When combining Ad Spend from multiple platforms like Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, and Twitter, it’s important to ensure that your Calculated Metric is set up correctly, especially when using dimensional metrics with breakdowns by campaign.
A customer recently ran into an issue where their Ad Spend Calculated Metric wasn't displaying correctly on the My Metrics page. After reviewing the setup, we discovered the issue was due to the use of a dimensional metric (Twitter spend by campaign) without properly isolating specific campaigns in the calculation.
Best practice: Use specific campaigns when combining dimensional metrics
If you're building a calculated metric to combine ad spend across platforms and using campaign-level breakdowns, follow this structure:
Use basic metrics like:
Facebook Ads: Cost
Google Ads: Cost
LinkedIn Ads: Cost
For Twitter Ads, if you're using the Cost by Campaign metric, make sure to:
Select only the specific campaigns you want to include.
This avoids incorrect totals caused by including undefined or partial campaign data.
Sample calculation:
Open Data Calculations to create a calculated metric:
Ad Cost = Facebook Cost + Google Cost + LinkedIn Cost + Twitter Cost (filtered by campaign)
This ensures your Total Ad Spend metric is accurate and complete across all platforms, and it will display properly on your Databoards and the My Metrics page.
For more, visit: How to use Data Calculations in Databox.