How to connect Facebook Ads to Google Data Studio

What is Google Data Studio and why you should use it ?

Google Data Studio is a free Google tools that let you create dashboard to get meaningful insight about your data.

It connects to Google tools for free :

• Google Analytics
• Google Sheets
• Google Ads
• BigQuery
• Google Ads Manager
• Google Cloud Storage

And you’ll need Partner Connector to connect to other platforms such as Facebook Ads, Instagram, LinkedIn Ads, Tiktok Ads, Pinterest Ads…

Thanks to Google Data Studio, you can create custom dashboard with custom filter and control field that let viewer dig into the data the way they want.

It is a good solution to avoid searching in the Business Manager from Facebook Ads and give clients a great interface to search for data.

In order to use Google Data Studio, you only need to go to Google Data Studio connect with Gmail or a Google account.

‍

How to link Facebook Ads to Google Data Studio ?

To link Facebook Ads to Google Data Studio, you need to connect with your Google Data Studio account and use a Partner Connector.

You’ll find ours here.

If you search for Instagram Ads and Messenger data, they are all in our Facebook Ads connector, you do not need to use other connector to get those data.

‍

Create your data source on Google Data Studio

Ok now that you found the connector, click on it and pass the 2 step of authorization. The first one allows Catchr to gather your data, the second one allows Google Data Studio to use them in a datasource.

Select your account and let’s configure your Facebook data source :

The configuration allows you to manage attribution settings. The left column freezes the configuration for all the data source. The second one let report editor manage it for each component. At first, I advise checking all the right column.

The last checkbox “Use report template for new report” select the default behavior for the report creation from the data sources.

Then click on “Connect” at the

Your Google Data Studio is now created and ready to be used in reports !

Use a template or create a report from scratch.

A lot of templates for Google Data Studio exist on the internet. You can find some on our library but a quick search on Google and you’ll find many more.

Use a template

In order to use a template, you need to create a copy of it.

To do so :

• Open the template.
• Click on the 3 dots at the top right, the “Copy template”.
• In the pop-up select your Facebook Ads data source (if you just created it and it does not appear, wait 1 minute, refresh the report and try again).
• Click on “Make a copy”.

Google Data Studio will do is best to associate every dimension and metrics to the reports. But as you probably want to change some metrics in the reports, I advise choosing a template with great design and associate the metrics the way you want.

All our template will be easier to use with our connector.

You can also create a report from scratch

From the home page :

• Click on “Create” → “Report”
• On the connector list, click on “my data source” to add to the one we created.

You just create a blank report with your Facebook Ads data sources !

If you want to know how to use the different dimensions and metrics, you can follow this tutorial [Link to create a facebook ads report]

From the data sources.

On the home page, go to your data source list and select your Facebook Ads data source.

On the top right corner, there is a button “Create report”. Click on it.

If you check the row “use report templates for new report”, this will create a new report using the default template for the connector.

You can edit the data source by clicking on “Edit connection” from the data source pages. There you can check or uncheck the “default template” checkbox.

Field list.

Here is a list of the most use event metrics, you don’t need to know them all as they will all be available in the data source. If you want to complete list, follow this link

Result metrics :

• Adds to Cart
• Adds to Wishlist
• App Installs
• Application Submitted
• Checkouts Initiated
• Contacts
• Content views
• Landing page views
• Leads
• Purchases
• Registrations completed
• Purchases ROAS (return on ads spend).
• Subscriptions

If you have Custom Event, you will retrieve them suffix with “- custom event”.

Performance Metrics :

• Impressions
• Reach
• Frequency
• Clicks
• Link Clicks
• Inline Link Clicks
• Outbound Clicks
• Engagements
• Cost per Mille (CPM)
• Cost per Clicks (CPC)
• Click through rates (CTR)
• Spend
• Purchases Value
• Media metrics :
• Video Play
• 3-Second Video Views
• Video 30 sec Watched Actions
• Video P25 Watched Actions
• Video P50 Watched Actions
• Video P75 Watched Actions
• Video P100 Watched Actions
• Video avg time Watched Actions

Most use breakdown fields :

• Ads : Campaign name, Adset name, Ad Name, Creative Id, Thumbnail URL
• Objective : Objective
• Application/device : Publisher Platform, Device Platform, Platform Position
• People : Age, Gender

You can use those to break down your metrics and learn more information about them.

Type of field :

Some of the metrics/dimensions are prefixed with words that give you more information about the metrics.

• Mobile App → Event that happens in your mobile app.
• Website → Event that happens in your website, you need the Facebook Ads Pixel to track that information.
• Offline → Event that happens in the real world. For example : a store purchase is an offline event.
• In-App → Event in the Facebook Application.
• On-Facebook → Event that happens on Facebook

‍

Q&A :

• Is Instagram Ads available in this connector ? Messenger ?

Yes Instagram Ads and ads running on messenger are available on this connector. You might find 2 different connector with other providers, but with Catchr, you don’t need to pay twice !

• Can I manage Attribution Settings on Google Data Studio ?

Yes, you can choose to freeze the settings for the data source or manage it for each component in Data Studio.

• Can I get the data about Age and Gender with Google Data Studio ?

Since IO14, most of this information are not available in the API, but with the right naming of the Campaigns and Adsets, we can extract those data. Feel free to ask for some help on this matter on our chat or at johan@catchr.io.

• Where can I find more templates for Facebook Ads ?

Check on our website, in the template sections, you will find many more.

• Can I have organic data with this connector ?

No, this connector is only made for advertising data. For all organic data, you need to use our Facebook Pages and Instagram connector.

‍

You want to know how to create a report from a blank canvas ? Follow this tutoriel to learn how to create your first report.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask on our chat or to write at johan@catchr.io, we will gladly help you =)

‍