Getting started with the Google Analytics integration

Google Analytics lets you quickly cross-reference your Facebook results against your Google Analytics data on any Top Performing Ads report.

Elliott Brand avatar
Written by Elliott Brand
Updated over a week ago

About the Integration

The Google Analytics integration allows you to add Google Analytics-specific columns to your Motion reports:

Once connected, you’ll be able to view these Google columns in tandem against your Facebook results, to quickly compare between the two and select results from your chosen source of truth.

Integrating Google Analytics with Motion

Google Analytics is currently only available for Meta. It is not yet available for TikTok or Youtube.

Setting up the Google Analytics integration is easy with Motion. To get started:

  • Head to the top left menu, and select Workspace Settings

  • Under the Data Sources tab, select 'Add data enrichment' next to the ad account

  • Click the 'Connect' button next to Google Analytics

  • Choose the proper 'Google Analytics Account', and select the 'Property'

Matching ads to Google Analytics Data

The best method for UTM matching

Make sure to include {{ad.id}} in UTM_content, UTM_term, or UTM_campaign for best results. This gives us a unique identifier to match against despite naming and/or utm structure changes.

Here's an example:

utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=paidsocial&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_content={{ad.name}}_{{ad.id}}&utm_term={{adset.name}}

Motion can only read UTM_content, UTM_term, and UTM_campaign parameters to look for matching names/ids on the Meta side. We recommend using Meta's dynamic parameters to ensure consistency and reduce manual work when launching ads.

A less preferred method

Sometimes, marketers may not want to include Ad ID in their UTM data. In these instances, we can still match data so long as {{campaign.name}}, {{adset.name}}, and {{ad.name}} are all included within the UTM_content, UTM_term, and UTM_campaign parameters.

Please note, if you update your utm parameter structure on an active ad and the ad, ad set, or campaign name falls under a different utm parameter only half of your data will be matched. For example, if you update an active ad that historically included utm_term={{ad.name}} to a new structure that includes utm_content={{ad.name}}, Motion will not be able to match data for new results on that specific ad.

If you are not including {{ad.id}} in your parameters and are updating your structures, we recommend only rolling out the new structure to newly launched ads to prevent matching issues.

It's important to note that both Motion and Facebook discourage this strategy because naming UTMs of names is fundamentally unreliable, for two reasons:

  • If you change your ad name, Facebook will not update its dynamic name parameters. As a result, your Google Analytics data will not accurately reflect your Facebook data.

  • Sometimes, you may give two ads the same name. If this occurs, Google Analytics will combine data across these multiple ads.

View Google Analytics metrics in Motion reports

Currently Google Analytics works for Top Performing reports, and reports grouped by Ad Name.

Head into any Top Performing report, and type Google in the search bar to add in Google Analytics metrics. You will see the metrics added to your table chart below, where you can compare Google metrics to platform metrics.

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