You’re spending on Meta Ads, but Shopify isn’t showing the right numbers on conversions from Meta. Where did your sales go? This blog is about the attribution mismatch of conversions data between Shopify and Ad platforms like Meta and Google. 

So, you setup ad campaigns on Meta and Google; they seem to run effectively and shoot numbers in those reporting columns. But when comparing the reports from the ad platforms and the backend data from Shopify, you will be able to see an attribution mismatch of the conversion data.

The conversions from ad platforms and the conversions reported in Shopify don’t seem to add up; your Meta ads say 30 conversions, and your Shopify only says 18.

Let’s understand why this attribution glitch is happening. And few insights into the impacts that these mismatch attributions can have on a campaign. Last but not least are the ways on how to approach this situation when you are facing one.

Let’s understand how Shopify and Meta track conversions to understand the attribution mismatch.

Understanding Attribution: How Shopify and Meta Ads Track Conversion

In order to understand why this attribution issue occurs, you need to keep in mind that both Shopify and Meta are modeled to see the conversions differently, hence the attribution mismatch. Let’s dive a little deeper into how Shopify and Meta track conversions.

How Shopify tracks conversions

Shopify’s default attribution model is last-click attribution. It will assign the 100% credit to the last channel the user clicked and converted.

For example, imagine a user sees your ad on Meta and clicks on it, but leaves without purchasing. And later, after a few days, does a Google search on your brand, sees your Google Ad, clicks and makes a purchase. So this is the customer journey towards the conversion (purchase).

Note: It won’t give credit whether the ad is viewed by the user. An action has to be made, like a click.

Based on this scenario, Shopify will attribute the conversion to Google Ads and not Meta. Since it calculates based on the last touch of the user, here the last channel through which the user made the purchase is Google Ads.

How Meta tracks conversions

Meta uses a multi-touch attribution model, which means it does not evaluate a conversion just with the last interaction of the user. It will credit conversions based on whether a user saw or clicked on an ad—even if they buy days later.

Meta’s multi-touch attribution model works on two levels:

Click-Through Attribution (CTA): If a user clicks on your ad and makes a purchase within a set attribution window (1-day, 7-day, or 28-day), it is calculated as a conversion.

View-Through Attribution (VTA): Here the user sees your ad but doesn’t click, then later visits your site and makes a purchase. Meta will still count the ad view as a conversion.

I’m gonna bring two scenario’s to understand Meta’s attribution model at every level.

Scenario 1:

For instance, let’s take the same scenario mentioned above. So the user clicks your ad on Meta but does not make the purchase. And days later, does a search on Google and makes a conversion.

So here Meta will attribute the conversion to ads because it will give credits to the first click of the users that influenced them to make a search and purchase.

Scenario 2:

Let’s say that the user saw your ad; this time there is no click. Later, the user searches the brand and makes the purchase on the website.

Even here, Meta will still give the conversion credits to the ads because the ad was viewed by the user first and was followed by the purchase.

By now, you would have probably understood how Shopify and Meta are tracking conversions. Moving forward, let’s understand the possible reasons behind the conversion data mismatch.

Reasons Why Meta Ads Manager and Shopify Sales Data Don’t Match

Different Attribution Models

Now you know that they track conversions differently due to their difference in attribution models by default. Shopify only takes the last channel interactions as conversion, but Meta seems to credit conversions not only to initial clicks but also to ad views that pushed the user to purchase. 

This is why the conversion on your Meta Ads Manager is 30 (as it calculates the ad view as well as the initial ad click) but your Shopify shows 18 (as it calculates only the last channel interaction)

Hindered Tracking (Cookie & Browser Restrictions)

Another hindrance for tracking comes with cookie expiration and browser restrictions in order to protect the user’s privacy. Why so? Because Shopify tracks the conversion within its universe, but Meta relies on third-party cookies or tracking to attribute the user to the conversion from an ad campaign.

Privacy restrictions such as Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) update, Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP), Chrome’s third-party cookie restrictions, GDPR, and CCPA all contribute as hindrances to Meta’s tracking. 

For instance, if a user clicks on an ad on Instagram and converts but chooses to opt out or does not give consent to track their activity, Meta can’t connect the purchase to the ad. This leads to undercounting of conversions in Meta Ads Manager, making your ad campaigns appear less effective than they really are.

Delayed cross-device tracking

Cross-device tracking is one of the reasons for the conversion attribution mismatch because the users often switch between the devices before making a conversion (purchase). The problem is that Meta and Shopify do cross-device tracking in different methods. 

Meta tracks users across different devices if they are logged into Facebook/Instagram. If someone sees an ad on mobile and later purchases on their computer, Meta can still attribute the sale (conversion) to the ad.

Whereas Shopify only tracks the last-clicked source on the same device, meaning it can lose sales that started on one device and finished on another.

For instance, if a customer sees your Meta ad on their phone but doesn’t buy. Later, they use their laptop, Google your brand, and purchase. Meta will credit conversion to the ad since it influenced the sale. And Shopify will credit the conversion to Google or a direct purchase.

Shopify’s Default CAPI Setup is limited—the biggest of it all

Shopify is awesome and outstanding, but Shopify CAPI is not. By default, the Shopify Conversions API can track and send only limited conversion data to Meta. Without complete event data, Meta fails to match some purchases to ads, causing underreported conversions in Ads Manager. 

Read on: Challenges with Shopify’s Default Conversions API

In this case, your Shopify dashboard might report heavy numbers on conversions, but Meta underreports conversions.

Shopify’s CAPI setup is designed to prevent duplicate event tracking—but sometimes it overcorrects and drops legitimate conversions. This leads to Meta receiving the same purchase event twice—once from the pixel and once from the server.

For example, when a user clicks on a Meta ad and makes a purchase. Shopify sends conversion data from both the browser and the server for the same purchase. Due to this, Meta will calculate double conversions due to the lack of event deduplication.

Now, you know why there is the attribution mismatch along with its reasons. And this conversion data mismatch impacts the efficiency of your ad campaigns.

Impacts of inaccurate attribution in ad campaigns

• Wasted ad budget due to incorrect optimization signals.
• Poor ROAS calculations, lead to wrong scaling decisions.
• Missing high-intent audiences because Meta can’t properly retarget them.

To save the efficiency of your campaigns, it is essential to find a way to effectively approach this conversion data mismatch.

Best Practices to Address Shopify and Meta Ads Attribution Issues

The right approach would be to incorporate or strengthen the tracking setup. How can you do that?

Implement First-party data tracking. Also known as server-side tracking, lets you track the user precisely without any data loss, which leads to conversion data accuracy. 

Additionally, you can also use UTM parameters in all ad links to track conversions in Google Analytics (GA4). Use GA4’s multi-touch attribution model to analyze the actual customer journey and monitor Assisted Conversions in GA4 to see if other channels influenced purchases.

Compare Meta Ads Manager, Shopify, and GA4 conversion paths to find out where the mismatch occurs. Review Shopify’s Customer Journey Report to see how users convert.

To gear up your tracking experience, do it with 1PD Ops (Too bad if you still don’t know what it is.)

With 1PD Ops,

You can seal one end with server-tracking with 1P domain tracking, which sends accurate user data from the server side. And incorporate an Advanced CAPI connection on the other side; unlike Shopify, you can send in more custom events across to ad platforms, which improves the overall campaign efficiency. 

This robust tracking setup will help you track it effectively and get it across to Meta without any data loss. 

And all these setup implementations is just a toggle away. To know more about how 1PD Ops can help you, Book a demo.