Facebook Ads & Looker Studio: setup and key metrics

Running PPC campaigns on Facebook Ads is unavoidable when you try to sell online. With more than three billion users monthly, Facebook Ads is one of the best-performing social media. It is best to use it when trying to overgrowth a business.

But you need more than just Facebook Ads for your business. You will also need a way to create a dashboard and analyze your campaign performance.

That's when Looker Studio comes in. Looker is a free tool developed by Google. It allows you to create charts and dig into your data quickly.

We will see in this tutorial how to create your first Facebook Ads report for Looker Studio.

How to create a Facebook Ads data source in Looker Studio?

First, you need to understand how Looker Studio works. You have two main entities: reports and data sources. A report uses a data source to access data and display it.

So let's create our Facebook Ads data source and then a report. 

To create a data source, you must use a partner connector. You can learn more about data sources and connectors on this page.

To access our Facebook Ads connector for Looker Studio, follow this link, and click Connect in Looker Studio green button.

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You arrive in the Facebook Ads connector in Looker Studio : 

• Click Authorize to log in or create an account on Catchr.

• Click Authorize again to connect Catchr and your Google account.

• And click Authorize to link Facebook Ads, Looker Studio, and Catchr.

Once these three steps are over, you will access the configuration of the data source:

• First, select your account.

Then select the configuration (if you don't know what to choose, you can skip this part and modify it later, the default configuration will be applied).

For the left column:

• Attribution Window: The attribution used in the report. If blank, the default configuration will take 7 days clicks / 1 day views.
• Unified Attribution Settings: If checked, your result will be shown using the ads attribution settings, and the Account Attribution Settings will be ignored.
• Account Attribution Settings: If checked, your result will be shown using the account attribution settings.
• Report time of action stats: The action from where your conversion will be reported. If blank, the default configuration will be on impressions.

For the right column: 

• Each checkbox allows the configuration on the left column to be editable in your charts' report. You'll see this in the configuration panel:

Uncheck the Use report template for new report options. We want to start a blank new report.

Finally, click Connect on the top right to create your Facebook Ads data source on Looker Studio!

The next page you'll see is the field list of your data source. Every field you see here is usable in a report.

One last tip before creating your report: rename your data source at the top right. It will be easier to find later.

Now that your data source is configured, connected, and renamed, we can proceed.

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How to create a Facebook Ads report in Looker Studio?

From your Facebook Ads data source, click on Create report at the top right.

This new page is your new report. Start by renaming it at the top left.

You can learn more about this interface on this page.

Now we need to decide what we want our report to show and which metrics and dimensions I want to use.

Which metrics and dimensions to choose to create your Looker Studio report?

Facebook Ads metrics:

I aim to lead the user on my website and make him purchase my product. So here's the list I will use :

• Spend -> How much I spend on Facebook Ads campaign.
• Impressions -> The number of time my ads was shown.
• Reach -> The number of Facebook users who saw an ad.
• Cost per Mille -> Cost for 1000 impressions to better understand an ad's cost.
• Outbound Clicks -> Clicks that lead to my website (if you'd rather have all the clicks that lead to your content on and out of Facebook, you can use the Link Click).
• Cost per Outbound Click -> To know how much an outbound click costs.
• Adds to cart -> The number of add-to carts on my website.
• Cost per Add to cart -> To know how much an adds to cart costs
• Purchases -> The number of purchases on my website generated by a Facebook ad.
• Cost per Purchase -> what the costs of a purchase.
• Purchases Value -> Revenue generated by my ads.
• Conversion rate -> The percent of people that purchased after a click on a Facebook ad that led to my website.
• Return on Ads Spend (ROAS) -> Revenue generated for every euro spent on my ads.

These metrics will give me a good idea of my ads' performance. I could have included more metrics like the Leads and Cost per Lead or the Landing page views, but I did not want to surcharge my report. Instead, I might include them in a website focus page.

Custom metrics and custom events:

I won't use any custom metrics or custom events in this report, but you can find yours in your data source:

• Custom Conversions are prefixed with "- custom conversion".
• Custom events are prefixed with "- custom event" and are only available for the last 30 days.

If you cannot find one, please ensure your data source is only connected to 1 account. Data sources created with multiple accounts will only have shared metrics and dimensions, therefore, not have the custom one.

Facebook Ads dimensions:

I choose all the metrics I need. Now, let's select the dimensions to break down these metrics:

• Campaign name -> General campaign breakdown, give me the performance of each campaign.
• Objective -> To use a dynamic filter to filter the entire report quickly.
• Date -> To check on the evolution.

Since IOs 14.5, it's irrelevant to use breakdowns like age, gender, and country. So instead, you better name your campaign and ad set with all these pieces of information and use calculated fields to extract them (this will be a subject for another blog post, link coming soon).

You can find the complete list of metrics and dimensions on the data source or in our academy.

Adding charts to your report:

We choose the metrics and dimensions, but before using them, we will just add a Date Range Selector.

Date range selector:

Add a date range selector to your report. It will let your viewers filter the temporality of the result display.

• Click Add a control, then Date range selector, and place it in the report.

You can fix your default date range instead of the "last 28 days" used.

Now let's use the metrics and dimensions !

Scorecards:

To start, we will place a line of cards with the global metrics :

• Click on Add a chart, then Scorecard. Place it on the canvas.
• In the configuration panel, choose impression.

• Add the comparison options.

We place our first card. As I want to save time, we will add a style and copy this card instead of recreating it:

• Select the card and go to the Style panel.
• Increase the font size.
• Align the texts in the middle.
• Add a border and a border-radius.

Now copy and paste this card and change the metric for Reach. You can repeat this action for every base metric. 

For the calculated fields, proceed like this:

• Copy and paste a card
• Open the metrics list and click Create a calculated field at the bottom.
• Name your new field and enter a formula.
• Give it a type (currency or percent)

Here are the formulas for all calculated fields:

• Cost per Mille (CPM) : SUM(Spend)/SUM(impressions)*1000
• Cost per Outbound Clicks : SUM(Spend)/SUM(Outbound clicks)
• Cost per Adds to Cart : SUM(Spend)/SUM(Adds to Cart)
• Cost per Purchases : SUM(Spend)/SUM(Purchases)
• Conversion rate : SUM(Purchases)/SUM(Outbound clicks)
• Return on Ads Spend : SUM(Purchases Values)/SUM(Spend)
  

Once set up, we can align them perfectly :

• Place the first one and the last one.
• Select all scorecards in the canvas.
• Distribute them: right-clicks, Distribute, and Horizontally.
• Align them to the top: right-clicks, Vertical Align, and Top.

Great, we finished the setup for overall metrics. Let's do the breakdown now!

Table:

We will use a table for the breakdown by Campaign name and Ads creative image:

• Click Add a chart, then Table. Place it in the report.
• On the configuration panel, select the dimension Campaign name.
• Add all the metrics.

Time series:

Let's use a time series for our evolution by day. I want to know two things:

• First, the difference between spend and revenue.
• Second, the growth of the number of outbound clicks and how much it costs me daily.

To do so :

• Click Add a chart, then Time series, and place it in the report.

• In dimension, select Day. In metrics, choose Outbound Clicks and create a calculated field for the Cost per Outbound Clicks

• Change the style to bar charts to identify the day with less revenue than spent.

Filter by Objective:

Sometimes, even if your main goal is user purchases, you can define other objectives for some campaign (notoriety, for example). You can set up a dynamic filter with the different objective types by doing this:

• Click Add a control. Select the Dropdown list. Place it in the report.
• Use Objective in the dimension.
• Filter your data.