Hey everyone. This is Sandeep here from 99signals. In this video, I'll show you how you can start
tracking Facebook ads more effectively in Google Analytics. We'll be using something called URL Parameters
to make it easier for us to start tracking Facebook ads in Google Analytics. So why do we need to use URL Parameters? Two reasons. One is that there's a lot of discrepancy between
the data that you get in Facebook Insights and the data that you get in Google Analytics. So by using URL parameters, you can avoid
that and you'll know exactly which campaign is driving what traffic to your website. Secondly, the data that you find in Google
Analytics, you'll see that there's no differentiator between the traffic that you get from Google. There's no differentiating between the traffic
that you get from Facebook organic and Facebook ads. So with the URL parameters, you'll know exactly
which ad campaign, which ad set is driving traffic to your website, and you can also
track conversions on your website that way. So to generate URL parameters for your Facebook
ad campaign, I would recommend a free tool called Campaign URL Builder. This is a free tool by Google, and in the
next segment I'll show you how you can use this tool to generate URL parameters for your
Facebook ad campaign. So let's get started. So I'm in Google's Campaign URL Builder now,
and as you can see there's a form here which we need to complete, and once the form is
complete, there will be a campaign URL generated with all the URL parameters. And you can use this URL in your Facebook
ads and start tracking traffic in Google Analytics. So it's a very simple process. Let's get started. To begin with, just go to the article that
you wish to promote on Facebook. Copy the URL and paste it in the website URL
box. The next field is Campaign Source. So mention Facebook ad as the campaign source
or you can just mention Facebook, but I like to differentiate between the traffic that
I get from Facebook organic and the traffic that I get from Facebook ads. So I recommend mentioning Facebook ads here. The next field is Campaign Medium. You'll notice that the first two fields are
mandatory and the rest are not, but I recommend filling the rest of the information as well
because you'll be having multiple campaigns on Facebook and you would like to track each
campaign individually in your analytics report. So the more specific you get with your URL
parameters, the better, and you'll know exactly which campaign is driving traffic to your
site and which campaign needs to be improved. So just fill the remaining information as
well. For Campaign Medium go to Ads Manager, and
click on Budget & Schedule under Ad Set. Look for Optimization for Ad Delivery, and
in this case I think by default Link Clicks is what is mentioned in Optimization for Ad
Delivery. Which means we'll be paying for each click,
which means the campaign medium is CPC. It can also be something else. It depends on your requirements. So suppose you have selected Impressions as
your optimization, then you need to mention CPM here. But in this case, it's CPC for us. For campaign name, just go to Ads Manager
once again, click on campaign and copy the campaign name. Paste it here. For Campaign Term, go to Ad Set. Copy the ad set name. Paste it here. Campaign Content, go to Ad and then copy the
ad name and paste it here. So you'd want this information, these three
fields to be identical to the information that you have entered in Facebook Ads Manager,
because it'll be easier for you to track this information in Google Analytics. And you can get very specific here with your
ad set name or your ad name. Suppose you have different ads which are running. So you may be running any major ad, you may
be running a video ad or a slide show. You can basically use this field to differentiate
all that. So you can say image 1 or video ad or whatever,
depending on what kind of ads you are running. You can use this field to differentiate those
ads. So in this case I've chosen very generic names,
so I'll stick to that. And now that all these fields are filled,
you just need to scroll down and you'll see that there is a campaign URL that has been
generated and you need to copy this portion. It's important that you don't copy the question
mark. Just copy the portion starting from utm_source. Copy this and then go to your Facebook Ads
Manager and click on Links. Scroll down till you find URL Parameters and
paste the URL parameters here. So that's about it. You can start tracking traffic from Facebook
ads in Google Analytics now. There is another option where you can copy
the whole URL. Let's delete this and go to the website URL
box and paste the whole URL here. Just preview it to see if all your URL parameters
are visible here. They are. So this is another option. Yet another option is to convert this URL
into a short link. So you can connect your Bit.ly with Campaign
URL Builder and Bit.ly has its own analytics so you can start tracking traffic there as
well. And if you think that this URL looks pretty
ugly, then you can use a Bit.ly URL. So that's it. This is how you can start tracking traffic
from Facebook ads in Google Analytics. You can generate all kinds of URL here for
different custom campaigns. For example, if you send newsletters or emails
to your email list on a regular basis, then you can differentiate each newsletter and
generate a campaign URL for that as well. So to start tracking Facebook ads in Google
Analytics, just log into your Google Analytics account. And then from the left side menu, click on
Acquisition, click on All Traffic and then click on Source/Medium. You'll notice that the source here is the
same that we mentioned in our Campaign URL Builder, Campaign Source, and CPC. So this is what we are looking for. Just click on this and then if you want to
see the other information that we entered here, like the Campaign Name, Term, Content,
click on Other, click on Acquisition and then click on Campaign. So you'll see that the campaign name is the
same that we entered in the Campaign URL Builder. And when you click on Ad Content, you'll see
that it's the same as the campaign content that we entered here, and similarly, the keyword
is the same as the Campaign Term, which was the name of the ad set. So this is really useful if you're running
multiple ad campaigns on Facebook, and if you have multiple ad sets under each campaign. So in Google Analytics you'll be able to track
this and you'll see which campaign or which ad set is driving traffic to your website,
and based on this information, you can optimize all your Facebook ads. Thanks for watching this video. I hope you found it useful. If you did, please subscribe to the channel
and visit my website, 99signals.com. You'll find a lot more SEO and blogging tips
there.
