Facebook Ads UTM Tracking Parameters

Facebook Ads UTM parameters are an essential part of the Facebook Ads integration. In this article you'll learn how to bulk update your ads with the appropriate URL Tracking parameters so that you can perfect your data collection and benefit from advanced audience building, cross platform retargeting and achieve faster ROAS with data driven marketing insights.

Unlike Google Ads, Facebook does not provide a global setting to add a default UTM Tracking Parameters template to your account.

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Good to know:

Through the Facebook Ads Manager, you can bulk update your ads with the AnyTrack recommended UTM tracking template.

What is a URL tracking template?

A URL tracking template is a set of URL parameters and tokens that is appended to your ad URLs. At run time (when your ad is displayed and/or clicked on), Facebook automatically substitutes the tokens with the actual campaign data such as the campaign.id, adset.id, ad.id and more.

For example, the Facebook Campaign ID token (also called macro) is {{campaign.id}}. At run time, Facebook replaces the token with the actual campaign id 1283912839123812938.

Using tokens instead of hard coding the campaign id value in your ads URL saves you time, prevents errors and eventually allows you to better analyze your campaigns through ad tracking software that leverage these parameters to provide you marketing insights.

URL tracking parameters are usually preceded by a query parameter that is automatically collected by analytics platform such as [doc:ga4-google-analytics]. For the campaign id, Google Analytics reads this parameter under the query parameter utm_id.

So if you wanted to collect only the campaign id, your campaign URL would look like:

https://example.com?utm_id={{campaign.id}}

The Facebook URL Tracking Template

utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_content={{adset.name}}&utm_campaign={{campaign.name}}&utm_term={{ad.name}}&utm_id={{campaign.id}}&ad_id={{ad.id}}&adset_id={{adset.id}}&placement={{placement}}&site_source_name={{site_source_name}}```

For example:

The tracking template Anytrack provides carries the parameter: adset_id={{adset.id}}

Your Final URL is: https://anytrack.io

At run time, the template is appended to your final URL and the {{adset.id}} token is replaced with the actual adset id: 123123123123818

https://anytrack.io?adset_id=123123123123818

Where should you place the Tracking template?

The tracking template should be added in the URL Parameters field.

Why is the URL tracking template important?

The URL tracking template is important as it allows you to standardize data collection across your ads and campaigns.

For example, AnyTrack uses UTM parameters to build your campaign reports and align the campaign data from your Facebook Ads, with your visitor's session data.

Google Analytics uses UTM parameters to build your attribution reports.

What are the benefits of using a URL tracking template?

Besides the standardization of campaign parameters tracked and collected, they allow you to leverage all forms of reporting features from AnyTrack and Google Analytics or Facebook Pixel.

• Improve campaign tracking and attribution.
• Reporting across all platforms.
• Build custom audiences in Google Analytics.
• Leverage campaign data across ad networks.

What is the Facebook URL Tracking Template?

AnyTrack provides a prebuilt URL Tracking Template that you can find from the Facebook Ads integration Tab under Tracking Pixels >> Your Pixel >> Ads Integrations:

How does AnyTrack use the UTM Parameters and can I change them?

AnyTrack leverages UTM parameters to match the data we fetch from your ad account with the session data tracked by the AnyTrack Tag. As long as you have the id based parameters on the template, you can use / replace the name based parameters as you see fit. We recommend our tracking template because it’s built according to best practice for Google Analytics, and enables AnyTrack to accurately report according to campaigns, adsets and ads.

Required Parameters are:

utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_id, adset_id, ad_id

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The pixel connected in AnyTrack should be the one that your ads is optimizing for.

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The direct Shopify/Facebook integration should not be connected to AnyTrack.

Verify your Ads Settings:

1. Go to Tracking Pixels ➡ click on the Facebook Pixel you want to verify
2. Click on the Ads integration tab
3. Click on VERIFY ADS SETTINGS button
4. AnyTrack will highlight the error found in each of your ads and add a suggested change.

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Important

While you can add tracking parameters directly to the final URL, it is highly recommended to add the parameters in the appropriate fields.

How to bulk update your ads with the URL Tracking Template:

1. Copy the Tracking Template from the AnyTrack Dashboard
2. Login to Facebook Ads Manager
3. Navigate to the ads Tab
4. Select all ads
5. Hit the Edit button and select the URL parameters option.

6. Select All Ads
7. Paste the Tracking Template
8. Save draft or Publish

External references

Specifications for URL dynamic parameters (Facebook Business Center).

Best practice for UTM parameters (Google help center).