Facebook Ads is a key player when it comes to generating Leads for a company. Now, your Sales Team needs to instantly spring into action whenever a new Lead is available. Even a slight delay can hamper the chance of converting that Lead. However, if they have to manually search through the vast collection of Facebook Ads data and organize it, they may lose the chance to convert their latest Leads.
In such situations automating the data transfer process from Facebook Ads to Google Sheets allows your teams to use their time economically in tasks that are of greater importance than shuffling through data. This post will discuss the methods using which you can easily import data from Facebook Ads into Google Sheets in real-time.
Introduction to Facebook Ads
Facebook is the leading Social Media platform for serving Marketing Ads today. It provides a diverse niche for Marketers as Facebook has users from various age groups and backgrounds. This is the reason why all companies resort to advertising their brands on its platform.
Facebook Ads provide valuable data from which you can extract a ton of valuable insights about Marketing Campaigns. Moreover, it acts as a great source to generate Leads for the Sales Team to work upon.
Introduction to Google Sheets
Google Sheets is an application developed by Google that provides an online Spreadsheet offering several advanced functionalities. It’s a free web-based application and is connected to other Google products like Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Slides, etc. This tool is widely used for sharing documents and files online.
Google Sheets allows you to create your add-ons and generate custom code. It is similar to MS Excel but contains superior features. It can be used on different devices and it supports APIs that you can implement to import data from various tools and platforms.
Methods to Connect Facebook Ads to Google Sheets
Setting up the Facebook Ads to Google Sheets connection is a straightforward task which you can accomplish using the following 2 methods:
Method 1: Connecting Facebook Ads to Google Sheets Using API Connector
The API Connector is Google’s in-built tool to import data from an application into Google Sheets using an API. You can utilize this tool to transfer data from Facebook Ads to Google Sheets with the following steps:
Step 1: Generate a Request URL for Facebook API
The Facebook API will act as a medium for interaction and data sharing between Facebook Ads and Google Sheets. To implement the Facebook API, you first need to create a URL to execute the API call. Now, this URL consists of the following 2 parts:
- Root: https://graph.facebook.com (This will remain constant for all the Facebook APIs)
- Endpoint: /v12.0/act_YOUR_ACCOUNT_ID/insights
The Endpoint part of the URL requires your “Facebook Ads Account Id”. To generate it, log into your“Facebook Ads Manager” and navigate to the “Account” drop-down menu. In the menu, you can find the “Account Id” above the search and filter bar. An example of account ID is shown in the below image:
Now combining the API Root and Endpoint, the Request URL will look like:
https://graph.facebook.com/v12.0/act_000000000001/insights
Note: To transfer Facebook Ads data to Google Sheets you can add Fields to this URL as shown in Step 3.
Step 2: Connect Google Sheets and Facebook Ads Using API Connector
To use the API Connector, log into your Google Account and select Google Sheets and open a blank Sheet. Go to Extensions in the top menu bar and select “API Connector” from “Add-ons”. Click on “Manage Connections”which will provide you with a list of integrations available. Search for “Facebook Ads” and click the “Connect” button as shown in the below image.
This will take you to Facebook Ads. Now select “Done” to authorize the Google Sheets to Facebook Ads connection as shown in the below image.
Step 3: Import Data from Facebook Ads into Google Sheets
After completing Step 1 and Step 2, you have set up a strong connection between Facebook Ads & Google Sheets and you have an API Request URL that will facilitate the data transfer process. You should now decide upon the data that you want to import into Google Sheets and then modify the API Request URL accordingly.
Go to the “API Connector” present in Google Sheets (as shown in Step 2) and click on “Create”. This option allows you to generate a data transfer request between Google Sheets and Facebook Ads. Now, in the box named “API URL path”, enter the Request URL created in Step 1 as shown in the below image.
Under this, you will see an “OAuth” option. Select “Facebook Ads” from the drop-down menu. Leave the headers section blank for now. Create a new tab of Google Sheets and click “Set current”. This will make that tab your data destination. Provide a suitable name for your request and click“Run” as shown in the below image.
As a result, you will see a summary of Facebook Ads stats populate your Google Sheet. Since you have not used any additional parameters with the Request URL, the Facebook Advertising API returns impressions and spend data for the last 30 days by default.
An example of variation in the API Request URL can be as follows:
You now need to add this string for your API connector to work. This will act as the URL path for your API.
This will provide you with the Key Metrics for the last 30 days, separated by age and gender as shown in the below image.
Method 2: Transferring Data from Facebook Ads to Google Sheets Using CSV Files
This is a manual method that you need to implement from scratch every time you want to transfer Facebook Ads data to Google Sheets. In this method, you need to export your data stored in your Facebook Ads account to your system in the form of CSV Files. After that, you can import the CSV File data into Google Sheets.
Benefits of Connecting Facebook Ads to Google Sheets
Transferring data from Facebook Ads to Google Sheets can supplement your business in many ways. Connecting these 2 tools will provide you the following benefits:
- Preserves Time: The main objective of setting up the Facebook Ads Google Sheets integration is to save valuable time. The 2 professionals who benefit the most from this integration are Facebook Marketers and Data Analysts. Facebook Marketers spend long hours strategizing the target audience and the content required to engage them. Similarly, Data Analysts require sufficient time to find valuable insights from large sets of data. If these professionals spend the major portion of their time navigating through the huge amount of Facebook Ads data, manually copying and pasting the information, their work will be hampered.
- Supports Collaboration: Moving data from Facebook Ads to Google sheets enables you to share that data with all of your employees at the same time. This allows them to collaborate with you by providing suggestions and comments about the gathered data. Moreover, you have the authority to decide which employee can edit and modify the data and who all can simply view it.
- Promotes Scalability: Using APIs to import data from Facebook Ads to Google Sheets promotes scalability. As the business grows you will have multiple Facebook Ads accounts that will generate Leads. Transferring the data from all such accounts via APIs will provide you with the benefit of having a consolidated set of data in one place. Thus, you can make quick and optimal business decisions that allow you the room to scale.
Conclusion
This blog discussed the various methods of transferring data from Facebook Ads to Google Sheets. Furthermore, it listed down the benefits associated with this process. Now, often you will need to transfer this data from Google Sheets to a Data Warehouse for further analysis. This will require you to build a complex ETL process which can consume a lot of time, money, and resources.
