Warehouses and Lakes

How to load data from Facebook Marketing to Snowflake destination

Learn how to use Airbyte to synchronize your Facebook Marketing data into Snowflake destination within minutes.

TL;DR

This can be done by building a data pipeline manually, usually a Python script (you can leverage a tool as Apache Airflow for this). This process can take more than a full week of development. Or it can be done in minutes on Airbyte in three easy steps:

  1. set up Facebook Marketing as a source connector (using Auth, or usually an API key)
  2. set up Snowflake destination as a destination connector
  3. define which data you want to transfer and how frequently

You can choose to self-host the pipeline using Airbyte Open Source or have it managed for you with Airbyte Cloud.

This tutorial’s purpose is to show you how.

What is Facebook Marketing

Facebook Marketing is an extension of Facebook’s online social networking service. Making strategic use of its gigantic user base, Facebook has partnered with AXA Group to leverage the power of people connections (over 1.32 billion active users monthly) for extraordinarily efficient digital marketing and commercial collaboration. Through Facebook’s huge user base, Facebook Marketing is able to reach unprecedented numbers of people with personalized sales and marketing advertisements, making it a huge addition to the world of marketing.

What is Snowflake destination

A cloud data platform, Snowflake Data Cloud provides a warehouse-as-a-service built specifically for the cloud. The Snowflake platform is designed to empower many types of data workloads, and offers secure, immediate, governed access to a comprehensive network of data. Snowflake’s innovative technology goes above the capabilities of the ordinary database, supplying users all the functionality of database storage, query processing, and cloud services in one package.

Integrate Facebook Marketing with Snowflake destination in minutes

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Prerequisites

  1. A Facebook Marketing account to transfer your customer data automatically from.
  2. A Snowflake destination account.
  3. An active Airbyte Cloud account, or you can also choose to use Airbyte Open Source locally. You can follow the instructions to set up Airbyte on your system using docker-compose.

Airbyte is an open-source data integration platform that consolidates and streamlines the process of extracting and loading data from multiple data sources to data warehouses. It offers pre-built connectors, including Facebook Marketing and Snowflake destination, for seamless data migration.

When using Airbyte to move data from Facebook Marketing to Snowflake destination, it extracts data from Facebook Marketing using the source connector, converts it into a format Snowflake destination can ingest using the provided schema, and then loads it into Snowflake destination via the destination connector. This allows businesses to leverage their Facebook Marketing data for advanced analytics and insights within Snowflake destination, simplifying the ETL process and saving significant time and resources.

Step 1: Set up Facebook Marketing as a source connector

1. Open the Airbyte platform and navigate to the "Sources" tab on the left-hand side of the screen.
2. Click on the "Facebook Marketing" source connector and select "Create new connection."
3. Enter a name for your connection and click "Next."
4. Enter your Facebook Marketing credentials, including your Facebook account ID, access token, and app secret.
5. Click "Test connection" to ensure that your credentials are correct and that Airbyte can connect to your Facebook Marketing account.
6. Once your connection is successful, select the data you want to replicate from Facebook Marketing, such as ad campaigns, ad sets, or ads.
7. Choose the frequency at which you want Airbyte to replicate your data, such as hourly, daily, or weekly.
8. Click "Create connection" to save your settings and start replicating your Facebook Marketing data to your destination of choice.

Step 2: Set up Snowflake destination as a destination connector

1. First, navigate to the Airbyte website and log in to your account.

2. Once you are logged in, click on the "Destinations" tab on the left-hand side of the screen.

3. Scroll down until you find the Snowflake Data Cloud destination connector and click on it.

4. You will be prompted to enter your Snowflake account information, including your account name, username, and password.

5. After entering your account information, click on the "Test" button to ensure that the connection is successful.

6. If the test is successful, click on the "Save" button to save your Snowflake Data Cloud destination connector settings.

7. You can now use the Snowflake Data Cloud destination connector to transfer data from your Airbyte sources to your Snowflake account.

8. To set up a data transfer, navigate to the "Sources" tab on the left-hand side of the screen and select the source you want to transfer data from.

9. Click on the "Create New Connection" button and select the Snowflake Data Cloud destination connector as your destination.

10. Follow the prompts to set up your data transfer, including selecting the tables or data sources you want to transfer and setting up any necessary transformations or mappings.

