Knowledge base article
Meta has released a development for advertisers: a beta launch of native integration between Meta Ads and Google Analytics 4 (GA4). This could be a very welcome update for improving Meta ads campaign performance analysis within GA4. Let’s have a look what this could mean for you and how to set it up.
As you might have noticed in your GA4 account, most social ad performance is usually greatly underrated in the Source / Medium report. This makes analysing actual campaign performance in comparison to other marketing channels very difficult in GA4. I have written an in-depth article about the causes and solutions for this if you want to learn more about it. Meta vs GA4 discrepancies and how to reduce them.
Previously, analysing Meta Ads data with GA4 required a manual setup using UTM parameters. This process is not only time-consuming but also prone to errors, hindering accuracy of insights. The new native integration hopefully eliminates this bottleneck. You can now connect your GA4 account to Meta Ads with a few clicks, enabeling reporting right away.
There are more benefits though. Unlike the limitations of one-size-fits-all UTM tags, the integration enables you to select specific GA4 properties for analysis. This approach allows you to delve deeper into the performance of individual campaigns or targeted website sections. With this level of detail, you can gain insights that coulx directly impact your advertising strategies and optimize campaign performance with more precision.
Nowadays data privacy is an important topic, especialy in the EU. Meta claims to prioritize this by placing data governance in your hands. The integration gives you control over defining which traffic sources Meta can access from your GA4 data. That way you can be completely transparant about how your data is used.
Accurate conversion tracking is obviously very important for most advertisers. The integration streamlines this process by facilitating the mapping of Meta conversion events to GA4. This data flow eliminates the risk of mismatched events, providing a clear picture of how your Meta Ads are driving conversions within GA4.
Then, of course the most important question is, how do I set this up? You can activate the integration from the Meta events manager. Navigate to it and on the lefthand menu go to partner integrations. As mentioned, it could be that it’s not yet available in your account. In that case you need to be patient.
Check your Meta Ads account to see if you’ve been granted early access to this beta feature. If not, rest assured that Meta is gradually rolling out access. Hopefully this will give us some more insights into the actual performance of our Meta Ads campaigns. Happy analysis!
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