If you run Facebook Ads, metrics like impressions, clicks, and landing page views interest you. Each metric, available inside Facebook Ads Manager console, contributes to evaluating the effectiveness of your campaign. That information drives future optimizations to make the best use of your advertising dollars. However, there is one question those metrics cannot answer:

Once the user arrived on your site – what did they do next?

Tracking User Behavior on your Website

Just because you drove 100 people to your landing page does not mean you made 100 sales. What’s more important is how many people engaged with your site, clicked to read more, or completed a goal defined inside Google Analytics. It’s entirely possible that while one campaign seemingly outperformed another in Facebook metrics, the less-clicked ad brought more conversions. No one metric tells the entire story, so it’s important to evaluate all metrics together for the entire length of the customer journey.

Luckily, there is a way to link the two systems so you can follow users from click to session. Look for UTM Parameters – or URL Parameters in Facebook. Each campaign provides an option at the bottom marked “optional.” However, to do things right, this is absolutely mandatory. Click on Build a URL Parameter and you’ll get a window like this:

Facebook UTM Parameters

You can customize each of the fields for tracking in Google Analytics. Recommended values are:

1. Tell where the user came from with Campaign Source.
   Example: facebook
2. Tell what form of content brought them with Campaign Medium.
   Example: ads
3. Separate out individual campaigns with Campaign Name.
   Example: spring-2020-promotion
4. Designate multiple variants with Campaign Content.
   Example: red-background

Save yourself a headache in the future, and force everything to lowercase with dashes in place of spaces. Google Analytics tracks any variation in UTM Parameters separately (including capitalized letters). Then, set up a segment inside Google Analytics for these users. Track the behavior of anyone who clicked your ad on your website and determine the true effectiveness of a campaign from start to finish! If you need help setting up campaign tracking in Facebook, contact us today.