Facebook Ads pixel reporting more purchases than are really happening

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I was looking at one of my Facebook Ads campaigns today and noticed 3 purchases yesterday afternoon.

I was initially excited as the cost per purchase for the campaign was getting lower. But then when I tried to match these purchases with sales on my store I couldn’t find them.

After some investigation using Google Analytics I discovered that there had been one sale of value £19.90.

However Facebook had reported this as 3 sales with a value of £59.70! But it was really only one sale.

It looks like the customer reloaded the ‘order status page’ 3 times. Each time they did this it recorded another sale ! I am now worried that every time a customer revisits the order status page to check on their order process it registers it as another sale!

This makes Facebook advertising look like its getting much better results than it actually is! So its impossible to run an advertising campaign.. This is a sure fire way to lose money on advertising.

I entered my Facebook pixel on Shopify : Preferences : Facebook. I have checked my pixel using the chrome extension pixel helper and I have tested it from Facebook itself. There is only one pixel and it is working fine.

I have contacted support and they are looking into it but I cant be the first person to notice this! Does anyone have a solution to stop this happening?

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Hello @Feemish ,

This is flareAI - Generating Sales from Google Search, on Autopilot. Helping Shopify merchants in generating $5+ million in sales from Google Search.

If my suggestions help you, please Like and Accept the solution to let me know

I would like to give you some suggestions regarding your question here.

The pixels will fire every time and log additional sales that never work if a customer refreshes the confirmation page or bookmarks it and views it again later.

You can avoid this duplication by taking the below actions:

Make sure users cannot access the order confirmation page more than once without placing a new order
Make sure the Facebook tracking code is not executed when the order confirmation page is reloaded or refreshed.

To prevent this from happening, use the following code:

{% if first_time_accessed %}

Put all the conversion pixels that you only want to fire the first time here

{% else %}

Put all the other pixels/tags you want to run on every visit here

{% endif %}

In addition, even if you are using any other e-commerce platform and facing multiple conversions, the solution will be similar to this.

However, it means you somehow install the pixel twice through a native integration and possibly again under a custom scripts section.

Your customers trust Google Search more than Ads. 53% of eCommerce traffic is Search, far greater than Paid Ads & Social Media. We created flareAI to deliver feeds to organic channels on a regular basis without taking your time. As a Google partner, flareAI will submit your products to Google and other organic free channels on a daily basis. Once your product is found on the organic channels, you don’t need to do a thing. Customers will keep finding your product day after day. flareAI will help to scale your site sustainably at NO Agency fees, NO Pay-per-click, NO paid marketplaces. With flareAI, your site can access the world’s dominant Free eCommerce services in one Shopify App.

If you found the answer helpful consider supporting the Shopify Community by giving it a Like + Accept the solution.

Cheers!

Gina
flareAI

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Hi,

Yeah that doesn’t help. I mean… where would you put that code for a start? I found that ‘fix’ online already and it said to paste it into the ‘additional scripts’ box of the checkout… But the pixel isn’t there. So you can’t wrap that code around it. Do we have access to the ‘order status’ page scripts anyway?

I am just getting the run around.

Shopify support say its a Facebook problem.
Facebook support say its a Shopify problem.
No one is helping me sort it out. I’m stuck in the middle.

Most but not all of my shop purchases from Facebook ads are reporting double.

I wonder how many other Shopify stores are running Facebook ads and not noticing! Your true cost per purchase may be double what Facebook says it is meaning those ad campaigns you thought were making you money might actually be losing you money.

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Update.

Still being given the run-around by Shopify AND Facebook. Both pointing at the other and saying ‘not our problem’

Advice from both Facebook and Shopify was to install the ‘Meta Facebook and Instagram’ app which then enable the set up of the Conversion API. Which I did. But it is still reporting double purchases about 50% of the time.

Being stuck in the middle is so infuriating. I’m a shop owner and advertiser. I pay for a service. The integration between Shopify and Facebook is part of that service. Its not working for me and I’m not getting any help with fixing it.

Not happy at all.

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Hi Feemish,

I’m having the same issue with the Facebook ads showing purchases but not reflecting on the Shopify side. Did you ever get this issue resolved? If so, could you provide direction on how to get this corrected? I would appreciate any guidance you can provide!

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Hi Volp,

I re connected the Facebook pixel by installing the Facebook app (Facebook sales channel)

Before I only had it connected by inputting the Facebook pixel into the shopify backend under preferences.

I also went through all my other apps and made sure none were duplicating the firing of the pixel. I had one shopping feed app which I think was causing problems. I deleted it.

So far it seems to have stopped duplicate firing.

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Ok thank you for the reply, I appreciate it. I’m connected to the Facebook app and using my pixel. I can’t figure out where it’s coming from. I went through all the steps on Shopify side and Facebook. .

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any apps that have feeds to google shopping? facebook shopping?

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Hello Volp,

I’m currently experiencing the same issue where Facebook ads says you’ve sales but you can’t seem to see any sales on Shopify - please let me how you respved your issue??

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Facebook “guesses” at your sales since iOS 14.5 with more users enabling browser privacy & Do Not Track. Meta likes calls this “Data Modeling”. You should see a [2] next to your purchases in FB Ads Manager.

I have seen it both over estimate and under estimate conversions on different campaigns.

[2]These results may not include all conversion data. Statistical modeling may be used to provide more complete measurement when conversion data may be missing or partial. Learn more

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This happened to me for ages - turned out to be an app called Simprosys which is a shopping feed. I deleted it and hey presto all good. Took me a year to fix!

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It is a very common issue with Facebook and instagram app. many of my clients had a same issue before

Although they are connected, event tracking is not as accurate as it should be.

If your current native implementation continues to present tracking challenges, I strongly recommend implementing both the Meta Pixel and the Conversion API (server-side tracking) through Google Tag Manager (GTM).

To validate this approach, you could deploy a new Pixel configured via GTM to run in parallel with the current one(App).

This will allow you to assess GTM’s performance—which I’m confident will provide more consistent results—before making it the permanent solution, a practice supported by Meta.

Based on my professional experience, GTM provides a more robust and consistent data stream than reliance on direct in-app tracking alone

  1. Better Event match quality

  2. More accurate purchase event

  3. Consistent event tracking

  4. No technical error

  5. Easy to contorl all tracking tags

Please examine the attached data, which illustrates the improved consistency of the GTM

Feel free to ask if you have any questions.

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Solution:

  1. Use the official “Facebook & Instagram” app in Shopify.

    • Go to Settings → Apps → Facebook & Instagram → Data Sharing Settings

    • Set Data Sharing to “Maximum.”

    • This uses Facebook’s Conversion API and automatically prevents duplicate sales.

  2. If you added the pixel manually, paste this code in
    Settings → Checkout → Order Status Page → Additional Scripts:

    <script>
  if (!sessionStorage.getItem('fb_purchase_fired')) {
    fbq('track', 'Purchase', {value: {{ total_price | money_without_currency }}, currency: '{{ shop.currency }}'});
    sessionStorage.setItem('fb_purchase_fired', 'true');
  }
</script>

    This makes sure the “Purchase” event fires only once, even if the page is reloaded.