2025 Social Media Analytics Playbook — Track Revenue, Not Likes

TL;DR Standardise UTMs across channels, wire GA4 events to Looker Studio and monitor ROAS/CPL/CAC inside a live dashboard that updates every time your content converts.

1 UTM parameter schema by platform

Use utm_term for paid keywords. Use utm_id as a stable campaign ID you define (recognized by GA4 for campaign mapping); don’t rely on platform auto-tagging IDs like gclid/fbclid to replace UTMs.

2 GA4 and Looker Studio setup

2.1 GA4 events

1. Enable Enhanced Measurement for scroll, outbound and site search.
2. Create custom events:
   • dm_start triggered by click on DM link.
   • dm_click (or similar) for outbound DM link clicks.
   • Avoid emitting “assisted purchase” as a GA4 event - assisted revenue should be modeled in reporting, not captured as a site event.
3. Mark applicable on-site actions (e.g., dm_click) as Conversions.

2.2 Looker Studio dashboard

1. Connect GA4 property as data source.
2. Add charts:
   • Retention cohort table using first_user_source.
   • DM conversion funnel with dm_start → dm_complete.
   • Assisted revenue bar using a Looker Studio/BigQuery model that applies your attribution window (e.g., 7 days) to social touchpoints.
3. Apply filter control for source / medium to drill down by platform.

3 ROI formulas and benchmarks

3.1 Formulas

$$ROAS = \frac{\text{Revenue}}{\text{Ad Spend}}$$

$$CPL = \frac{\text{Total Spend}}{\text{Leads}}$$

$$CAC = \frac{\text{Total Spend}}{\text{New Customers}}$$

3.2 Benchmarks (how to set them)

• Start with your trailing 90-day averages for ROAS, CPL and CAC.
• Define “maintain”, “improve” and “stretch” bands relative to those baselines.
• Update targets quarterly as campaigns, seasonality and pricing change.
• When benchmarking externally, favour first-party partner data or paid research; public blog round-ups often lag reality.

4 Build a real-time content performance dashboard

1. Data ingestion
   • Send UTM-tagged link clicks to Google Sheets via Zapier or n8n.
   • Enable the GA4 → BigQuery export link (daily + intraday export for standard; streaming for 360).
2. Model layer
   • Join Sheets UTM logs with BigQuery events/sessions on utm_source and utm_campaign.
   • Calculate ROAS, CPL and CAC using the formulas above.
3. Visualization
   • Connect Looker Studio to the model.
   • Create scorecards for ROAS/CPL/CAC and a table showing content pieces ranked by assisted revenue.
4. Automation
   • Refresh data every 15 minutes for near real-time reporting.
   • Email a PDF snapshot to stakeholders every Monday.

5 Call-to-action

Want to explore how to instrument this? DM us “ATTRIBUTION” on LinkedIn for a walkthrough of the dashboard stack we use for clients.

References

• Google Analytics 4 BigQuery Export: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9358801
• GA4 Campaign parameters (utm_id supported): https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10917952
• GA4 Attribution overview (assisted conversions via attribution): https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12153618

Last updated 24 Jul 2025. Clarified GA4/UTM mechanics; added references.