Facebook Ads

The Facebook Ads connector gets your Facebook Ads data into Google Sheets and Google Data Studio. Use it to track your key metrics in a spreadsheet or a Google Data Studio report.

What you can report on

• Campaign, ad set, and ad-level performance metrics
• Reach, impressions, clicks, and CTR
• Cost per click (CPC), cost per result, and ROAS
• Audience demographics and placement breakdowns
• Video views, engagement, and conversion tracking

Prerequisites

• A Facebook Business Manager account
• Employee access with View Performance enabled, or Ad Account Analyst access on the ad accounts you want to report on
• All the permissions that Facebook asks for when you authorize, including Business management. Two Minute Reports uses this permission to find the ad accounts of a Business Manager. These are the ad accounts that the Business Manager owns and the client ad accounts that are shared with it. Without this permission, you see only the ad accounts on which you have a direct role.

New Pages experience: If your Business Manager uses Meta's new Pages experience, your account also needs partial access to the linked Facebook Page. This is required because Meta separates personal profiles from page management.

Agencies and connections made before 25 August 2026: You do not need a direct role on each ad account. Two Minute Reports also shows the client ad accounts of a Business Manager that you have access to. On 25 August 2026, Two Minute Reports started to ask for the Business management permission. If you authorized your connection before this date, its Facebook token does not have this permission. Because of this, you do not see Business Manager ad accounts in the Hub or through the API until you reconnect. See An ad account is missing from the list.

How to create a connection

1. In the Hub, open Connections & accounts.
2. Select Create connection.
3. Select Facebook Ads in the connector list.
4. Select Next.

5. In Name the connection, enter a name.
6. Sign in with Facebook. Then allow Two Minute Reports access.

7. Enable the accounts you want to report on.
8. Select Done.

How to get Facebook Ads data into Google Sheets or Google Data Studio

Lead ads

The fields in the Lead Ads group, for example Lead ID, Lead created time and Lead form ID, come from the leads that people submitted.

Thus, Lead form ID shows the form that each lead came from. If an ad has no leads in the date range of the query, the Lead Ads fields are blank for that ad. If the query also has a date dimension, for example Date, these fields are blank on the dates when the ad has no leads.

A blank Lead form ID does not mean that the ad has no lead form. It means that nobody submitted the form in that period.

Show the form of each lead ad

To show the form that each ad uses, also when the ad has no leads, do these steps in the Google Sheets add-on:

1. In the query, open Data Options.
2. Select Include data without insights.
3. Run the query.

With this option, the query also includes the ads that have no data in the date range. Thus, the query can have more rows.

Attribution windows

Conversion metrics, for example Website purchases, use an attribution window. The window tells Meta which conversions to count: the conversions in a number of days after a person clicked the ad, after a person viewed the ad, or both.

The window also applies to Video views (3s) and Cost per video view. See Video views (3s) is lower than in Ads Manager.

To change the window in the Google Sheets add-on:

1. In the query, open Report Config, then Facebook Ads.
2. In Conversion/Attribution Window(s), select one or more windows.
3. Run the query.

Default uses the default window of Meta.

Count only the conversions after a click

A view-through conversion comes from a person who saw the ad, but did not click it. To remove view-through conversions from your data, select a window that has only a click part: 1 d click, 7 d click or 28 d click.

You do not have to change the attribution settings of your ads in Meta. The window applies only to the data in the query.

Select more than one window

If you select more than one window, each conversion metric gets one column for each window. The column for Default keeps the usual name, for example Website purchases. The other columns show the window in the name, for example Website purchases (7 d click).

Do not use the windows that show (deprecated).

Troubleshooting

The text in brackets after an ad account's name

In the account list of the Hub, the Sheets add-on and Looker Studio, an ad account's name can have a second name in brackets, for example 01 (Acme Ltd). The text in brackets is the business name that Meta holds for the ad account. It helps you tell apart ad accounts that have short or general names, such as Account #1.

If Meta has no business name for the ad account, or the business name is the same as the account name, you see only the account name.

Queries and reports use the account ID, not the name, so the label does not affect your data.

An ad account is missing from the list

First, reconnect the connection. Usually, the cause is that the Facebook token does not have the Business management permission. This occurs when:

• You authorized the connection before 25 August 2026. On this date, Two Minute Reports started to ask for this permission.
• You turned off this permission in the Facebook authorization dialog.

Without this permission, Two Minute Reports cannot get the ad accounts that you can access only through a Business Manager. This applies to the Hub and to the API.

When you reconnect, Facebook asks for this permission again, also if you turned it off before.

1. In the Hub, open Connections & accounts.
2. Find the Facebook Ads connection and select its edit icon (the pencil). If the connection is listed under Needs reconnecting, select Reconnect instead.
3. Do the Facebook authorization steps again.
4. Keep all the permissions on. Make sure that Business management is on.
5. In the Hub, enable the accounts that you want to report on.

