Facebook Ads

Facebook Ads is the advertising platform that helps users to create targeted ads on Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

ingestr supports Facebook Ads as a source using Facebook Marketing API.

URI format

The URI format for Facebook Ads is as follows:

facebookads://?access_token=<access_token>&account_id=<account_id>

URI parameters:

• access_token is associated with Business Facebook App.
• account_id is associated with Ad manager.

Both are used for authentication with Facebook Ads API.

The URI is used to connect to Facebook Ads API for extracting data.

Setting up a Facebook Ads Integration

Facebook Ads requires a few steps to set up an integration, please follow the guide dltHub has built here.

Once you complete the guide, you should have an access token and an Account ID. Let's say your access_token is abcdef and account_id is 1234, here's a sample command that will copy the data from Facebook Ads into a DuckDB database:

ingestr ingest \
  --source-uri 'facebookads://?access_token=easdyh&account_id=1234' \
  --source-table 'campaigns' \
  --dest-uri 'duckdb:///facebook.duckdb' \
  --dest-table 'dest.campaigns'

The result of this command will be a table in the facebook.duckdb database.

Tables

Facebook Ads source allows ingesting the following sources into separate tables:

Table	PK	Inc Key	Inc Strategy	Details
campaigns	id	–	replace	Retrieves campaign data with fields: id, updated_time, created_time, name, status, effective_status, objective, start_time, stop_time, daily_budget, lifetime_budget
ad_sets	id	–	replace	Retrieves ad set data with fields: id, updated_time, created_time, name, status, effective_status, campaign_id, start_time, end_time, daily_budget, lifetime_budget, optimization_goal, promoted_object, billing_event, bid_amount, bid_strategy, targeting
ads	id	-	replace	Retrieves ad data with fields: id, updated_time, created_time, name, status, effective_status, adset_id, campaign_id, creative, targeting, tracking_specs, conversion_specs
ad_creatives	id	-	replace	Retrieves ad creative data with fields: id, name, status, thumbnail_url, object_story_spec, effective_object_story_id, call_to_action_type, object_type, template_url, url_tags, instagram_actor_id, product_set_id
leads	id	-	replace	Retrieves lead data with fields: id, created_time, ad_id, ad_name, adset_id, adset_name, campaign_id, campaign_name, form_id, field_data
facebook_insights	date_start	date_start	merge	Retrieves insights data with fields: campaign_id, adset_id, ad_id, date_start, date_stop, reach, impressions, frequency, clicks, unique_clicks, ctr, unique_ctr, cpc, cpm, cpp, spend, actions, action_values, cost_per_action_type, website_ctr, account_currency, ad_click_actions, ad_name, adset_name, campaign_name, country, dma, full_view_impressions, full_view_reach, inline_link_click_ctr, outbound_clicks, social_spend, conversions, video_thruplay_watched_actions.

Use these as --source-table parameter in the ingestr ingest command.

Facebook Insights Custom Configuration

The facebook_insights table supports advanced configuration for breakdowns and custom metrics:

Format Options

1. Default usage: facebook_insights

   • Uses default breakdown and default fields

2. Predefined breakdown: facebook_insights:breakdown_type

   • Uses specified predefined breakdown with default fields

3. Predefined breakdown + custom metrics: facebook_insights:breakdown_type:metric1,metric2,metric3

   • Uses specified predefined breakdown with custom metrics

4. Custom dimensions + metrics: facebook_insights:dimension1,dimension2:metric1,metric2,metric3

   • Uses custom dimensions with custom metrics

5. Level + dimensions + metrics: facebook_insights:level,dimension1,dimension2:metric1,metric2,metric3

   • Uses specified level with custom dimensions and metrics

Available Predefined Breakdown Types

• ads_insights (default)
• ads_insights_age_and_gender
• ads_insights_country
• ads_insights_platform_and_device
• ads_insights_region
• ads_insights_dma
• ads_insights_hourly_advertiser

Available Levels

When using custom dimensions, you can specify one of these levels:

• account - Account level insights
• campaign - Campaign level insights
• adset - Ad set level insights
• ad - Ad level insights

Note: If multiple levels are specified in the dimensions list, the last valid level will be used and removed from the dimensions list.

Common Dimensions

You can use any valid Facebook Ads dimension in your custom configurations. Some commonly used dimensions include:

• age - Age ranges
• gender - Gender breakdown
• country - Country breakdown
• region - Region breakdown
• platform_position - Platform position
• publisher_platform - Publisher platform
• impression_device - Device type
• placement - Ad placement

Note: Not all dimension combinations are valid according to Facebook's API. Refer to Facebook's Marketing API documentation for valid dimension combinations.

Examples

# Default facebook_insights
ingestr ingest \
  --source-uri 'facebookads://?access_token=easdyh&account_id=1234' \
  --source-table 'facebook_insights' \
  --dest-uri 'duckdb:///facebook.duckdb' \
  --dest-table 'dest.insights'

# Age and gender breakdown with default metrics
ingestr ingest \
  --source-uri 'facebookads://?access_token=easdyh&account_id=1234' \
  --source-table 'facebook_insights:ads_insights_age_and_gender' \
  --dest-uri 'duckdb:///facebook.duckdb' \
  --dest-table 'dest.insights_demographics'

# Country breakdown with custom metrics
ingestr ingest \
  --source-uri 'facebookads://?access_token=easdyh&account_id=1234' \
  --source-table 'facebook_insights:ads_insights_country:impressions,clicks,spend,reach,cpm,ctr' \
  --dest-uri 'duckdb:///facebook.duckdb' \
  --dest-table 'dest.insights_by_country'

# Custom dimensions (age and gender) with custom metrics
ingestr ingest \
  --source-uri 'facebookads://?access_token=easdyh&account_id=1234' \
  --source-table 'facebook_insights:age,gender:impressions,clicks,spend' \
  --dest-uri 'duckdb:///facebook.duckdb' \
  --dest-table 'dest.insights_custom_dimensions'

# Campaign level with custom dimensions and metrics
ingestr ingest \
  --source-uri 'facebookads://?access_token=easdyh&account_id=1234' \
  --source-table 'facebook_insights:campaign,age,gender:impressions,clicks,spend,reach' \
  --dest-uri 'duckdb:///facebook.duckdb' \
  --dest-table 'dest.campaign_insights_demographics'

# Ad level with geographic dimensions
ingestr ingest \
  --source-uri 'facebookads://?access_token=easdyh&account_id=1234' \
  --source-table 'facebook_insights:ad,country,region:clicks,impressions,spend' \
  --dest-uri 'duckdb:///facebook.duckdb' \
  --dest-table 'dest.ad_insights_geographic'

# Account level insights only (no additional dimensions)
ingestr ingest \
  --source-uri 'facebookads://?access_token=easdyh&account_id=1234' \
  --source-table 'facebook_insights:account:impressions,clicks,spend,reach' \
  --dest-uri 'duckdb:///facebook.duckdb' \
  --dest-table 'dest.account_level_insights'