Why your Meta Ads report is lying to you
Attribution windows, modelled conversions and broken pixels: three reasons the number in Ads Manager is not the number in your bank.
Ads Manager reports a return on ad spend of five. Finance says revenue barely moved. Both are telling the truth from where they stand, and the gap between them is where budgets get wasted.
Attribution windows
Meta claims a purchase if someone clicked in the last seven days or viewed an ad in the last day. Many of those people would have bought anyway. Compare against a blended number: total revenue divided by total ad spend.
Modelled conversions
Since browser tracking restrictions, part of the reported conversions are estimated. Server-side tracking through the Conversions API brings the number closer to reality.
Broken tracking
A pixel that fires twice, a checkout that lost its event after a theme update, a consent banner that blocks everything: we find at least one of these in most audits.
What to do
Report blended ROAS next to platform ROAS, fix server-side tracking, and automate the comparison so the gap is visible every morning instead of every quarter.