Unlock Accurate ROI: Standardize Messy Campaign Data in Your BI Tool
Are your social media campaigns a mess in Google Analytics? Inconsistent UTM tags like 'facebook', 'Facebook', and 'fb' fragment your data, making it impossible to see the true performance of a channel. This leads to guesswork, wasted ad spend, and an inability to prove the ROI of your marketing efforts.
This playbook shows you how to create a clean, unified view of your marketing performance without altering your raw data. By connecting Google Analytics directly to Looker Studio, you'll apply cleansing and grouping rules *within the BI tool's data model*. Using calculated fields and CASE statements, you can consolidate variations (like 'fb' and 'Facebook' into a single 'Social' channel) on the fly. This gives you pristine, trustworthy reports while preserving the original, unaltered data in Google Analytics.
Expected Outcomes
- An aggregated, single source of truth for campaign performance, even with inconsistent source tagging.
- Accurate measurement of channel-specific ROI and conversion rates.
- The ability to make data-driven decisions on marketing budget allocation.
- Preservation of original, raw Google Analytics data for complete data integrity.
- A scalable reporting framework that automatically cleans new data as it comes in.
Core Tools in This Stack

Google Analytics 4
Visit websiteGoogle Analytics 4 (GA4) is a web and app analytics service that enables businesses to measure traffic and engagement. It provides a deeper understanding of the customer journey by using a flexible, event-based data model, offering predictive insights through machine learning, and integrating directly with marketing platforms to optimize campaign performance and drive ROI.
Key Features
- Cross-platform user journey tracking (web + app)
- Event-based data model for flexible measurement
- AI-powered predictive insights (e.g., purchase and churn probability)
- Deep integration with Google Ads and BigQuery
- Enhanced privacy controls and cookieless measurement capabilities
- Customizable reports and data explorations
- Real-time activity monitoring
Ideal For
Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large
Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other
Pricing
Model: Free, Freemium
Tier: Free
Ease of Use
Intermediate

Looker Studio
Visit websiteA free tool from Google that turns data into informative, customizable, and easy-to-share dashboards and reports, connecting to hundreds of data sources.
Key Features
- Extensive data connectors (Google Marketing Platform, BigQuery, Sheets, etc.)
- Interactive dashboards with real-time data
- Fully customizable reports with a drag-and-drop editor
- Real-time collaboration and seamless sharing
- Data blending to combine data from multiple sources
- Report templates gallery to accelerate creation
Ideal For
Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large
Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other
Pricing
Model: Free, Freemium
Tier: Free
Ease of Use
Intermediate
The Workflow
Integration Logic
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Looker Studio GA4 Connector
This is a native, one-way data connection where Looker Studio acts as the client. Using its built-in Google Analytics connector, Looker Studio directly queries the Google Analytics Data API for a specified GA4 property. Users select the dimensions and metrics they need, and Looker Studio pulls this data to populate charts and tables within a report. The data flow is from GA4 to Looker Studio upon report load or a scheduled data refresh.
Unlock Your True Marketing ROI
Get the playbook to automatically standardize inconsistent campaign data and finally prove your marketing's impact.