Surprisingly, There are still a few platforms is out there that don’t integrate with Facebook ads.   I know, it’s shocking. After all, it’s 2019 and most businesses have the expectation that the tools they use will integrate well with common advertising platforms.   Sadly, that’s not the case!

We have encountered several platforms that our clients use that don’t integrate with Facebook ads, which means that were unable to track conversions effectively for a client’s campaigns.  That’s a deal breaker for any advertising campaign!

The good news is we found a way to make it work.   It’s a bit of a workaround, and I’m hoping that Facebook will be integrated with these platforms in the future.  

This article is going to be a guide on how to use Google Analytics to track conversions for your Facebook ads.

 

How to track Facebook ads in Google Analytics

if you’re reading this article,  I’m going to assume that you already know the reasons for tracking conversions for your advertising campaigns. the main reason is so that you can see the and results of your campaigns and improve attribution from an individual ad set.   generally speaking, the Facebook pixel will track all of this information for you if you install on to your website or into your booking platform. when your booking platform or software doesn’t integrate with the Facebook pixel,  this method can work!

 

Step One: install Google Analytics

in order to use Google analytics, you need to set up a new Google Analytics property and install it on your booking platform.   here is an article that we were previously about how you can do that.

 

Step Two:  Use a URL builder to create UTM codes

I hear you asking, what the hell is UTM?  A UTM code is a suffix that you can add to the end of a URL to help you track the performance of your campaigns. There are five different utm codes that you can add on to a URL, these are campaign source, medium, name, term and content.  if you’re familiar with Facebook ads, you’re probably aware of the section in your Facebook ads manager where you’re able to add on URL parameters for your ad. this is where we’re going to be adding these utm codes.

In order to create UTM codes, you need to use a builder tool.  Luckily Google has it’s only URL Builder tool which you can find here!

https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/

Using the URL builder tool you should:

1. First, add the destination URL you want to use for your ad (obviously).
2. Add “facebook” as your Campaign Source
3. Use either “sales”, “bookings”, “cpc” or something similar as your Campaign Medium depending on how you are tracking conversions.  This identifies the goals for your campaign.

The next UTM sections apply to your individual campaigns, ad sets & ads:

1. Use your Facebook Ads campaign name as your Campaign Name.
2. Use your Facebook Ads ad set name as your Campaign Term.
3. Use your individual ad names as your Campaign Content.

Important note: You need to repeat the step above for each campaign/ad set/ad that you want to track individually.

Step Three: Add codes to your Facebook campaign

Using the UTM code generator from Step two, copy and paste the new URL into the website URL destination in your Facebook ad.

Step Four: Tracking in Google Analytics

great work, now that  we have successfully created the URL to track your Facebook campaigns and Google Analytics and added that to your Facebook campaigns,   you need to track a performance and Google Analytics.

 

to do this, you need to go into Google Analytics  and navigate to the acquisitions section. if you click on all traffic, you should see sub menu for source/medium.  

From this section of Google Analytics you can select the parameter you want to track which for us will be Facebook Ads.    depending on the platform you’re using, this should show you the acquisitions you’ve obtained through your Facebook ads.

 

I hope that this tutorial make sense and that it’s clear enough to follow,  leave us a comment if you have any feedback or need help!