Huge Discrepancy between Facebook ads reporting and Shopify reporting... and Klaviyo and Shopify.

[Jack_Conspire]

We are running ads for a Shopify store that is doing hundreds of thousands a month. 

In Facebook, it says our ads are crushing it with an average ROAS of 15 and brought in an extra $50k for my client.

Our Cold Traffic campaign says it brought in 72 Purchases. 

However Shopify is reporting only 1 conversion:

I understand that the attribution models are different but this seems too different. We are worried that we are over reporting our generated revenue to our customer. 

What is the easiest way to 100% guarantee the Pixel / Shopify is working and reporting correctly?

-------

We are also having this same issue on Klaviyo. Shopify is dramatically under reporting what Klaviyo is reporting. We are using UTM tracking.

Shopify:

Klaviyo:

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[DuaneBrown]

There is no way to get this 100% perfect. It's better to use something like Google Analytics for you reporting because it will look at each channel the same way. The issue with using SHopify for one thing, FB for another and Klavioy for another is that they all report on data differently for a campaign.

[stevelamar]

Facebook will take credit for any user that was served an impression of an ad, then got back to the website and made a purchase, regardless if they clicked through on the ad. This is called view-through (or post impressions) conversions.

Klaviyo will report in a similar way, but instead of post-impressions on an ad, they will count conversions after a user opened an email, even if they do not click through from the email.

Shopify is only going to give credit if a users clicked through on an ad/email, then made a purchase - so the difference between these three sources will be very different. 

In FB you can run a report looking at just the through (or post-click) conversions to get a better sense of how users that clicked through converted, which will get you closer to the numbers Shopify reports.

For the FB pixel, did you just implement through the Shopify preferences? You cannot implement in any other way or it will not track properly. 

To test the pixel firing, add the Facebook Pixel Helper to Chrome and make a test purchase to make sure the pixel is firing correctly. 

Hope that helps!

Steve

[Jack_Conspire]

Hey Steve, 

Thank you for the reply. 

I forgot a couple of important notes that were pointed out to me.  Our client is on Shopify Plus and they already have a pixel setup in their preferences that we are not associated with. We had to use GTM in order to setup our pixel - so the store now has 2 pixels on it. Both seem to firing correctly although our pixel gets a warning that it is not setup with a product catalog. 

Does this additional information make any difference to your assessment?

[stevelamar]

Hi Jack - 

Thanks for the additional info. Yes, this makes a big difference. Are both FB pixels writing back to the same FB account? You don't want the FB pixels from the same account firing twice (and will double count conversions among other things), which it will if it is setup in GTM and in Shopify. 

Steve

[Jack_Conspire]

No, one pixel is run by another one of their associates on a different ad account that we don't have access to. Our pixel is only linked up to our ad account.

[stevelamar]

Yes that makes sense. Are you getting the product catalog error with the Pixel Helper? If so, can you send a screenshot?

[Jack_Conspire]

[Jack_Conspire]

This was is what we received after a purchase. 

The other pixel showed no warnings.

[stevelamar · Accepted solution]

Ok got it - this is not an implementation issue. You need to associate the pixel with FB in the catalog manager : https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1044262445604547

So, back to your original question, it looks like the pixels are setup properly and this is an platform attribution issue. To give you an example of the discrepancies between FB and Google Analytics (which reports similarly to Shopify (with some nuance)),

I have a client where FB is taking credit for 21,968 transactions, but GA is only showing 1,976 that came from FB during this same time period.  This is because FB is taking credit for every user that saw an ad and made a purchase up to 30 days after seeing an ad, regardless if they clicked. 

There are many different ways to look at attribution. At the minimum for FB, I would only give credit to 15% of the post-impression conversions and 100% of the post-click conversions (which is pretty standard in the industry). That way it normalizes the numbers a bit, but still gives FB credit for influencing a conversions based on the users seeing ads served on FB, not just clicks to the website.

Does that help?

[Jack_Conspire]

Very much so, thank you Steve!

[Elnico]

Looking at a similiar issue, just thought I'd add a comment regarding Facebook view through attribution. 

Click through attribution is set to 28 days by default, so if anyone clicks on an ad and buys within the next 28 days then Facebook takes credit for the sale. 

View through attribution is set to 1 day by default, so if someone sees an ad, doesn't click through to make a purchase but clicks on an email later (for example) then FB will take credit. If they purchase after 24 hours of seeing the ad, FB takes on credit. 

All click through and view through attribution can be changed to 28, 7 or 1 day but default is 28 day click 1 day view. 

Also - this is for reporting, not for optimization in ads manager. Though conversion optimization windows can be changed too. 

Cheers

Nick

Twitter @mightyfinenick
IG @nickthemarketer

[shop36478]

Hi Steve,

I'm having this same issue. I setup FB integration in Shopify Preferences. Catalog was created fine, but still getting the pixel not paired with catalog error when I test...

I searched for hours, but still not finding where I go to associate a Pixel with my catalog in FB. The info on the link you provided on how to associate is I think outdated (FB UI has changed since then)

Can you help point me to where to navigate in FB Business Manager to pair a catalog with a pixel? Many thanks!!

[stevelamar]

Under your Business Manager did you go to Data Sources > Catalogs ?

You should be able to see your catalogs (or create one if you don't) and assign it to your FB pixel. 

Let me know if that doesn't help. 

[shop36478]

Hi Steve! What your showing in your screenshot looks like what I need to do....but what button did you click to bring up that modal (the click you made right before you took the screenshot)? I dunno if different users have different UIs, but for some reason Im not seeing how to bring up that modal...

[stevelamar]

In the FB Business Manager, go to Business Settings > Data Sources > Catalogs.

Click Add > Create a new Catalog

Fill in Catalog name and create Catalog

Select Manage Catalog and the user that can access the catalog then click Assign. 

The next screen that comes up should the screen to connect the source. 

Let me know if that works. 

[Ztimm]

Hey Steve,

I am having a similar issue large discrepancies between FB ads and what Shopify is showing. I wanted to try creating that report that you mentioned the post click conversion and can't seem to find where do this is. Would you be able to share with me how to create this report? Thanks.

Zach 

[stevelamar]

Zach-

In the FB campaign manager, you should see an option for Custom Columns:

From this window, there is an option to change the 'lookback' window - this changes how far back FB takes credit for conversions in the reports. You can change to 1 day, 7 day, 28 days for impression or clicks. You can play around with some of these settings, but you are not going to get to a point where FB and Shopify match.

Shopify gives credit to the last channel that drove traffic. FB will take credit no matter what the last channel was.

So, FB may have sent traffic to your site a week ago, but the customer checks out today through paid search, Shopify will show paid search, but FB will take credit for that sale if you have 7 day lookback turned on. The closest you will get is turning post click to 1 day in FB, but even that will not match exactly.

Does that help?