Introduction

You can connect your Adobe Analytics account to any Facebook ad account on Smartly.io, in order to sync data for reporting and optimization. The full integration consists of several steps:

• Setup on the Adobe I/O console
• Connecting the Adobe account to Smartly.io
• Website setup
• Enabling tracking on Smartly.io campaigns

Once connected and configured, the integration supports for example the following use cases:

• Report on Adobe Analytics data in Campaigns and Custom Reports
• Use Adobe Analytics conversions and revenue data to optimize your budget using our Predictive Budget Allocation
• Automatically set up tracking for new campaigns created through Smartly.io using the Campaign Defaults

Integration setup

Before you start

• To set up the connection between your Adobe Analytics account and Smartly.io, you will need access to your Adobe I/O Console.
• Contact your Smartly.io Account Manager for access to the Adobe Analytics integration in Smartly.io.

Initiate the connection process in Smartly.io

ℹ️ Prerequisite: The Adobe Analytics integration is not available in Smartly.io by default. Contact your Smartly.io Customer Success Manager for access to the Adobe Analytics integration in Smartly.io.

1. Navigate to Campaigns > Account settings > Adobe Analytics.
2. Click Connect.
3. Click Download public certificate and save it on your computer. You need the public certificate when setting up the integration on Adobe's side.
   
   

Create a Service Account Integration for Adobe

1. Go to https://console.adobe.io and start by creating a new project or selecting an existing one.
   
2. Select Add API.
   
3. Under Adobe Experience Cloud, choose Adobe Analytics and click Next in the bottom right corner of the page.
   
   • If Adobe Analytics is greyed out here, contact your Adobe System Admin and have them grant you access to Adobe Analytics.
     
4. Select JWT as the type of authentication. Note that JWT access tokens expire in 24 hours.
   
5. Upload your public key that was downloaded from the Adobe Analytics section in Smartly.io, and click Next in the bottom right corner of the screen.
   
6. After adding all the keys, select the Product Profiles you want to add:
   
7. When the API is configured successfully, you can copy the Client ID, Client Secret and the JWT snippet in Generate JWT and paste them in the Adobe Analytics section in Smartly.io:
   

Connecting an Adobe Analytics account to Smartly.io

1. Navigate to Account Settings > Adobe Analytics.
2. Enter the Client ID, Client Secret and JWT Payload (see step 7 in the previous section).
3. Click Connect.

After connecting, you should see the Report Suite ID and eVar number settings:

These settings are dependent on your website setup which is covered in its corresponding article. Once you have configured your eVar tracking in Adobe Analytics, enter the eVar number and Report Suite ID into the settings in Smartly.

Configuring your Adobe Analytics Integration

You can configure the reported Metrics that are synchronized from Adobe Analytics to the Smartly.io platform. This is done using the Metric permissions, please refer to Adobe's instructions to configure the permissions.

FAQ

How often does the data get updated?

Data for the integration is usually updated once an hour.

Why can't I see any Report Suites listed?

If you don't see any Report Suites listed, the issue is most likely that you haven't selected Product Profile(s) with suitable access rights for the Service Account Integration on Adobe's side. Follow these instructions to configure the necessary permissions for a Product Profile.

Why can't I see revenue values on the settings page, under Adobe Analytics data?

On our troubleshooting page, we visualize the number of "actions" aggregated to the day. In some cases, revenue appears as an "action value" parameter, which is not displayed on this page.

Website setup

Adobe Analytics offers two alternative ways of managing the tracking setup on your website. This is responsible for connecting the Ad information on the landing page links with the Adobe tracking & data management system.

We recommend using the Launch setup, as this allows for non-engineers to configure the connection. There is an alternative, advanced option which offers the most flexibility but most likely will require some engineering resource to set up.  

Default: Setting up with Launch

These instructions assume that you have Adobe Launch installed on your website. It's a tool that makes it easy for non-engineers set up and modify the data tracked and sent by Adobe Analytics.

1. Login to Adobe Experience Platform Launch

2. Open up the Web Property you are using to track your website / landing pages:

3. Go to the Data Elements section and select Add Data Element:

4. Create a new Data Element with the type Query String Parameter and fill the name of the parameter ("ad") in the text field and save it:

5. Next, navigate to Rules and select your existing page load rule or add a new one. Click Add under Actions:

6. Set Adobe Analytics as the extension and Set Variables as the action type. Under eVars, click the icon to open the Data Element dialog:

7. Choose the Data Element configured in step 4:

8. Select the eVar you're using and save your changes:

9. Go to Extensions and click Configure under Adobe Analytics:

10. Check the value selected in Production Report Suites. You'll need this in Smartly:

Advanced: Setting up manually

If you don't have Adobe Analytics enabled on your website, you need to implement some changes more manually. These instructions will make more sense to the person responsible for your Adobe Analytics integration / your IT team / a software engineer, that to the layperson.

What you basically need to do is capture the value of a URL parameter called "ad" and store that in a data layer variable called "eVarX" (replace X by a number that is not yet in use on your website). That variable is then sent to Adobe, allowing Adobe to track which Facebook ad brought the user to the page, and thus attribute conversions to those ads. Smartly.io will handle appending that "ad" URL parameter to the ads' links.

In order to do this, you will need to modify your Adobe Analytics Javascript tracking code running on your landing page. See this Adobe Analytics documentation to get started.

For setting dynamic variables, like the eVar, see this documentation page (first example in the table).

Here's an example Javascript that attaches the Facebook Ad ID into an eVar using the Adobe Analytics Javascript library:

// Helper function for getting query parameters from the current URL
function getQueryVariable(variable)
{
       var query = window.location.search.substring(1);
       var vars = query.split("&");
       for (var i=0;i<vars.length;i++) {
               var pair = vars[i].split("=");
               if(pair[0] == variable){return pair[1];}
       }
       return(false);
}

// Get "ad" query parameter from the current URL, it should contain the Facebook Ad ID
var fb_ad_id = getQueryVariable('ad');

// Set Facebook Ad ID value into "eVar34" in Adobe Analytics, remember to change it to your own eVar number!
// See https://marketing.adobe.com/resources/help/en_US/sc/implement/appmeasure_mjs_pagecode.html for how to invoke Adobe Analytics so that you have access to it ("s" variable here)
s.eVar34=fb_ad_id;

Campaign setup

In order for the Adobe Analytics integration to work end-to-end, your Facebook campaigns need to be configured to include the Facebook Ad ID. This can be easily automated with our Campaign Defaults for the URL parameters.

Setting up tracking in Smartly.io

1. Make sure you have went through Connecting Adobe account to Smartly.io and Setting up Adobe Analytics steps before trying to use the tracking in Smartly.io campaigns.

2. In Account Settings → Campaign Defaults, in the field Default URL Parameters, add this: "ad={{facebook.ad.id}}"

   • Separate it from other parameters with an ampersand (&), like this: "utm_medium=paid_social&ad={{facebook.ad.id}}"
3. For any pre-existing campaigns to be tracked, you need to edit the campaign, go to the Tracking tab, select the option "Edit and recalculate URL parameters" and add the same snippet. Note that this will put the ads through the Meta ad review process.