Do I need a third-party attribution tool?

A lot of people panic when they see performance drop. But before you blame the ads, ask yourself one thing:

Is your tracking broken? Or are you just looking at attribution wrong?

Two very different problems. And most people mix them up.

First, check if your tracking is actually working.

Tracking is just raw data. Someone visits, adds to cart, makes a purchase — that gets logged and sent to Events Manager.

If those logs are wrong, every decision you make on top of it is wrong too.

Here’s the fastest way to check:

1. Go to Meta Events Manager. Look at Purchase events from the last 7 days (or 1).

2. Now go to Shopify and check the actual order count.

3. The numbers should be very close. Within 5 is fine. More than that? Something’s off.

p.s. If you are not using Aimerce, other tools may send data from both browser and server. And browser is strictly fewer than server, so you may see the number slightly fewer than 2x purchases. That’s also normal.

And if you’re using a third-party app or customized implementation for Cart or Checkout, pay attention. A lot of those don’t fire events correctly. You’ll probably see a weird drop-off in AddToCart or InitiateCheckout. That’s usually where it breaks.

🚩 Red flags to watch for:

• You’re using customized Add to Cart or Checkout

• You see a sharp drop in AddToCart or InitiateCheckout in Events Manager

• Your EMQ score is below expected ranges (8.6–9.3 for Purchase, 7.5+ for AddToCart/InitiateCheckout)

In these cases, your events might not be firing properly — and you may need custom code to fix that.

Step 2: Are You Comparing Attribution Models That Don’t Match?

Once tracking is confirmed, the next 20% of confusion usually comes from attribution — and the fact that most platforms use different rules.

• Meta Ads Manager = default: 7-day click, 1-day view

• Attribution tools = multi-touch, last click or first click, depending on the model you choose.

You’re not looking at the same thing, so don’t expect the numbers to line up.

You don’t have to always use Ads Manager default attribution model.

If you want to understand different attribution models, adjust your Meta attribution model.

For brands that have a lot of return customers or organic traffic: you may also consider eliminating the 1-day view if you feel it will unnaturally inflate your results. This can especially be the case if you’re remarketing to people who get your emails or who already visit your website.

So… Do You Need a Third-Party Attribution Tool?

Maybe. But not always.

If you’re mostly using Meta and Google, and you just want to know if a campaign is working — the built-in platform tools (plus clean tracking) are often enough. You always have the option to tweak in-platform attribution models (either using default 7-day click and 1-day view, or just 7-day click).

You will need multi-touch attribution if you’re running 3+ channels and making serious budget allocation decisions across them.

🧠 From the Aimerce Blog: Read our latest posts on scaling, tracking, and all the things performance marketers complain about in Slack.