Cost data import: Set up the automatic import

Video: How to set up a cost data import pipeline from advertising services to Google Analytics

Note: Before creating the pipeline, make sure you've made all the required settings in your Google Analytics account.

Set up a cost data import pipeline

Step 1. In the pipeline setup, select the ad service you want to export cost data from:

Step 2. Select Google Analytics as the destination of data import:

Step 3. Add/select your access to the advertising service

Note: OWOX BI needs this access only to get ad cost statistics. Our service can't make any changes to the data in your ad account.

Step 4. Add/select the access to your Google Analytics account where you want to import data to:

Step 5. Select the Google Analytics property and the data set to import data to.

This must be the GA property you want to import your cost data to. The imported data will be available for reporting in all views connected to this data set.

Note: Your Google account must have the «Edit» permission in the property you want to import data to.

Step 6-1. Select a Google Analytics view.

The currency and time zone settings of this view are needed to bring ad cost data from different services to a uniform currency and time zone in Google Analytics. Read more about automatic currency conversion here.

Step 6-2. Specify the date starting from which you want to have data imported. You can set up either the future or past date as the start date. In the latter case, learn the existing limitations on historical data import first.

Also, you can exclude VAT if you need to have ad costs presented in Google Analytics without taxes. read how excluding VAT works below:

• While cost data imported from Google Ads and a number of other ad services don't include VAT by default, for some ad services, you need to exclude VAT when setting up a pipeline. This will ensure that you get an accurate analysis of comparable metrics from all your ad services.
• You can change VAT rate at any time later on by going to the Settings tab on the pipeline page.
• Some of the advertising services, when executing requests to their API, return data on costs without taxes, so the step VAT to exclude in the settings of such pipelines is absent.

Note:Currently, there is no technical possibility to add VAT for the imported costs. It's only possible to exclude VAT for the ad services that include it in the cost data. If you don't need to exclude VAT, leave the field empty.

Step 7. Click Create pipeline

Done. Now cost data from the advertising service will be automatically uploaded to your Google Analytics property.

The data is available in Google Analytics within 36 hours for the Marketing Data, Reports & Attribution, and Enterprise subscription plans. For the plan Start, data export may take a little more time.

The data is uploaded in two steps:

1. It takes up to 12 hours to import and process the data in OWOX BI service after the data is available on the advertising platform.
2. After successful upload and once processing has completed, it can take up to 24 hours before the data becomes available in reports.

OWOX BI updates the imported data during the preset actualization window if cost data changes retrospectively in your ad account.