11. Once you have set up your data transfer, click on the "Run" button to start the transfer process.

Step 3: Set up a connection to sync your Facebook Marketing data to Snowflake destination

Once you've successfully connected Facebook Marketing as a data source and Snowflake destination as a destination in Airbyte, you can set up a data pipeline between them with the following steps:

  1. Create a new connection: On the Airbyte dashboard, navigate to the 'Connections' tab and click the '+ New Connection' button.
  2. Choose your source: Select Facebook Marketing from the dropdown list of your configured sources.
  3. Select your destination: Choose Snowflake destination from the dropdown list of your configured destinations.
  4. Configure your sync: Define the frequency of your data syncs based on your business needs. Airbyte allows both manual and automatic scheduling for your data refreshes.
  5. Select the data to sync: Choose the specific Facebook Marketing objects you want to import data from towards Snowflake destination. You can sync all data or select specific tables and fields.
  6. Select the sync mode for your streams: Choose between full refreshes or incremental syncs (with deduplication if you want), and this for all streams or at the stream level. Incremental is only available for streams that have a primary cursor.
  7. Test your connection: Click the 'Test Connection' button to make sure that your setup works. If the connection test is successful, save your configuration.
  8. Start the sync: If the test passes, click 'Set Up Connection'. Airbyte will start moving data from Facebook Marketing to Snowflake destination according to your settings.

Remember, Airbyte keeps your data in sync at the frequency you determine, ensuring your Snowflake destination data warehouse is always up-to-date with your Facebook Marketing data.

Use Cases to transfer your Facebook Marketing data to Snowflake destination

Integrating data from Facebook Marketing to Snowflake destination provides several benefits. Here are a few use cases:

  1. Advanced Analytics: Snowflake destination’s powerful data processing capabilities enable you to perform complex queries and data analysis on your Facebook Marketing data, extracting insights that wouldn't be possible within Facebook Marketing alone.
  2. Data Consolidation: If you're using multiple other sources along with Facebook Marketing, syncing to Snowflake destination allows you to centralize your data for a holistic view of your operations, and to set up a change data capture process so you never have any discrepancies in your data again.
  3. Historical Data Analysis: Facebook Marketing has limits on historical data. Syncing data to Snowflake destination allows for long-term data retention and analysis of historical trends over time.
  4. Data Security and Compliance: Snowflake destination provides robust data security features. Syncing Facebook Marketing data to Snowflake destination ensures your data is secured and allows for advanced data governance and compliance management.
  5. Scalability: Snowflake destination can handle large volumes of data without affecting performance, providing an ideal solution for growing businesses with expanding Facebook Marketing data.
  6. Data Science and Machine Learning: By having Facebook Marketing data in Snowflake destination, you can apply machine learning models to your data for predictive analytics, customer segmentation, and more.
  7. Reporting and Visualization: While Facebook Marketing provides reporting tools, data visualization tools like Tableau, PowerBI, Looker (Google Data Studio) can connect to Snowflake destination, providing more advanced business intelligence options. If you have a Facebook Marketing table that needs to be converted to a Snowflake destination table, Airbyte can do that automatically.

Wrapping Up

To summarize, this tutorial has shown you how to:

  1. Configure a Facebook Marketing account as an Airbyte data source connector.
  2. Configure Snowflake destination as a data destination connector.
  3. Create an Airbyte data pipeline that will automatically be moving data directly from Facebook Marketing to Snowflake destination after you set a schedule

With Airbyte, creating data pipelines take minutes, and the data integration possibilities are endless. Airbyte supports the largest catalog of API tools, databases, and files, among other sources. Airbyte's connectors are open-source, so you can add any custom objects to the connector, or even build a new connector from scratch without any local dev environment or any data engineer within 10 minutes with the no-code connector builder.

We look forward to seeing you make use of it! We invite you to join the conversation on our community Slack Channel, or sign up for our newsletter. You should also check out other Airbyte tutorials, and Airbyte’s content hub!

What should you do next?

Hope you enjoyed the reading. Here are the 3 ways we can help you in your data journey:

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If you are using Facebook Ads, you’re well aware of the substantial data it generates. While Facebook provides metrics on ad performance, the complexity of data may pose challenges in performing in-depth analyses. This is where transferring data from Facebook Ads to Snowflake, a robust data warehouse, comes into play. With Snowflake, you can centralize data, gain holistic insights into your advertising efforts, and plan your campaigns accordingly.

Let’s understand what you can achieve with this integration and how to migrate Facebook Ads data to Snowflake.

Why Replicate Data from Facebook Ads to Snowflake?

  • Consolidate and organize information from Facebook Ads along with other sources at one location to gain comprehensive insights.
  • You can perform intricate queries, conduct advanced analytics, and extract valuable views in Snowflake that go beyond the native platform.
  • With real-time data replication capabilities in Snowflake, you can monitor the performance of your Facebook Ad campaigns. This will help you plan marketing strategies based on ongoing trends or changes in user behavior.
  • In the scenarios where data volume increases, Snowflake’s architecture ensures optimal performance to derive valuable insights.

How to Transfer Data from Facebook Ads to Snowflake?

