The Newspack Data Benchmarking tool uses a service called Fivetran to pull data from a variety of third-party services to allow you to see this data all in a single set of dashboards and compare your performance with that of your peers.

To connect these third-party services to Fivetran, visit the Connections section of the Newspack plugin by clicking on “Connections” in the Newspack menu from the dashboard of your site:

Then scroll down to the Fivetran section:

After checking the “I’ve read and accept Newspack Terms of Service” checkbox, the “Connect” links will become active.

Each link will direct you to an authorization flow, starting with a Fivetran page with service-specific instructions on the right-hand side. Most of the setup is done up-front by Newspack, so some of the steps they outline will already have been done for you.

Here are step-by-step instructions to connect each of the third-party services.

Google Analytics

First, authorize Fivetran to access your GA data by clicking “Authorize with Google” button:

You’ll then be prompted to grant Fivetran access to your Google Analytics account, make sure to check the box before proceeding to the next step:

Then click “continue” to complete the account authorization. You’ll be redirected back to the Fivetran page where you’ll have the option to choose to sync only specific accounts. If your Google account has access to multiple GA accounts, choose this option and select only the primary GA account and profile for your main website:

Click “Save & Test” to finish the GA setup. After Fivetran performs a few set-up tasks (this might take a few minutes), you’ll be redirected back to Newspack, where the updated status of the connection should be visible:

First off, ensure that your GAM instance has API access turned on in Admin > Global Settings > Network settings.

Similarly to the Google Analytics, this flow starts with authorizing Fivetran to connect to your GAM account:

If you’re using Newspack to manage your ad units via GAM, the Network Code field should be pre-filled. Otherwise, insert your GAM network code:

The other configuration options should not be changed. Click “Save & Test” to proceed and finish the setup.

Mailchimp

After clicking “Connect”, you’ll be redirected to Fivetran:

Please note that the account you use to authorize Mailchimp must be either an Owner or Administrator of your Mailchimp account (not a Manager).

Once you verify that your account has the necessary permissions, you can click “Authorize” to login to your Mailchimp account and authorize the connection to Fivetran:

On the next screen, click “Save & Test” to finalize the setup:

In Newspack “Connections” wizard, you might see that the connection is in a “connected, syncing” state. This just means that data is not yet ingested, because Fivetran first has to perform some preliminary tasks. After a day at most the status should update to “connected, scheduled”, which means that data is ingested.

Stripe

To connect Stripe, you’ll need a “restricted API key”, which can be created on this page: https://dashboard.stripe.com/apikeys.

The Stripe account needs to have a Stripe “Admin” or a “Developer” role in order to be able to configure API Key access properly.

In a new browser tab, log in to your Stripe account.

Then, from the Stripe dashboard, click on the “Developers” link at the top right, and then the “API keys” section, and lastly the “Create restricted key” link:

Enter a key name and mark all the permission options as “Read” only:

Repeat this for every section, setting all of the permissions to “Read”:

Add a brief key description, then select and copy the key to your clipboard. Make sure to click “Save” to create the key before you return to Fivetran to complete the Stripe setup.

Now, you can head back to the Newspack “Connections” wizard and click the “Connect” button next to “Stripe” in the “Fivetran” section.

Complete the Fivetran setup by pasting the API key you just created in the box provided and check the “Sync connected accounts” option:

Finalize the setup by clicking on the “Save & Test” button.

Facebook Pages

After clicking “Connect” next to “Facebook Pages” in the “Fivetran” section of the Newspack “Connections” wizard, you’ll be redirected to Fivetran’s page.

Before you click the “Authorize” button, make sure you are logged into Facebook using an account that has the “Admin” role on your publication’s primary Facebook page. You can check this from the “Page Roles” tab of the Page Settings page:

Once you have verified your account has the correct permissions, navigate back to the Fivetran page where you can start authorization flow by clicking on the “Authorize” button:

You will be redirected to the Facebook login. Enter your credentials to proceed:

Click “Allow” to grant Facebook necessary permissions:

After granting permissions, you’ll be redirected back to Fivetran, where you’ll be asked to either sync all enabled pages, or just some of them. Select “Sync Specific Pages” and then make sure only your primary Facebook page is selected:

Click “Save & Test” to finish the setup.

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