Skip to main content

Custom Channel Integration with Sheets

How to integrate custom channels that do not have a native connection, e.g. Influencer, Affiliate, Snapchat, AppLovin, reddit, etc.

Daniel Busch avatar
Written by Daniel Busch
Updated over 3 months ago

Loom Explainer

Setup Custom Channel Sheet

  1. Open the adtribute App.

  2. Go to "Connections" and click on "Create Connection".

  3. Search for "Custom Channel" and select it.

  4. Name the Connection as you like, e.g. the Channel Name.

  5. Click "Connect".

Now, a new sheet is created. This sheet will be used to fill in the necessary channel data that we will then push to the dashboards.

You can fill the sheet in two ways:

  • manually or with an export and update the data regularly (daily, weekly, monthly).

  • automatically, with a tool like Zapier or make.

Manually fill out the Sheet

Example Screenshot

In this setup, it is a monthly period for 2 campaigns (in this case the spend is evenly distributed between the dates of the respective month):

Fill out the following columns with your datapoints & values according to your needs - you can do so manually (optionally supported by an export):

Date / Period (necessary)

  • channel_start_date: 2025-01-01

  • channel_end_date: 2025-01-31

  • channel_hour: 0 (only relevant when you need the data in hourly brackets)

Decide on a timeframe you want to update and view the channel data, e.g. monthly.

Naming (optional)

  • channel_campaign: campaign 1

  • channel_adset: ad set 1

  • channel_ad: ad 1

Those are optional values as this only defines how the campaigns, ad sets and ads are named and displayed in your dashboards. If they are empty, the channel id will be used as naming. Therefore, it is not necessary that they match the naming in the ad platform, though it would make comparison easier.

Identification / Mapping (necessary)

  • channel_id: Ad x

This is the unique identifier to map the channels touchpoints and therefore revenue to its campaigns. Meaning, this needs to be included in your URL parameters. We advise to use dynamic parameters like Ad ID, Ad name, Campaign ID or Campaign Name in your ads manager setup.

The URL parameter value then has to match the value that you fill out in the sheet in order to correctly map campaigns, ad spend, touchpoints and revenue together. So, for example in the case of AppLovin (the dynamic URL parameters are different for channels, you need to look them up!):

AppLovin example URL:

https://your-url?utm_source=applovin&utm_campaign={AD_NAME}

Note: You need to let us know your URL naming structure, so we can map the campaigns & ads and their ad spend to its touchpoints and revenue.

Channel data

  • channel_spend: value for timeframe

  • channel_impressions: value for timeframe

  • channel_clicks: value for timeframe

The spend is necessary to display it in the dashboards and for you to see the ROI. Impressions and clicks are optional.

Any other datapoint

In the case of Influencer marketing, it is quit common that you want to track and maintain more datapoints, e.g.:

  • influencer_country

  • influencer_discount_code

  • influencer_plattform

You can simply insert a new column and fill out the data.

Those additional columns are not available in the dashboard automatically. Depending on the data, you have to create new Configurations or Attributes within Definitions of Entities, Conversions or Channels.

Note: If you need help with pushing data from additional columns to the dashboards, reach out to us!

Automatically fill out the Sheet

The conditions on how to fill out the sheet are the same as in the manual setup. So, when you have decided on at least a timeframe and the channel id which needs to be part of your URL parameters, you can simply use Zapier, make or another automation tool to push your channel data into the custom sheet.

In order for this to work, you need to build a setup that is not interfering with the protected ranges A1 to K7 otherwise you will run into errors.

If you have problems with the protected ranges throwing errors in your automation tool, you can use an input sheet as a workaround:

  1. Create a new sheet and name it "input-channel"

  2. Copy and paste your custom channel sheet into the new sheet.

  3. Setup the automation for the channel and the input sheet.

  4. Connect the two sheets with the QUERY formula, e.g =QUERY(input_channel!B8:K) to push the input sheet data into the custom channel sheet.

Note: Again, you need to let us know your URL naming structure, so we can map the campaigns & ads and their ad spend to its touchpoints and revenue.

Did this answer your question?