Hi, I’m running a conversion campaign on Facebook with add to cart event for the last 4 days and numbers I get on my ads manager is completely different than what Shopify and Google Analytics show. I’ve checked everything so far regarding my setup but unfortunately couldn’t find anything that may cause such an issue.
I’ll be pleased to get any support, thanks!
Hi Sauicaen,
it’s because of the attribution model - right now, in Facebook - Ads Manager, there’s default attribution window 1-day after view and 7-day after click. This means that e.g. if a person clicks on an ad in one of the Facebook placements, is redirected your website, checks the product but doesn’t finish the purchase after this click but comes back within the following 7 days, Facebook will attributes the purchase to the ad which the person clicked on.
GA uses another default attribution model - last-click attribution model. This means that if a person clicks on an ad in one of the Facebook placements and finishes the purchase right away, you will see the purchase in GA attributed to Facebook. If the person finishes the purchase later, you will see it as another source (e.g. the person comes in two days directly to your website).
Shopify - I would say the most trustworthy source of your purchases - these are the real purchases you have.
Hope it helped!
Hi @sauicaen ,
@Niki_K described it correctly, but there’s more to it.
Facebook duplicate conversions is a known issue that makes it hard for you to really measure your advertising performance and ROAS accurately. It can happen due to various reasons, customers that refreshed the checkout page, clicked and/or viewed more than one ad in the attribution window and the list goes on…
We developed on AdScale a report that helps you to eliminate the double conversions by connecting the conversion ID directly to the Shopify Order ID, and this can detect duplicate conversions on Facebook & Instagram, or even cross-platform between Facebook & Google. This way you can get the real picture of your advertising performance!
Thank you for the detailed explanation! I appreciate your insights about the attribution models used by Facebook Ads Manager and Google Analytics. Your clarification on how these differences affect tracking really helped me understand the discrepancies. I also agree that Shopify provides the most reliable data for actual purchases.
