DocumentationExperience PlatformSource Connectors Guide

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Meta Ads

Last update: May 19, 2026

CREATED FOR:

  • Developer

The Meta Ads source is an Adobe Experience Platform paid media connector that ingests advertising performance data from Meta properties (Facebook, Instagram) into the Experience Platform data lake in a standardized, Experience Data Model (XDM) compatible format.

Using the Meta Ads source, you can:

  • Centralize paid media performance data in Experience Platform alongside on‑site, CRM, and commerce data.
  • Bring in account, campaign, ad set, and ad‑level insights via the Meta Marketing (Insights) APIs.
  • Use a single, governed source for Meta data across applications such as Adobe Mix Modeler, Customer Journey Analytics, and GenStudio for Performance Marketing.

The Meta Ads source for Experience Platform provides a governed, reusable entry point for Meta advertising data. After configuring authentication with your Meta business account and selecting the ad accounts you want to ingest, Experience Platform will automatically schedule and transform Meta Insights data into XDM‑compatible datasets.

This enables a wide range of use cases, including media mix modeling, cross‑channel journey analytics, and creative performance analysis—all powered by standardized paid media data in Experience Platform.

Example use cases

Use case
Goal
How the Meta Ads source helps
Media mix modeling and budget optimization
Evaluate the impact of Meta spend alongside other channels (search, programmatic, email) and optimize media allocation.
  • Ingests Meta campaign, ad set, and ad-level performance (impressions, spend, conversions) into Experience Platform.
  • Feeds standardized ad datasets to Adobe Mix Modeler via Snowflake to train media mix models across channels and simulate budget shifts.
  • Provides consistent, governed data that can be versioned and restated as Meta updates historical metrics.
Journey analytics: understanding how Meta Ads drive on‑site behavior
See how Meta ad exposures relate to customer journeys across web, app, and other touchpoint.
  • Brings Meta delivery and conversion metrics into Experience Platform, aligned on identifiers like: Campaign/Ad IDs or UTM parameters or landing pages(when configured)
  • Combined with Adobe Analytics or Web SDK data in Experience Platform, you can use Customer Journey Analytics to analyze journeys that begin with Meta impressions or clicks, attribute downstream events (sign‑ups, purchases) to Meta campaigns and compare Meta’s performance against other acquisition channels.
Creative and content performance analysis
Understand which creatives and assets in Meta campaigns perform best, and connect that to content in Adobe systems.
  • Ingests ad‑level insights, including mappings to creatives and (optionally) asset metadata.
  • Feeds this data to GenStudio / Content Analytics to: evaluate how different creatives, formats, or messages perform in Meta and correlate Meta performance with content variants created or managed in Adobe Experience Manager or GenStudio.
  • Supports cross‑network comparisons once Google Ads and other ad networks are connected, using the same schema.
Cross‑channel, cross‑publisher performance reporting
Provide a single, standardized view of advertising performance across Meta and other paid channels.
  • Uses a common ad schema across Meta, Google Ads, DV360, Trade Desk, etc.
  • Enables: Unified dashboards for media teams (spend, reach, conversions by channel, campaign, or audience).
  • Standardized KPIs computed consistently across networks
  • Reduces dependency on ad‑hoc ETL tools or per‑team pipelines and improves auditability.

Prerequisites

Configure permissions on Experience Platform

You must have both View Sources and Manage Sources permissions enabled for your account in order to connect your Meta Ads account to Experience Platform. Contact your product administrator to obtain the necessary permissions. For more information, read the access control UI guide.

Meta account prerequisites

Before you can successfully connect the Meta Ads source in Experience Platform, the customer’s Meta setup must meet a few basic conditions. These ensure the connector can authenticate and retrieve data from the Meta Marketing API.

To prepare the Meta side:

Set up Meta Business Manager and ad accounts
You must have Meta Business Manager configured and at least one Meta Ads account that will be used as the data source. Campaigns, ad sets, ads, assets, and insights should already exist in these ad accounts; the Meta Ads source reads from this existing advertising data.

Ensure access to the Meta Marketing API
You must have a Meta app that is allowed to use the Meta Marketing API / Graph API. This app is what Experience Platform will use under the hood when it connects to Meta. The app must be correctly configured in Meta’s developer console and linked to the relevant Business Manager.

Grant the correct API permissions (scopes)
The Meta app used for the connector must have at least the following OAuth scopes approved and available:

  • ads_read – required to read ads, campaigns, ad sets, and performance metrics.
  • ads_management – required for broader ads account access and some reporting endpoints.

These permissions are explicitly referenced in the Meta paid media OAuth configuration used by Experience Platform’s Meta Ads connector and must be granted on the Meta side before you attempt to authorize the source.

