X Ads connection

What it reads

For each connected ads account, Growth Dept MTA reads spend, impressions and link clicks by promoted post and day. X's campaigns, line items and promoted posts map to campaigns, ad sets and ads, and a promoted post is named by its own name or the start of its text. A post that ran on several placements is read once per placement and the figures are added up. Dates follow the ads account's time zone.

It also reads hourly spend and view-through purchases, which X reports without a value. X's own purchases, counted after an engagement or a view under the account's attribution windows, come in with each day's spend along with their sale amount. X's engagement figures, such as engagements, likes, replies, follows and clicks, fill the X platform-reported columns.

A pull runs about once an hour and re-reads the last 7 days, and a nightly pull re-reads the last 30. Each pull replaces the rows for its window, so days that X restates end up matching X. Spend is converted to the brand's currency as it arrives, at the European Central Bank rate for each day.

Connecting

1. Sign in to Growth Dept MTA as an owner or admin of the brand's organization. Other members can see Settings > Connections but cannot change it.
2. Open Settings > Connections and click Connect on the X Ads card.
3. X shows its own sign-in and permission screen. Sign in as an X user who can see the ad accounts you want, and approve the request. The user needs access to the brand's ads account as an account administrator, ad manager or campaign analyst.
4. Back in Growth Dept MTA, the page lists every ad account that login reaches. Tick the ones that belong to this brand and click Connect.
5. Each account you chose appears on the card, and a backfill starts over the brand's lookback window (Settings > Lookback window), or as far back as X keeps data if that is shorter. Scheduled pulls take over from there.

To add accounts later, click Connect beside Link an additional ad account on the same card. If the list comes up empty, the login you used reaches no ad accounts: connect again as a user who has access to them.

If you have been sending X Ads spend through the spend API or a spreadsheet, remove those rows before you connect. They carry their own account ID, so they would be counted on top of the connected account's spend. Settings > Data Spreadsheets lists each upload. Once the connection is live, the spend API and spreadsheets refuse new X Ads rows.

If the card says “X Ads connection is not set up on this server yet.”, the Connect button stays off until Growth Dept registers its X app. Email support@growthdept.ai if you see it.

Tracking parameters

Add these to the website URL of each X ad. X also adds its own click ID, twclid. Settings > UTM guide in Growth Dept MTA shows the same string with a copy button.

utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=paid&utm_campaign=<campaign name>&utm_content=<ad name>

Limits

• Growth Dept MTA only reads from X. It does not change campaigns, budgets or ads.
• X's purchases are X's own credit, under the ads account's attribution windows. They are not part of Growth Dept MTA's attribution.
• View-through purchases have no value.
• X allows 250 reporting requests every 15 minutes for each connected user. When a pull reaches that, it waits for X's limit to reset or carries on in a follow-up job, so a large account's backfill can take several runs.
• There are no thumbnails. The promoted post's ID and link are kept instead.
• X's tokens do not expire. If the person who connected removes Growth Dept MTA's access in X, or loses access to the ads account, the account's row on the card shows the error until someone connects again.

Disconnecting

Each linked account has its own Disconnect button in its row on the X Ads card. Only owners and admins can use it. After you confirm:

• Syncing for that account stops.
• The stored access token and its secret is deleted.
• Data already pulled stays in your reports.

Connecting the account again later starts a new backfill.