Google Analytics Audit Test #

110

Ads Platform Cost Data in Warehouse

Why It Matters:

Critical to connecting ad spend to performance on business KPIs.

Industries:

All

Checks For:

Utility

How powerful is your current implementation?

Insight Category:

Attribution

Can you tell which marketing efforts are working?

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Background

A GA4 audit is essential for uncovering missing insights—key data points that organizations don't yet know and can act upon. A well-done audit evaluates both behavioral tracking and traffic attribution, ensuring each is accurate and useful. It also assesses whether the data collected truly supports business decisions and reporting.

Test Detail

This test checks whether advertising platform cost data (e.g., from Google Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Bing Ads) is being reliably imported into your data warehouse—typically alongside Google Analytics data.

Without cost data, you can't accurately calculate return on ad spend (ROAS), cost per acquisition (CPA), or true marketing efficiency.

It’s common for businesses to collect click and conversion data but fail to load spend data consistently into BigQuery or another warehouse, leading to siloed or incomplete performance reporting.

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How to Conduct This Test

Basic Tests

  • Check your data warehouse (e.g., BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift):
    • Are tables containing daily or campaign-level cost data from ad platforms present?
    • Are the fields populated with expected values (cost, impressions, clicks, campaign_name, etc.)?
    • Is the data updated on a regular cadence (daily or hourly)?
  • Compare ad spend totals for a recent date range in your warehouse to the official platform UI (e.g., Google Ads Manager or Meta Ads Manager).
  • If you have a BI dashboard built on warehouse data, confirm that cost-related metrics are accurate and match source-of-truth platforms.

Automated, Free Audit

Run our Instant Audit to flag missing warehouse feeds.

No cost data? Or mismatched numbers? Hire a pro to connect the dots.

How To Fix

  • Set up scheduled ETL or API connectors to import cost data into your warehouse. Options include:
    • Supermetrics
    • Funnel.io
    • Improvado
    • Stitch or custom-built pipelines
  • Normalize field names and structures across platforms to make cross-channel cost analysis easier.
  • QA the data regularly to ensure:
    • Data is loading without gaps
    • Campaign and date fields align with Google Analytics structure
  • Consider joining Google Analytics session and conversion data with cost tables for full-funnel ROI analysis.
  • Hire a pro to set up a reliable pipeline from ad platforms to your warehouse so you can report with confidence.

Tips from a Google Analytics Consultant

Focus on Insights

Every Google Analytics audit should result in a plan for more insights.

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An insight is:

  • something you don't know
  • and can act on to improve performance

The Goal

Identify and remove insight blockers. Don't get tempted to track things you can't act on!

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