There are various methods available to migrate data from Facebook Ads to Snowflake. Some of the commonly used and advisable are listed below:

  • Using Airbyte 
  • Using Facebook Marketing API 
  • Using CSV Files

Replicate Facebook Ads to Snowflake Using Airbyte

If you’re looking for a solution that is highly efficient and scalable, using a code-free tool like Airbyte can be a compelling choice. Airbyte is a user-friendly, open-source data integration platform. With Airbyte, you can seamlessly streamline the process of synchronizing and replicating data from Facebook to Snowflake.

Prerequisites:

  • A Facebook Ad Account ID with necessary permissions.
  • Marketing API enabled in the Facebook App.
  • Snowflake account with the ACCOUNTADMIN role.

Here’s a step-by-step guide for creating your Facebook Ad to Snowflake ETL pipeline using Airbyte:

Step 1: To configure your Facebook Ads account as Source in Airbyte, log in to your existing Airbyte Cloud account or register one for free.

Step 2: On the Airbyte dashboard, click on the Create your first connection button.

Step 3: Select Set up a new source box and search Facebook Marketing in the search box. Once you locate it, click on that specific connector.

Step 4: Provide a Source name to help you identify this source in Airbyte. Enter your Account ID and click on Authenticate your Facebook Marketing account. In the Optional fields, add the Start Date and End Date to get specific data between these dates. Enable Include Deleted Campaigns, Ads, and AdSets and Fetch Thumbnail Images from Ad Creative as per your requirements. For detailed information on each field, refer to the Airbytes Facebook Marketing document.

Step 5: Once you have filled in all the mandatory fields, click on Set up source and wait for the tests to complete. 

Step 6: Once your source is configured, you’ll be directed back to the connection page. Now click on Set up a new destination box. Below that, search for the Snowflake connector in the search box and select it.

Step 7: In the Create a Destination box, provide a Destination name. Add Host name, Role, Warehouse, Database, Default Schema, Username, and select an Authorization Method. After filling in all the mandatory details, click on the Set up destination button.

To learn more about each field, visit the Airbyte Snowflake destination connector page.

Step 8: Now, the last step is to configure the connection. You can set the frequency and select the sync mode. Click on Set up the connection, followed by Sync now. Airbyte will start replicating your Facebook Ads data to Snowflake tables. Upon sync completion, you can go to the Database section in the Snowflake account and see the tables that have been replicated.

Why is Airbyte a Preferable Choice?

Airbyte is considered a preferable choice for several reasons:

  • Code-Free Solution: Airbyte provides a wide range of connectors and a user-friendly interface for data integration. This allows you to set and manage connectors without the need for extensive coding.
  • Incremental Sync: The Airbyte Snowflake connector offers versatile sync modes to accommodate different data integration scenarios. 
  • Full Refresh - Overwrite: This sync mode retrieves all the information from the source into the Snowflake table, regardless of whether it has been synced before.
  • Full Refresh - Append: This sync mode fetches the complete dataset from the source and appends it to the existing Snowflake table.
  • Incremental Sync - Append: This mode facilitates incremental data updates by only appending new or modified records from the source to the Snowflake table. Exiting records remain untouched.
  • Incremental Sync - Append + Deduped: This mode appends only the new or modified records, ensuring duplicates are eliminated.

These sync modes provide flexibility in managing data synchronization, allowing you to choose the most appropriate approach based on your specific use case, data update frequencies, and storage requirements. 

Move Data from Facebook Ads to Snowflake Using Facebook Marketing API

With the Facebook Marketing API, you can programmatically interact with your Facebook Ads account. It is an HTTP-based API that can be used to perform a wide range of tasks like creating or managing ads, querying data, or analyzing performance metrics within the Facebook Ads account.

Step 1: Create and Set a Facebook Ads API account

To move Facebook Ads data to Snowflake using Marketing API, you need to set up a Facebook Ads account on the developers portal and obtain the necessary credentials, such as App ID, App Secret, and an Access Token. This access token is essential to access and extract data from the Facebook Ads account.

Step 2: Set Up Your Snowflake Account

If you don’t have an existing Snowflake account, create one. Additionally, create a database and table, define roles and users for access management, and generate connection details.

Step 3: Install Libraries and Write Custom Scripts

Select the programming language of your choice to interact with these services, such as Python or JavaScript. Install the necessary libraries. For Python, use pip, the package manager, by executing commands like ‘pip install requests’ for handling HTTP requests and ‘pip install snowflake-connector-python’ for Snowflake database connectivity.

Once all the libraries are installed, proceed to write custom scripts tailored to your data extraction and loading requirements. Do not forget to mention the time frame for extracting data from Facebook Ads and the schema to be used for loading the data.

