Google Analytics 4 now supports native cost data imports from Meta and TikTok with up to 24 months of historical backfill, creating a single view of spend, conversions, and ROI across major platforms. For home service contractors, this reduces spreadsheet work and accelerates budget shifts toward channels driving booked calls and jobs. To protect data quality, remove duplicate cost sources, standardize UTM tagging, align time zones and attribution, and prioritize revenue-aligned conversions—while recognizing imports aren’t real-time. Apply a weekly loop to compare CPA and MER by service and market, reallocate budget quickly, and validate lead quality, noting this isn’t a replacement for call tracking or human judgment.

Stop Spreadsheet Juggling: GA4 Now Pulls Meta & TikTok Costs—Contractors Can Finally Compare Apples to Apples

TL;DR: Google Analytics can now automatically import ad cost data from Meta and TikTok (with up to 24 months of backfill). That means one place to see spend, conversions, and ROI across Google, Meta, and TikTok. Watch for duplicate data if you’ve done manual imports. Use this to shift budget toward calls that turn into jobs—not just cheap clicks.

What Changed—and Why Home Service Contractors Should Care

Google Analytics just added native cost imports for Meta and TikTok. Translation: you can stitch together ad spend and results across your main platforms without CSV drudgery or another paid connector. For HVAC, plumbing, and electrical shops, this removes a big excuse for scattered reporting. One source of truth for spend, leads, and revenue means faster routing of budget to what’s actually ringing phones and booking jobs.

Two details matter:

• Up to 24 months of historical Meta/TikTok cost can be imported, so your seasonal trends, shoulder-month performance, and last summer’s AC push are finally comparable.
• Ongoing automatic updates keep the numbers fresh, so you’re not waiting on a weekly export to decide where to push today’s dollars.

The Practical Upside: One Dashboard for Cost, Revenue, and Calls

For contractors, the win isn’t “more data”—it’s decision speed. With GA4 showing Google, Meta, and TikTok costs alongside your conversions, you can:

• Compare blended CPA per booked call by service line (AC repair vs. installs vs. drain clearing) and by market.
• Spot overspend on channels feeding tire-kickers (form spam, no-shows) and move that budget same day.
• Track Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER: revenue/spend) by month and see which platform carries the shoulder seasons.

Bottom line: instead of defending platform-specific dashboards, you evaluate channels by the only metric that matters—jobs on the board at acceptable cost.

Setup Guardrails to Avoid Garbage-In, Garbage-Out

A few traps to avoid so you don’t corrupt the dataset on day one:

• Kill duplicate cost sources. If you previously uploaded manual cost files or used a third-party connector, remove overlaps before enabling the native import. GA4 won’t de-duplicate for you.
• Standardize UTM naming. Keep source/medium clean (e.g., “meta / paid_social”, “tiktok / paid_social”). Sloppy tags break channel groupings and wreck your comparisons.
• Define conversions that mirror revenue. Prioritize phone calls of 60–120 seconds+, booked appointments, or CRM-qualified jobs—not raw form submits. If possible, post offline revenue back into GA for true ROAS.
• Align time zones and attribution. Keep your GA4 property time zone aligned with your ad accounts. Use a consistent attribution lens when comparing channels.
• Expect a delay, not a heartbeat. Updates are ongoing, but not to-the-minute. Don’t panic if this morning’s spend looks light—check again after the daily sync window.

How I’d Use This to Reallocate Budget—Fast

Here’s a simple weekly loop that turns this feature into money:

1. Pull a GA4 report filtered by channel with cost, total conversions, and a “booked job” conversion.
2. Segment by service category and location. Your Dallas drain specials may be cheap on TikTok, while Phoenix AC leads come in stronger via Meta.
3. Calculate CPA per booked job and MER by channel/service. If Meta AC installs are producing a 4x MER and TikTok sits at 1.8x, move 15–25% of TikTok budget to Meta for AC—today.
4. Check call recordings/CRM notes on a sample of each channel to validate lead quality before making big shifts.
5. Rinse and repeat. Weekly for budgets, daily for obvious outliers.

Reporting Recipes I Actually Trust

• Service-line P&L: Cost by channel vs. booked jobs and gross margin for AC repair, AC install, drain, panel upgrades. If margin is thin, even “cheap” leads can be too expensive.
• By-zip performance: Blend cost + conversions by service area. Cut unprofitable zips quickly; expand radius where call quality holds.
• Seasonal trend compare: With 24 months of history, compare this July vs. last July across channels—spot early cooling or heating demand shifts.

What This Is Not

• A replacement for call tracking. You still need reliable call tracking with spam filtering and a booked-call goal.
• A license to over-automate. Smart bidding is fine, but human review of lead quality wins.

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