When building reports to analyze ad-level data it can be powerful to show the images/video of those ads.
This can be easily achieved in Funnel in 3 steps:
1) Connect your data source (to obtain the thumbnail URL of your ad creatives)
2) Share the data to Looker Studio
3) Show the images in Looker Studio
Once everything has been connected and exported, the report can display the image of the ads alongside the data. It will look something like this:
1. Connect your data source to obtain the URL
You need the URL to the image/creative in order to display it in Looker Studio. To do that you can connect and configure your data source in Funnel on a creative/Ad level.
The field we recommend to use to display images or video thumbnails from Facebook Ads is called: Ad Creative Image Permalink URL.
The image below shows how your Facebook data source needs to be configured in Funnel in order to access the creative link. The connection process will look similar for other platforms that contain public URLs.
Please note that not all platforms provide a public link to the Ad.
2. Export data from Funnel to Looker Studio
The second step is to create a Looker Studio Data share.
Navigate to 'Share' and choose Google Looker Studio. Create a new data share and make sure to include the needed fields. For example:
Ad Creative Image Permalink URL
Impressions
Clicks
Cost per click
Simply select all the metrics and dimensions you need. Then connect to Looker Studio and create a new Looker Studio report.
3. Show images in Looker Studio
Once the necessary fields are available in Looker Studio, there are two ways to display images/creatives from an URL.
Option 1: Change the field type in Looker Studio to URL Image
Looker Studio allows you to change how a field is displayed in a widget. This is done by clicking on the edit / "show as" button.
1) Click on the "Show as" button and then click on the "type" dropdown.
2) Select "Image" as display type.
The links are now converted and display as images:
Option 2: Create a new "image type" field in Looker Studio
The second option is to create a new field for your connection in Looker Studio.
1) Go to your Looker Studio connection - Your Looker Studio connection can be accessed either through the report (Resouces -> Manage added data sources) or by following this link.
2) Click on "Add a Field".
3) Name your field and type the following into the formula section: IMAGE(<Dimension Name>)
Note: Replace "<Dimension Name>" with the relevant field.
4) Click save.
Your new field is now saved as an image and is ready to be used in your reports.