Step 4: Test and Schedule the Scripts

Following script writing, conduct thorough testing to verify their functionality. You can use sample datasets or a subset of data for script execution. Once satisfied with the testing phase, implement a scheduling mechanism for the scripts to run at specific intervals. 

The custom scripts approach is suitable if you have expertise in programming skills but can be time-consuming and require regular maintenance. While this method provides a high level of customization, it demands a thorough understanding of both Facebook Marketing API and Snowflake. Additionally, the development and debugging phase can be time-intensive.

Copy Data from Facebook Ads to Snowflake Using CSV Files

Manually moving Facebook Ad data to Snowflake involves a series of detailed steps. 

Step 1: Extract Data from the Facebook Ads Account into a CSV File

Initially, you need to specify a time period for relevant data to export from your Facebook Ads account. This export is typically done in the CSV format and can consist of campaign metrics, clicks, audience insights, impressions, or the entire report.

Step 2: Cleaning of CSV File

The second step involves downloading and cleaning CSV files. You would need to check for any inconsistencies or inaccuracies present in the CSV files. Cleaning may involve handling missing values, correcting formatting issues, and standardizing data fields. The dataset should be refined to ensure it aligns with the specific requirements for analysis within Snowflake. 

Step 3: Upload the CSV File into the Snowflake Staging Area

The next step involves uploading the cleaned CSV file to the Snowflake staging area. This staging area serves as an intermediary storage location within the Snowflake. You can use the PUT command to upload a CSV file in the staging area.

Step 4: Load Data into the Snowflake Table from Staging Area

Finally, you must upload a CSV file in the Snowflake table from the staging area. You can use the COPY INTO command and specify the Snowflake table where you want to replicate Facebook Ads data, the path to the CSV file in a staging area, and the file format. On executing this command, your Facebook Ads data will be successfully loaded into the Snowflake table.

Wrapping Up

You have learned three different approaches to connect Facebook Ads to Snowflake. The first method leverages the efficiency of Airbyte, offering a user-friendly and scalable solution. The second method involves using Facebook Marketing API, allowing you to achieve customizable solutions with programming skills. Lastly, the CSV-based approach provides a straightforward option for those seeking a one-off data transfer. Each procedure caters to diverse preferences, technical expertise, and specific business requirements. However, you should choose the one that aligns well with your needs to unlock the full potential of your Facebook Ads data.

Airbyte is a highly recommended solution for connecting Facebook Ads to Snowflake. This will not only elevate your data integration journey but also save your valuable time. Try Airbyte today for a smarter, more reliable solution. 

What should you do next?

Hope you enjoyed the reading. Here are the 3 ways we can help you in your data journey:

flag icon
Easily address your data movement needs with Airbyte Cloud
Take the first step towards extensible data movement infrastructure that will give a ton of time back to your data team. 
Get started with Airbyte for free
high five icon
Talk to a data infrastructure expert
Get a free consultation with an Airbyte expert to significantly improve your data movement infrastructure. 
Talk to sales
stars sparkling
Improve your data infrastructure knowledge
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and get the community’s new enlightening content along with Airbyte’s progress in their mission to solve data integration once and for all.
Subscribe to newsletter

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Frequently Asked Questions

What data can you extract from Facebook Marketing?

Facebook Marketing's API provides access to a wide range of data that can be used for advertising and marketing purposes. The types of data that can be accessed through the API include:  

1. Ad performance data: This includes metrics such as impressions, clicks, conversions, and cost per action.  
2. Audience data: This includes information about the demographics, interests, and behaviors of the people who engage with your ads.  
3. Campaign data: This includes information about the campaigns you have run, such as budget, targeting, and ad creative.  
4. Page data: This includes information about your Facebook Page, such as the number of likes, followers, and engagement metrics.  
5. Insights data: This includes data about how people are interacting with your content on Facebook, such as reach, engagement, and video views.  
6. Custom audience data: This includes information about the custom audiences you have created, such as their size and composition.  
7. Ad account data: This includes information about your ad account, such as billing and payment information.  

Overall, the Facebook Marketing API provides a wealth of data that can be used to optimize your advertising campaigns and improve your marketing efforts on the platform.

What data can you transfer to Snowflake destination?

You can transfer a wide variety of data to Snowflake destination. This usually includes structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data like transaction records, log files, JSON data, CSV files, and more, allowing robust, scalable data integration and analysis.

What are top ETL tools to transfer data from Facebook Marketing to Snowflake destination?

The most prominent ETL tools to transfer data from Facebook Marketing to Snowflake destination include:

  • Airbyte
  • Fivetran
  • Stitch
  • Matillion
  • Talend Data Integration

These tools help in extracting data from Facebook Marketing and various sources (APIs, databases, and more), transforming it efficiently, and loading it into Snowflake destination and other databases, data warehouses and data lakes, enhancing data management capabilities.