How to fix an inactive purchase event in Facebook's aggregated event measurement?

[El_Bouck]

Hi everyone!

I've recently set up the conversion API app but believe something's wrong with the aggregated event measurement.

As you can see below, the web events received through the Facebook pixel and Conversions API seem to work properly:

That being said, when looking under the "Aggregated event measurement tab", here's what I get:

It's annoying because when I try to launch a new campaign optimized for conversions, Facebook doesn't recommend optimizing for Purchase saying this event is "inactive". I got terrible results from the few campaign tested, and I believe something may be wrong here:

When looking in the web event configurations tool, everything seems to be properly set up.

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Regards,

Gaétan

[Niki_K]

Hi @El_Bouck,

• How did you set up CAPI? In Shopify or did you use a custom solution? Just asking whether there might be a problem when implementing a custom solution.                 
• Did you test events (browser and server)? Is everything working fine?

[El_Bouck]

Hi Niki,

I set up CAPI with the official Shopify/FB app.

I tested the browser events (they worked fine) but don't know how to test the events server-side. That being said, when I look at the purchase data received, I can see that Facebook gets both events from the browser and the server:

 

The issue seems to come once they're compiling these sets of data for the aggregated events.

[Niki_K]

Hi @El_Bouck,

yes, it seems that the problem is between Shopify <-> Facebook. So the integration isn't working properly, I guess. I discussed this issue with one of my clients recently – the client was receiving weird data after setting up the CAPI. 

• If I'm not mistaken when the CAPI (Shopify <-> Facebook) was introduced, the integration was tracking only purchases both browser and server-side. I guess two months ago Shopify was sending out that the integration is tracking all other remaining events both browser and server. From this time on, I think the integration keeps having some issues. So I think you will need to contact Shopify support to find out where the problem is.
• To test if the problem is due to the CAPI integration, you can try switching from maximum data sharing to enhanced data sharing (enhanced data sharing sets up CAPI). Check your BM tomorrow and if you see that the data make sense (that the purchase event is working and you can set up ads with the conversions objective using purchase event), then the issue lies in the integration. 
• Btw., Shopify hasn't updated that they are tracking all of the remaining events both browser and server. In the documentation, you can still see that they are talking only about the purchase event. So, I guess there might be some bugs in the integration and therefore it's not working properly???

Plus, testing server-side events – this is quite tricky in BM. I think there are some apps in the Shopify store, which enable you to test the server-side events easily. One of them is Multi Pixels -> https://apps.shopify.com/facebook-multi-pixels

They have a video tutorial, where you can see how the server-side testing works, watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_V99GktCB4

Hope this at least somehow helps!

[arcticbottles]

I was just thinking about submitting such thread. Absolute same issues as poster - our tracking is set up through the Facebook App, we can see conversions & purchases in Events Manager and Ads Manager from both Pixel & Server so CAPI is working but the Aggregated event measurement tab is empty, so we can't optimize our ad sets for puchases. We're using Dawn theme if that matters.

Seems like the issue indeed is somewhere between the Shopify <-> Facebook integration. Is there any word on whether this is something they plan to fix?

[starlightbright]

We're seeing the exact same issue. I wonder if the best solution is to get rid of the native Facebook app integration altogether and use the Facebook conversion API with Google Tag Manager server-side. Measure School on YouTube has a video on how to do that.

[arcticbottles]

It got resolved for us automatically without anything changing on our end.
We can now properly optimise for purchases that are submitted through
Pixel or CAPI

[kaboomlaser]

@arcticbottles can I ask you what your settings in shopify are for the data sharing part of the facebook channel? 

We're having the same issue here. 

Pixel/conversion API events are working correctly, but in the Aggregated events are not received properly.  

I removed the facebook channel and reinstalled it, but that did not solve the issue.   

[arcticbottles]

@kaboomlaser @kolo 

I mean I'm no longer seeing the warning that we can't optimize for puchases as there are received events through Pixel/CAPI so I don't really mind this problem much at the moment. Aggregated event measurement tab still empty for us (it receives purchases every now and then - we had one like 2 days ago lol and over 50 in Pixel/Conversions tab in the last week.). I think the Facebook App for Shopify hasn't implemented the AEM protocol or it doesn't work correctly on Facebook's end. Both Facebook and Shopify support were pointing fingers at the other company and no one could help me.

I'm using the Maximum data sharing settings everywhere.

[kolo]

Thank you very much for the reply, @arcticbottles 

Do your ads count the events for purchases / ATC / view content? (I'm guessing that you're still tracking the ads by domain and not by the pixel).

Our ads were running and getting clicks, atc and purchases but the events didn't appear in the ads columns so we shut them down, thinking about running the ads using only pixel tracking (even though it's not counting the new IOS users as much as I understand).

Would appreciate any advice from someone more experienced, thank you again.

[kaboomlaser]

I received feedback from Facebook today.  See their link below.

This explains the discrepancy I saw in the measurements.   I spoke to multiple Facebook support folks and no one knew about this.   Only after some more digging, they came up with this.

The Aggregated Event Measurement tab in Events Manager counts an event if all the following are true:

1. The event is attributed to someone who clicked on an ad and then took an action on your website
2. The event is prioritized in your web event configuration and is the highest priority event that occurred during the 24-hour conversion window
3. The event is from a person on an iOS 14.5 or later device

In comparison, the Pixel/Conversions API tab counts an event:

1. Whether or not it’s attributed to a paid Facebook ad
2. Whether or not it’s prioritized in your web event configuration
3. If it’s from someone using any device (except from people who have opted-out of tracking on their Facebook or Instagram apps on an iOS 14.5 or later device)

So everything eems to be working as it should bel.

I just have extremely low conversion rates from Facebook, which is weird as the bounce rate for this group is amongst the lowest and time on site and number of pages viewed among the highest.    

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1178791012618850?id=818859032317965

[KevinAbe]

I'm also having the same problem here. I had a purchase tab that went yellow (for no data received recently) and then disappeared. I have purchase set to the highest priority.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to fix this? I've reconnected the pixel multiple times and tracking is set to maximum. 

[kolo]

Hey have you been able to fix this issue? we are having the same and even shopify / facebook support couldn't fix it

[Ajayz]

Hey @El_Bouck ,

Im having the exact same issue with mo lick finding any help articles online. Have you been able to fix this issue? If so how?

thank you