Advertising Data Provider: 15 Cataloged Datasets · Head-to-head
Meta Marketing API (Facebook Ads API) vs X (Twitter) Ads API
Which advertising data provider: 15 cataloged datasets data fits your job: Meta Marketing API, or X (Twitter) Ads API. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly.
Meta Marketing API (Facebook Ads API)
X (Twitter) Ads API
Where the fields line up
2 shared fields — join on these.
| Field | Meta Marketing API | X (Twitter) Ads API |
|---|---|---|
impressions | The number of times your ads were on screen. | documented |
clicks | The number of clicks on your ads. | documented |
Coverage, side by side
| Meta Marketing API | X (Twitter) Ads API | |
|---|---|---|
| Temporal | Insights up to 37 months back, sliced daily to monthly | Up to 7 days per synchronous pull; up to 90 days per asynchronous report job, 45 when segmented |
What each contains
Pick by fit, not by loyalty.
| Meta Marketing API | X (Twitter) Ads API | |
|---|---|---|
| Publisher | Meta for Developers | X Developer Platform |
| Subject lens | Full-funnel Meta advertising: campaign, ad set, ad and creative objects with per-object insights across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and Audience Network | X advertising: campaigns, line items and promoted tweets with grouped analytics covering engagement, billing, video, web and mobile conversions |
| Verified field dictionary | 15 entries | 23 entries |
| Entity model | Four rungs - ad account, campaign, ad set, ad - with creatives referenced and an insights view per rung | Five rungs - account, funding instrument, campaign, line item, promoted tweet |
| Deepest history | Insights up to 37 months back, sliced daily to monthly | Up to 7 days per synchronous pull; up to 90 days per asynchronous report job, 45 when segmented |
| Breakdown axes | publisher_platform, platform_position, age, gender, country, region, impression_device, product_id | AGE, GENDER, METROS (Nielsen DMA codes), PLATFORMS, CONVERSION_TAGS |
| Money treatment | Estimated spend as a numeric string, with cpc, ctr and cpp pre-computed | Billed figures in micros - billed_charge_local_micro, billed_engagements - settling within about 24 hours |
| Delivery formats | JSON | JSON, with gzip report-job archives |
Where they're equivalent
More than the estimation-versus-billing split implies. - Both are account-performance panels. Rows describe the ad accounts connected for your delivery - your brand accounts or your clients' - not everything ever advertised on either network. - Both expose the full managed-object tree, not a flattened reporting table: budgets, statuses, objectives and creatives arrive as structured objects you can reason about at any rung. - Both dictionaries are fully verified, every definition checked against live documentation in the August 2026 research pass. - Both cut audiences demographically by age and gender, and both resolve geography below country level - Meta through region and metro, X through Nielsen DMA codes. - Both ship JSON, normalized by Datadory into one schema whichever way you take delivery.
Fair questions
Do the two field dictionaries overlap?
On a skeleton: impressions, clicks, a per-object budget field and a delivery status enum appear in both. Beyond that they diverge deliberately - Meta ships estimated money with derived rates such as cpc, ctr and cpp as dictionary entries, while X ships billed money in micros with raw engagement and conversion counts and leaves the division to you.
Which advertising record reaches further back?
Meta, decisively: its insights look up to 37 months into the past, enough for year-over-year seasonality. X analytics windows span up to 7 days per synchronous pull and up to 90 days per asynchronous report job, 45 of those days when segmented by age, gender, metro, platform or conversion tag.
How do spend figures differ between the two records?
X returns billed figures - billed_charge_local_micro in micros of the account currency plus billed_engagements - which settle to final values roughly 24 hours after overspend credits, so expect small drift until they do.
Can both advertising records be delivered together?
Yes. Delivered on a shared grain of date, platform, campaign and metric, the pair reconciles cleanly once three seams are handled: estimated subunits against billed micros, actions lists against web, mobile and lifetime conversion groups, and differing breakdown labels. Cross-platform share of spend and response then becomes one query - daily, weekly, or hourly.