If the new accounts do not show after you reconnect, wait a few minutes and refresh the account list.

If the account is still missing:

• Make sure that you have Employee access with View Performance or Ad Account Analyst access on the ad account. See Prerequisites.
• Make sure that a Business Manager that you are a member of owns the ad account, or that the ad account is shared with this Business Manager as a client account.
• Sign in to Facebook and make sure that the ad account is active and not restricted.

Video URL is blank for some ads

Video URL and Video Permalink URL come from the video, not from the ad. Facebook gives these links only to a Facebook account that can access the owner of the video. The owner of the video changes with how the ad was made:

Which role on the Page is necessary

The connected Facebook account does not need to be an admin of the Page. Any role on the Page is sufficient. The lowest role is Insights access, which only lets the account view the Page. Two Minute Reports does not publish or change anything on the Page.

To fill Video URL for ads that use a video from a Page:

1. Ask an admin of the Page to give the Facebook account that is connected to Two Minute Reports a role on the Page. In Meta Business Suite, go to Settings → People, add the account, and give it partial access with Insights turned on.
2. Reconnect Facebook Ads. In the Hub, open Connections & accounts. Find the Facebook Ads connection and select its edit icon (the pencil). Then do the Facebook authorization steps again.
3. When Facebook asks which Pages to share, select the Pages that own the videos.
4. Refresh your query.

A query fails because the start date is too old

Facebook gives Facebook Ads data for approximately the last 36 months only. If the date range of a query starts before this limit, the query fails with a message like this:

Facebook only keeps about 36 months of data. Choose a date range that starts on or after September 30, 2023 and try again.

The date in the message is the earliest start date that Facebook accepts on that day. This date moves forward one day each day. Because of this, a query with a fixed start date can work for some time, and then fail with no change to the query. The Long time date range starts on 1 January 2015, so it also starts before the limit.

To fix it:

• Change the date range of the query or report, so that it starts on or after the date in the message.
• In Google Sheets, for a query that you refresh regularly, select Last N months in the Date list, and enter 36 or less. Then the start date moves forward with the limit.

Video views (3s) is lower than in Ads Manager

Video views (3s) uses the attribution window of the query, as the conversion metrics do. Ads Manager does not apply the attribution setting to 3-second video plays. Thus, with a window that is not Default, the two numbers are different.

Most 3-second views come from people who saw the ad, but did not click it. A click window, for example 1 d click, counts only the views from people who clicked the ad. Thus, with a click window, Video views (3s) can be much lower than in Ads Manager. For example, it can be less than 1% of the views. Cost per video view uses Video views (3s), thus it is then much higher.

To get the same number as 3-second video plays in Ads Manager:

1. In the query, open Report Config, then Facebook Ads.
2. In Conversion/Attribution Window(s), select Default.
3. Run the query.

To see the views and the conversions with different windows, select more than one window, for example Default and 1 d click. Video views (3s) and each conversion metric then get one column for each window. See Select more than one window.

Reach or frequency does not match Meta

Reach is the number of different people who saw your ads. If one person sees your ads on many days, or in many campaigns, Meta counts this person one time. Thus, you cannot add the reach of days, campaigns or ad sets to get the total reach. The sum is more than the reach that Meta shows. Frequency is impressions divided by reach, thus it changes when reach changes.

The reach in a query is more than the reach in Meta when:

• The query has Date or a week dimension, for example Week (mon - sun). Each row shows the reach of one day or one week. If you add the rows, the sum is more than the reach for the full date range.
• The query has Year or Month. Two Minute Reports gets the reach of each month from Facebook. For Year, it adds the months of each year. For Month with a date range of more than one year, it adds the same month of each year.
• You add the rows of a campaign, ad set or ad query, for example in a sheet.

When Two Minute Reports adds the reach of more than one row, the query shows this message:

Metric - "Reach" was aggregated which can give out exaggerated results. To overcome this behaviour either try different aggregation period or, select "Do not force Aggregate" option under the Data Options section of this query.

To get the same reach as Meta:

1. Remove all the dimensions from the Time group. Then each row shows the reach for the full date range.
2. Use the same date range as in Meta.
3. Use the same level as in Meta. For example, to compare the reach of a campaign, use Campaign name in the query and the Campaigns tab in Ads Manager.

If you select Do not force Aggregate in Data Options, the query shows UNKNOWN instead of a reach that was added. See Do not force aggregate.

If you use Maximum in Meta, and your ads started more than 36 months ago, Meta includes data that Facebook does not give to Two Minute Reports. See A query fails because the start date is too old.

Data stops loading and the connection shows an error

The Facebook token is expired or not valid. Usually, this occurs after a password change, a change to security settings, or when a person removes access. Reconnect it in Connections & accounts: the connection is listed under Needs reconnecting, with a Reconnect button. For the full procedure, see Token expiration and authentication.

If you need help, contact [email protected].