Visualize Live Facebook Ads Data in Power BI (via CData Connect AI)

Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get access to Facebook Ads data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to use CData Connect to create a live connection to Facebook Ads, connect to Facebook Ads data from Power BI and then create reports on Facebook Ads data in Power BI.

Configure Facebook Ads Connectivity for Power BI

Connectivity to Facebook Ads from Power BI is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Facebook Ads data from Power BI, we start by creating and configuring a Facebook Ads connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Facebook Ads" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Facebook Ads uses OAuth to authenticate. Click "Sign in" to authenticate with Facebook Ads. 👁 Authenticating with OAuth (Salesforce is shown).
   
4. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Facebook Ads Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Facebook Ads data from Power BI.

Query Facebook Ads Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull Facebook Ads data into the report:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Online Services -> CData Connect AI and click "Connect"
2. Click "Sign in" and authenticate with your CData Connect AI account 👁 Authenticating with Connect AI
   
3. After signing in, click "Connect" 👁 Connecting to Connect AI
   
4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog 👁 The available tables. (Salesforce tables are shown)
   
5. Click Load to establish the connection to your Facebook Ads data from Power BI

Create Facebook Ads Data Visualizations

After connecting to the data into Power BI, you can create data visualizations in the Report view by dragging fields from the Fields pane onto the canvas. Select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize along with the chart type.

Click Refresh to synchronize your report with any changes to the data.

Live Access to Facebook Ads Data from Data Applications

With CData Connect AI you have a direct connection to Facebook Ads data from Power BI. You can import more data, create new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Facebook Ads data.

To get SQL data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including Facebook Ads) directly from your on-premise BI, reporting, ETL and other data applications, visit the CData Connect AI page and start a free trial.