Google Ads

Connect your Google Ads account and Bread & Butter turns the long numbers in your Google Ads traffic into the campaign and ad group names you recognise. It also brings your spend in, so the Attribution report can show what a serious visitor really costs you, campaign by campaign and keyword by keyword.

It takes about a minute. You sign in with Google, pick the account, and you're done. There's no developer token to find and no Customer ID to copy.

In short: Go to Integrations, choose Google Ads, sign in with Google and pick the account. Once connected, campaign and ad group IDs show as names, past visits included, and your spend, cost per click and cost per 1,000 impressions appear in the Attribution report. After your first 15 days, you also see what each serious visitor really costs. Bread & Butter only reads your Google Ads data and never changes your campaigns.

What you need

A Pro plan. Google Ads is a Pro feature. You can connect it during your free trial.

A Google login with access to the Google Ads account. Read access is enough. If your agency runs your ads from a manager account, sign in with a login that can see your account under it.

Connect Google Ads

  1. Go to Integrations and choose Google Ads. You can also click Resolve name next to any Google Ads number on a visitor's journey or in the Attribution report.
  2. Click Connect Google Ads and sign in with Google.
  3. Pick the Google Ads account for this website. If your login can see only one account, Bread & Butter picks it for you.
  4. You're back in Bread & Butter, and the Google Ads card shows the account name, when it was connected and when it last synced.

One account per website. Each website in Bread & Butter connects to one Google Ads account. If you run several websites, connect each one to its own account.

Bread & Butter only reads. Google's permission screen uses broad wording, because Google Ads has a single permission for every app that connects to it. Bread & Butter only reads your campaigns, ad groups, keywords and costs. It never changes your campaigns, budgets, bids or ads.

What changes once you're connected

Names instead of numbers. Google Ads can only send IDs in your links, never names. So utm_content=189993294432  is an ad group ID, and it means nothing to the person reading the dashboard. Once you're connected, Bread & Butter shows the name instead: on visitor journeys, in the Attribution report, in the Journey Summary and in the Intelligence Brief. Past visits are resolved too, not only new ones. If you rename a campaign in Google Ads, Bread & Butter shows the new name.

Your spend in the Attribution report. Spend, cost per click (CPC) and cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) appear for each campaign and keyword as soon as the first sync finishes.

What a serious visitor really costs. Bread & Butter divides your cost by the share of visitors who were actually Focused. That gives you Focused CPC (the cost of each serious visitor) and the Focused CPM. A cheap click that brings nobody serious stops looking cheap. These figures need a little history, so they appear once your account's first 15 days of calibration are over. See What is the Focused CPM?

Scale, Watch or Investigate. Campaigns and keywords are ranked against each other and marked Scale, Watch or Investigate. Bread & Butter never tells you to pause anything; that decision stays with you. See How do I use the Attribution Report to optimize my marketing budget?

Your UTMs still matter. Connecting doesn't replace your tracking template. It makes the IDs in it readable. Set it up once using How to set up UTM to maximize visibility into high-intent traffic.

Manage the connection

Check it's working. The Google Ads card under Integrations shows the connected account, who connected it and when, and the last sync.

Change the account. Connect again and pick a different account. The new account replaces the old one, and names are looked up again from it.

If Google access stops working. This can happen when someone changes their password or removes access in Google. The card shows the problem, with a Reconnect button. Until you reconnect, new names and spend stop coming in.

Disconnect. Click Disconnect on the card. Syncing stops, and Google Ads numbers show as numbers again, with the Resolve name prompt.

When your trial ends. Your connection and syncing carry on. On the Free plan, names show as Upgrade to resolve until you upgrade, and everything is there the moment you do.

When you still see a number or a blank

A number instead of a name. There are four usual reasons:

  • Google Ads isn't connected for this website yet.
  • The number belongs to a different Google Ads account from the one you connected.
  • The campaign or ad group was deleted in Google Ads.
  • You changed your tracking template in the last 24 to 48 hours. Google takes that long to apply changes to live ads.

A blank UTM field. Google leaves a ValueTrack value empty when it has nothing to insert, and that's normal. One case to know about: if you use AI Max for Search, keyword-less matches arrive with an empty {keyword} .

Why Google Ads and Bread & Butter count differently

Google counts its own conversion actions. Bread & Butter counts Engaged Leads, people who gave you a verified email address. The gap between the two is useful: it shows which campaigns Google credits with conversions that never became real leads.

Did this answer your question? Thanks for the feedback There was a problem submitting your feedback. Please try again later.