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Integrating Facebook Ads Image URLs into Looker Studio with Supermetrics

Integrating your Facebook Ads image URLs into Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) can provide valuable insights into your ad performance through a visual dashboard. Incorporating ad creatives into your reporting is extremely useful for:

  • Ad Creative Performance Analysis
  • Campaign Reporting
  • A/B Testing Visualization
  • Creative Strategy Development

While some BI tools can import these relatively easily and pull the images with them, others require a bit more effort. In this post, we will focus on one of the more popular BI tools, Looker Studio, and use Facebook Ads as the data source. However, this technique can be applied to any digital media data source that has Image URLs as a dimension.

Step 1: Connect Facebook Ads to Looker Studio with Supermetrics

Since Looker Studio does not have a native Facebook Ads connector, you'll need a third-party service like Supermetrics. You can either use the Supermetrics connector directly in Looker Studio or use Supermetrics to push data to your cloud data warehouse of choice.

Step 2: Select the Correct Data Fields

In the connector’s interface, ensure you select the data fields that include image URLs. For Facebook Ads, this is typically the field “Creative Image URL”.

Step 3: Connect to the Data Source from Looker Studio

1. Go to Looker Studio tLooker Studio](https://lookerstudio.google.com/).
2. Click on the '+' button to create a new data source.
3. Select the third-party connector you set up earlier.
4. Authorize the connector to access your Looker Studio account and import the Facebook Ads data.

Step 4: Add a Custom Field

1. Go to your newly created Facebook Ads data source in Looker Studio.
2. Click on 'Add a Field' to create a custom field.
3. Name this field appropriately, such as "Ad Image URL."
4. Use the IMAGE function and paste the Creative Image URL field in between the brackets               (e.g., `IMAGE(Creative Image URL)`).

Step 5: Create Your Dashboard

1. Create your dashboard to your specifications.
2. Add your new field, “Ad Image URL,” to a table in the view.
3. Pro tip: Add the Creative Name as well, and consider including other dimensions such as Date, Campaign, etc.

Conclusion

By following these steps, you can successfully integrate Facebook Ads image URLs into Looker Studio, creating a dynamic and visually informative dashboard. This setup helps you monitor ad performance and make data-driven decisions to enhance your campaigns. Enjoy creating your custom dashboard!

Is it possible to group image URLs when we have the same Ad Name, but the data source shows individual URLs? This is causing the report to display separate columns.

 

In Google Looker Studio, you can group image URLs by a common field, such as "Ad Name," even if the data source provides individual URLs. This will allow you to display a single column for each unique "Ad Name" with the grouped image URLs. Here’s how you can do this:

Steps to Group Image URLs by Ad Name

Create a Calculated Field:

  • Go to your data source in Looker Studio.
  • Click on "Add a Field" to create a new calculated field.
  • Use a formula to concatenate or list the image URLs grouped by the "Ad Name." Unfortunately, Looker Studio does not natively support array aggregation or concatenation of strings directly. However, you can create a conditional logic to display the URLs in a more compact form or as a list.

There may be a way to use a CASE statement for grouping as well. This won't directly group them, but it can allow for displaying or referencing the URL in a more organized way. Here’s and example of how that might look:

CASE
  WHEN Ad Name = "Ad1" THEN Image_URL
  WHEN Ad Name = "Ad2" THEN Image_URL
  ...
  ELSE "No Image"
END

 

**Limitations and Alternatives**

  • Limitation of Looker Studio: Currently, Looker Studio has limited functions for grouping and aggregating text or image URLs directly. It's designed more for numerical and straightforward textual analysis, not complex data aggregation like URLs.

  • Alternatives:

    • Use Data Preparation Tools: Consider preprocessing your data using a tool like Google Sheets, BigQuery, or other ETL solutions to concatenate URLs before importing them into Looker Studio.
    • Looker Studio Community Connectors: Some custom connectors might offer more flexibility for handling complex data types like URLs.

Reference: https://support.google.com/looker-studio/answer/14258973?hl=en#:~:text=Select%20Add%20group.,name%20in%20the%20dimension%20picker.

 

Reference: https://support.google.com/looker-studio/community?hl=en

 

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