Attribution: why your numbers never match
Meta and your store’s back end don’t count the same thing. Understand the gap so you steer by the right numbers.
Two ways of counting
Meta credits a conversion to your ad if the person saw or clicked it within a set window, like 7 days after a click or 1 day after a view. Your store’s back end counts orders, without knowing where they came from, or credits the last channel visited.
Both are right by their own definition. They’ll never match, and trying to make them line up perfectly is a waste of time.
The window changes everything
A long window credits more conversions to your ads, including some that might have happened anyway. A short window credits fewer, and undercounts considered purchases, the ones people don’t make the day they discover you.
The key isn’t finding the right window. It’s keeping the same one from one period to the next. Switch windows midway and every comparison breaks, including the ones you made before.
The rule for steering
Use Meta’s numbers for decisions inside Meta: which creative to keep, which audience to feed, which ad set to cut. There, every line is counted the same way, so they compare fairly.
Use your actual revenue to decide your overall budget. It tells you whether ads pay off, and it doesn’t depend on any attribution window.
And what you can’t measure
Part of what ads do shows up in no report: someone sees your name three times, never clicks, then searches for you on Google two weeks later. That’s no reason to stop measuring. But it is a reason not to kill a campaign based on one number.
When Adwize prepares a report, it tells you the period and attribution window it used. That’s what makes two reports comparable, so you can decide on facts, not gut feeling.