Use a Meta user with sufficient ad‑account permissions

The person who completes the OAuth login in the Experience Platform Sources UI must be a Meta user with adequate permissions on the ad account(s) that will be connected. In practice, this typically means:

  • The user is part of the same Business Manager as the ad accounts.
  • The user has at least Advertiser‑level access (often higher, such as Admin) on those ad accounts.

If the user has limited permissions, Meta may allow login but restrict access to certain ad accounts or reporting endpoints, resulting in incomplete or empty data when the dataflows run.

Validate that the Meta app and user can see the intended ad accounts

Before attempting to create the source connection on Experience Platform, it is recommended to:

  • Verify in Meta Business Manager that the app is associated with the Business and can access the ad accounts.
  • Confirm that the user who will authorize from Experience Platform can see those ad accounts in Meta’s UI and via the Graph API.

This reduces the chance of “no data returned” issues caused by permission mismatches between the app, the user, and the ad accounts.

Schema configuration

The Meta Ads source ships with a standardized set of XDM-based paid media schemas that provide consistent modeling of Meta (Facebook/Instagram) advertising data across Experience Platform and applications. These schemas are designed to be cross-channel, joinable, and extensible.

Schema / Dataset
Purpose
Key Field Groups / Attributes
Standard Entity Levels
Paid Media Account Lookup
Lookup/account metadata
Account ID, name, currency, timezone, account status, creation dates
Account
Paid Media Campaign Lookup
Campaign metadata
Campaign ID, name, status, objective, budget, type, start/end date
Campaign
Paid Media AdGroup Lookup
Ad group/adset metadata
Ad group ID, campaign link, status, budget, optimization goals
Ad Group / Ad Set
Paid Media Ad Lookup
Ad-level metadata
Ad ID, name, creative details, linkage to ad group and campaign
Ad
Paid Media Asset Lookup
Ad asset (image/video) metadata
Asset ID, type, source URL, dimensions, usage
Asset
Paid Media Experience Lookup
Experience-level metadata (creative experience)
Experience ID, assets involved, title, description, call-to-action
Experience
Paid Media Summary Metrics
Performance summary/aggregated reporting
Impressions, clicks, conversions, spend, reach, video metrics, etc.
Ad, Experience, Asset, Campaign

Example Core Schema Fields by Entity

Entity
Key XDM Fields
Mapping Logic/Meta Fields
Account
paidMedia.accountID, paidMedia.accountGUID, name, status, createdTime, timezone, currency
Meta account_id, calculated GUID, status, account meta info
Campaign
paidMedia.campaignID, campaignGUID, name, status, objective, budgetType, dailyBudget, start/end date
Meta campaign_id, GUID, all mapped directly from API
AdGroup
paidMedia.adGroupID, adGroupGUID, name, status, optimizationGoal
Meta adset_id, computed GUID, ad set meta info
Ad
paidMedia.adID, adGUID, adType, creative, deliveryStatus, reviewStatus
Meta ad_id, creative*, classifier UDF, status enums
Asset
paidMedia.assetID, assetGUID, assetType, sourceURL, height, width
Meta image_hash/video_id, URLs, size
Experience
experienceID, experienceGUID, experienceAssetIDs, title, description, cta
Derived, unique by creative+copy
Metrics
impressions, clicks, conversions, conversionValues, spend, reach, video metrics (thruplay, retention, plays, etc.)
Meta insights fields, mapped to XDM measure or value/array

Summary Metrics Structure

All performance data uses paid-media-summary-metrics.schema.json as the base. For each date and entity level row, you get:

  • account_id, campaign_id, ad_id, adset_id, asset_id, experience_id (as appropriate for breakdown)
  • impressions, clicks, conversions, spend, reach, unique_clicks, all video watch metrics
  • breakdowns: device, platform, placement, age, gender (optional in request)
  • metrics fields: standardized as { “value”: 1234 } objects
View sample aggregate fields
code language-json 
{
  "account_id": "...",
  "campaign_id": "...",
  "ad_id": "...",
  "date": "YYYY-MM-DD",
  "impressions": { "value": 155023 },
  "clicks": { "value": 225 },
  "conversions": { "value": 42 },
  "spend": { "value": 459.96 },
  "video_thruplay_watched_actions": { "value": 88 }
}

Next steps

This page summarized the Meta Ads paid media connector: what it ingests from Meta into Experience Platform, example use cases (such as media mix modeling, journey analytics, and cross-channel reporting), and the Experience Platform and Meta permissions and account setup you need before you connect.

When you are ready to create the source connection, follow the tutorial on ingesting Meta Ads data to Experience Platform in the UI.

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