How Do You Tag Facebook Ads For Google Analytics?

As a best practice, performance marketers should always tag Facebook traffic to measure the campaign ROAS/CPA in Google Analytics. When you rely solely on the Facebook Pixel for conversion information, you are assuming that Facebook provides unbiased and complete data. Since advertisers tend to show themselves in the best light, it is a smart idea to cross-check Facebook Ad performance in Google Analytics. It is easy to do with a few key UTM tags. Tagging can also be referred to as URL tracking, link tracking, UTM tagging or campaign tracking.

Here is how to do it

Step 1) Create A New Campaign In Facebook

Go to the Ads Manager in Facebook and create a new ad. Select the Campaign Objective and then set your Audience, Placements, Budget and Schedule. Walk through each step of adding in creative content including the Format of the ad and all Media.

Step 2) Fill Out The Website URL

Now you are at the Page and Links section. First, fill out the Website URL section. Clicks on your ad will be directed to this URL.

Step 3) Build a URL Parameter

Finally, add in the URL Parameters that you want to be strung behind the Website URL. Here it’s best to use the Build a URL Parameter feature from Facebook, which allows you to work with Facebook variables. With this approach, you just need to do the setup once and can then forget about it. We have seen many accounts which do it manually and then forget to change the parameters when copying campaigns.

Go to Edit Ads and click Build a URL Parameter

Ads Manager Manage Ads Edit

Use variables to automatically populate the campaign name and campaign content. Add a custom parameter for utm_term to store {{ad.name}} in the utm_term dimension. The utm_term dimension appears as keyword dimension in Google Analytics. Here are the recommended settings:

facebook tagging utm

Note: for the campaign medium you might want to use cpc instead. This is depending on your channel groupings.

Step 4) Start tracking your paid Facebook performance in your Google Analytics data

Now you will see the traffic and the conversions/revenues from Facebook in your Google Analytics and can start slicing and dicing the data according to campaign, ad set and keyword dimensions.

Step 5) Use a data pipeline tool like Windsor.ai to match Facebook costs automatically to your conversions/revenues (Optional)

Now that you have the conversion/revenue data tagged properly it makes sense to also look at the costs which lead to conversions. Our platform can help with this.

Here is how to do it

Step 1) Create A New Campaign In Facebook

Step 2) Fill Out The Website URL

Step 3) Build a URL Parameter

Step 4) Start tracking your paid Facebook performance in your Google Analytics data

Step 5) Use a data pipeline tool like Windsor.ai to match Facebook costs automatically to your conversions/revenues (Optional)

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How Do You Tag Facebook Ads For Google Analytics?

Here is how to do it

Step 1) Create A New Campaign In Facebook

Step 2) Fill Out The Website URL

Step 3) Build a URL Parameter

Step 4) Start tracking your paid Facebook performance in your Google Analytics data

Step 5) Use a data pipeline tool like Windsor.ai to match Facebook costs automatically to your conversions/revenues (Optional)

You might also be interested in

Why You Can’t Match Facebook Conversions to Google Analytics Data

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Google Analytics raw, Google Ads, Facebook and windsor.ai data into Microsoft PowerBI

How to spend $520 000 on Advertising and Accomplish Absolutely Nothing (Facebook conversion double counting)

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