Attribution vs. Tracking: The misunderstood difference that's leaving money on the table

If you’ve ever wondered why your ad platform data never matches your store sales, this is for you.

I had brands panic when they see a huge discrepancy between platform numbers, make hasty decisions, and often scale down campaigns that are actually crushing it.

The number gaps are confusing when you’re trying to optimize campaigns. It’s even more confusing when Facebook seems to under-report your success.

After spending countless late nights helping brands understand really what’s happening…. I’m learning that there is a lot of confusion on the difference between TRACKING vs ATTRIBUTION.

Tracking vs. Attribution

Here's what's actually happening when your numbers don't match:

What Tracking Actually Is

Tracking is the raw collection of user events on your site. When someone views a page, adds to cart, or completes a purchase, your pixel registers that event and sends it to Events Manager. This is pure data collection - no interpretation, no credit assignment. Just collecting data.

One way to measure how good your tracking is – your Event Match Quality (EMQ) score. I break down why this is fundamental to your ad performance here. EMQ is one of my favorite metrics in the Meta Ads ecosystem 🤓 

You can find your Tracking quality on Meta’s Events Manager 👇️

What Attribution Actually Does

Attribution is a system for determining which ads deserve credit for conversions. It applies models and rules to decide if your ad influenced a purchase, based on:

• When the conversion happened (called an attribution window)

• How the user interacted with your ad (eg. a click or view)

• Whether multiple ads were involved

You can find your Attribution analytics on Meta’s Ads Manager 👇️ 

Are Tracking And Attribution Related?

The answer is, yes.

Through a mechanism called ClickID.

ClickID is what connects tracking with attribution. If a visitor came from an ad, there is a ClickID. Meta’s ClickID is called fbc; Google’s ClickID is called gclid. A ClickID is associated with all the behavioral events like add to cart, checkout, purchase, etc. your pixel tracked.

In Events Manager, you can find all your tracked behavioral events. In Ads Manager, Meta will calculate attribution based on ClickID and the attribution model you select (default is 7 day click & 1 day view).

Why Your Numbers Will Never Match (And That's Normal)

1. Different Time Windows: Meta’s default "7-day click, 1-day view" means today's report may include:

   • Conversions from ads clicked up to 7 days ago

   • Conversions from ads viewed yesterday

   • NOT all of today's actual sales

It's important to note that there can be a reporting delay of up to 72 hours for some conversion data, particularly for iOS users due to Apple's privacy changes. This means that today's report may not include all of today's actual sales, but for reasons beyond just the attribution window.

The attribution window affects how conversions are credited to ads. It does not always reflect all sales that occurred on any given day

2. Data Processing: Facebook deduplicates conversions to avoid counting the same purchase multiple times. This can further reduce numbers, but it actually helps make the conversion numbers more accurate.
   

3. Multi-Channel Reality: Not all your Shopify sales come from Meta! Some come from:

   • Organic traffic

   • Email marketing

   • Other ad platforms

   • Direct visits

The Costly Mistakes People Make

I recently caught a brand that had scaled down spend thinking they were losing money, when they were actually "absolutely crushing" their targets. They were looking at Ads Manager attribution data (24 sales) and comparing it directly to their Shopify numbers (45 sales).

Remember:

• Not all your sales will be attributed to Meta.

• Attributions are calculated based on the model you choose on Meta Ads Manager. There’s no way to match your attributed sales Meta to actual sales on Shopify.

• Purchases on your Meta Events Manager, should match to your actual sales on Shopify on the same day (maybe 1-2 days off depending on your timezone). If this number does not match, then your pixel is out of whack.

This misunderstanding costs brands thousands in potential revenue every day.

What You Should Do Instead

1. Check Events Manager first: Confirm your pixel is capturing events correctly before questioning attribution.

2. Focus on directional trends, not exact numbers: Look for consistent patterns in performance rather than expecting perfect matching.

3. Use longer timeframes: Compare weekly data instead of daily to account for attribution windows.

4. Create custom reports: Set up reports that match your business needs rather than using Meta’s defaults.

5. Understand each platform's purpose:

   • Events Manager = Did we capture the data?

   • Ads Manager = How are ads performing?

   • Shopify = What's our actual business performance?

Once you understand that these tools measure different things by design, you'll make smarter optimization decisions and stop leaving money on the table.

✌️ Here to help you win,

Yiqi

P.S. Have questions about your specific tracking setup? Reach out directly - I'm happy to help you make sense of your numbers.