specific metrics.

Note: Facebook does provide a reporting and Analytics Tool that is worth exploring.

Since there is no way to seamlessly connect the two platforms, what are our options?

• Analyze and report on each platform separately
• Map the data in a spreadsheet
• Perform manual exports & GA custom imports

All of these options, even with a sound system in place, can be extremely time-consuming, taking away from analyzing and optimizing campaign performance.

In this article, I will go over three available Google Analytics features that you can leverage when tracking Facebook ads in Google Analytics:

1. Data Import
2. Calculated Metrics
3. Custom Reports

It Starts with Proper Campaign Tagging

Let’s go back to the beginning.

When setting up Facebook campaigns, many digital marketers use the Google Campaign URL builder to generate UTMS that look something like this:

/http://easyautotagging.com/?utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=Spring%20Launch&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content=lifestyle%20image

Aside from the manual effort required, there is nothing wrong with this approach.

That said, defining the source as ‘facebook’ and medium as ‘cpc’ provides limited insight into audience/targeting performance.

Using Available Facebook Campaign Fields

There is a more straightforward way to tag your URLs without having to come up with a unique naming convention for UTM fields.

The easiest way to tracking Facebook Ads in Google Analytics is to create unique naming conventions for your Facebook Campaigns, Ad Sets, and Ads that you then use to tag your UTMs respectively.

Below is an example of what the UTM fields and their respective Facebook values would look like:

Campaign – “Campaign Name”

Source – “Facebook” or “Instagram”

Medium – “Ad Set Name”

Ad Content – “Ad Name”

Note: Using Ad Set Name (read audience) as the medium value can mess with your default and/or custom channel grouping in Google Analytics. You can either modify your channel grouping or map custom parameters to custom dimensions.

There are two ways you can go about tagging your campaigns:

Bulk exports/imports via the power editor

EasyAutoTagging which automates tagging all of your Facebook campaign ad URLs

I go into details of how you can do this in How to Track Granular Facebook Campaign Performance in Google Analytics.

Linking your Google Analytics Account

So, how can you see this data in Google Analytics?

First, we have to import Facebook campaign cost, impression and click data into Google Analytics in one of two ways:

1. Manual Import
2. Automated Import

Option 1: Manual Import

Without EasyAutoTagging, you are limited to exporting Facebook campaign data daily, weekly, or monthly, then manually importing it into Google Analytics via Data Imports.

First, go to your Facebook accounts Ads Manager and  select your desired date range:

Select the Ads tab across the top and Go to Columns and Select Performance and Clicks:

Customize columns and add Campaign Name, Ad Set Name, and Ad Name:

Click Breakdown > by time > Day

Select the campaigns you would like to import and export these to a CSV file:

Open the CSV and delete all columns except:

Day (Reporting Starts), Amount Spent, Campaign Name, Ad Set Name, Ad Name, Impressions, Link Clicks

Once you have these cleaned up, head over to Google Analytics and go to Admin > Data Import

Select your cost import dataset. I go into the detail on how to set up cost, impression, click DataSet in Setting Up Cost Data Sets.

Copy and paste the headers into your CSV respectively of column values.

For source, you need to manually add the source as Facebook and/or Instagram depending on campaign/ad set placement.

Format the date column from 5/3/2017 to  this 532017

Your final results should look like this:

Go back to Data Imports in Google Analytics and click on manage uploads > Upload File and upload your CSV doc.

Option 2: Automated Daily Import

With EasyAutoTagging’s GA Connector you can easily link your Facebook campaigns to Google Analytics using the same UTM values assigned when generating URL parameters.

Just follow the set up in How to Track Granular Facebook Campaign Performance in Google Analytics

With automated daily imports of your Facebook campaign data, you can now generate detailed insights across platform metrics, and session behavior in a single location when tracking Facebook Ads in Google Analytics.

Ok let’s get started:

Log in to EasyAutoTagging.

Create a new connection group and connect to your desired Google Analytics and Facebook accounts.

Click continue.

Next select your Google Analytics Account, Property and DataSet and define your Parameter Values. (source, medium, campaign, content)

Note: You can choose a pre-defined or enter custom parameter values. To ensure proper mapping, please make sure that you import parameter values exactly match your defined UTM parameter values.

Assign a name and save the Connection Group.

Note: If you do not have a data set created you need to create one in Google Analytics first. You can see how to do this in Setting Up Cost Data Sets

Once you saved the connection group, you can add facebook campaigns as needed.

You will get notified via email once the initial upload of all campaign data to date has completed and all connected campaigns will continue to import data daily.

Seeing the data in Google Analytics 

Ok, now that we have all campaigns tagged and are tracking Facebook Ads in Google Analytics, where can we see our Facebook ad analytics?

Let’s start with two default views that Google Analytics gives us:

Campaign View

In the campaign view, we can see an overview of campaign performance.

For more granularity, we can add secondary dimensions to see ad content or source/medium breakdowns.

Cost Analysis View

The Cost Analysis View shows cost, impression, clicks, CTR, CPC, and some primary on-site metrics on a campaign and/or source/medium breakdown allowing us to analyze platform alongside sessions data.

Both of these views, although isolated from each other within Google Analytics, can already provide a wealth of insights, but let’s take tracking Facebook ads in Google Analytics one step further with Calculated Metrics and Custom Reports.

Calculated Metrics

Google defines Calculated Metrics as follows:
Calculated Metrics are user-defined metrics that are computed from existing metrics and drive more relevant analysis and enable greater actionability without leaving the product.
Ok, so here are a few example metrics that we might want to see in our reports.

Note: Keep in mind that one can only create 5 calculated metrics per view in the standard Google Analytics version.

CPV – cost per visitor (this will always be different than CPC since many platforms have a clicks to session drop off up to 25%)

Goal

CP Goal

Goal Conversion Rate

Let’s get started…you can find calculated metrics in your Admin section

Add a new custom calculation, call it CPV and define the formatting type as Currency (Decimal):

Enter the formula and click Create:

Do the same for your specific goal conversion rate and cost per conversion. In this case, we will use engaged user.

Now that we have the custom calculations in place, we can go ahead and set up our custom reports.

Custom Reports

Having all data aggregated doesn’t mean you have to use Google Analytics for reporting – it just makes it easier to pull all your Google Analytics Facebook data from one place.

But for the sake of this article, let’s stick with custom reports within Google Analytics.

Let’s go ahead and set up a custom report.

Go to Customization and click create a New Custom Report

Select a Flat Table and add:

Dimensions:

Campaign | Source / Medium | Ad Content

Metrics:

Impressions | Cost | Clicks | CTR | CPM | CPC | CPV | Session | Engaged Users | CP Engaged User | CR Engaged

Apply Filters as needed:

Select your view:

Label the report and hit save.

You can now see all of your campaign platforms and on-site data in one place.

Tell us in the comments what you have done to make tracking Facebook ads in Google Analytics a seamless process?