Is Ads Manager over-reporting? If you’re getting conversion results that seem too good, do this…
Assuming you set up your events properly, it’s rare that your results would be improperly inflated. More than likely, the results are accurate, at least in the way that Ads Manager is expected to report them based on attribution settings.
But context could change your perception of what your results actually mean.
Click the Columns dropdown menu and select Compare Attribution Settings. Select each of these settings:
- 1-day view
- 1-day engaged-view
- 1-day click
- 7-day click
- 28-day click
This will get separate columns for each attribution settingAttribution is how Meta gives credit to an ad for a conversion. Your Attribution Setting determines how your ad will be delivered and the reporting attribution window. The default Attribution Setting is 7-day click and 1-day view, which means that anyone who converts within 7 days of clicking or 1 day of viewing your ad will be counted as a conversion. More. It will calculate the results that occurred within each window.
If you’re running a purchases campaignThe campaign is the foundation of your Facebook ad. This is where you'll set an advertising objective, which defines what you want your ad to achieve. More, there’s nothing wrong with having some view-through conversions. While view-through may not be equal to click attributionClick Attribution is one way Meta gives credit to an ad for a conversion. Credit will be given to an ad when someone clicks your ad within a specified number of days of clicking. Click Attribution options include 1-day click, 7-day click, and 28-day click, the last being only available for reporting. More in terms of confidence that your ad led to the conversion, both have value.
The problem would be if a high percentage of your conversionsA conversion is counted whenever a website visitor performs an action that fires a standard event, custom event, or custom conversion. Examples of conversions include purchases, leads, content views, add to cart, and registrations. More were view-through. This would signify that the contribution of your ad to these conversions was likely minimal. While some conversions may be legitimate, the vast majority are likely from people who didn’t even see your ad but would have converted anyway.
That said, all of these attribution settings have value when optimizing for purchases. They just aren’t equally reliable and should be evaluated that way. Prioritize 1-day click, followed by 7-day and 28-day click. The view-through gets the least value.
If you’re promoting anything that is light-touch or free, you can disregard anything other than 1-day click. This would include things like a free registration or ebook or a custom event for basic engagement on a website.
Context when interpreting results is important. It’s partly your responsibility to use that context to form an accurate picture of the results.
