Why Is Facebook Tracking Off/Delayed?

Ever since IOS14, tracking has been much more sporadic and you might experience things like Facebook missing purchases or Facebook tracking more purchases today than actually occurred.

The reason this happens is due to lack of data (i.e. people opt out of cookies or your website server doesn't catch it), using 'view' windows in your campaign/ad set attribution settings, or something called delayed attribution.

Lack of data: Simply put, Facebook misses it with it's browser pixel or server-side tracking.

Using 'view' windows: a "view" window is an attribution setting turned on by default. (7-Day Click, 1-Day View) This simply means that if somebody buys from you in the last ONE day and then scrolls by your ad on Facebook/Instagram (a view), then the ad they scrolled by will take credit. This can inflate your numbers a bit.

However, our recommendation is to leave this setting on. We would rather send Facebook MORE data than too little data. It helps it optimize better in our experience.

Click here to learn more about attribution windows & settings.

Delayed attribution: Facebook can delay results up to a few days. Meaning, somebody could buy today, but it might not show up as a purchase for another 24-48 hours. That's why we recommend looking in larger time horizons for decision-making. (i.e. 7+ days)