Meta ads conversion results are central to the job of an advertiser. They are our guiding light for helping us understand whether something is or isn’t working.

But conversion results can be misleading, if not outright lie. That could be because an advertiser is knowingly manipulating the data. It could also be that they aren’t knowledgable enough to understand the nuances.

The purpose of this guide is to help you master those important nuances so that you can evaluate your results accurately.

Let’s get to it…

Conversion Events

Conversion data is pointless if you don’t have the infrastructure in place that allows Meta to attribute conversions. This starts with defining conversion events.

When someone completes a purchase, you need to notify Meta that it happened. This can be done using the website pixel or conversions API (or both). Regardless, it’s up to you to define these actions and make sure that they are sent to Meta.

There are two primary ways that you can define conversion events.

1. Standard Events: Conversions that Meta will recognize (Purchase, Lead, Contact, etc.)
2. Custom Events: Conversions that fall outside of the definition of Standard Events

You can use standard events, custom events, and custom conversions for both optimization and reporting in Ads Manager. These need to be set up properly to get accurate results.

Defining Attribution

Attribution is how Meta gives credit to an ad for a reported conversion. In order to report a conversion, it must happen within the defined attribution windows after a paid impression.

Two ads cannot get credit for the same conversion. If a user was served different ads within the defined attribution window, credit goes to the ad that received the most recent click.

Click Attribution

Click attribution gives credit for a conversion if it happens within the defined attribution window following a click on your ad. For example:

1. January 1 (2pm): User clicks on Ad A
2. January 1 (4pm): User completes a purchase

In this example, Ad A is given credit for a conversion because it happened within a day of clicking on it. The attribution window is 7 days by default, but you might also see 1 day or 28 days (for reporting only).

The conversion does not need to happen immediately, as long as it happens within the attribution window. It could happen like this (assuming a 7-day click attribution setting):

1. January 1: User clicks your ad
2. January 5: User returns to your website and completes a purchase

It does not need to be the same link that they clicked on your original ad. All that matters is that they initially clicked and converted within the attribution window.

Note that the “click” on your ad can be any click. It does not need to be a click on an external link to your website. It could be a click on media, reactions, or something else. (SIDE NOTE: I’m not a fan of Meta defining it this way.)

Also, the reported conversion does not need to be for the item that you were promoting. Consider the following scenario:

1. User clicks ad that promotes Product A
2. User redirected to Product A landing page
3. User navigates to Product B landing page and completes a purchase
4. Purchase is reported

If the Results column reflects Purchases, it will include all attributed purchase events — which could be for multiple products, regardless of what was promoted.

View Attribution

View attribution gives credit for a conversion if it happens within the defined attribution window following a view of your ad (but no click). For example:

1. January 1 (2pm): User is shown Ad A, but does not click it
2. January 1 (4pm): User completes a purchase

In this case, a conversion is reported even though an ad was not clicked. Here is a common scenario for how a view-through conversion happens:

1. January 1 (2pm): User shown your ad
2. January 1 (4pm): User remembers the ad, Googles your product, and completes a purchase

While no click was made, it is assumed that the ad contributed to that purchasing decision.

Another common scenario can lead to inflated results:

1. January 1 (2pm): User is shown Ad A from Company A, but does not click it
2. January 1 (4pm): User receives an email from Company A and completes a purchase

While it’s possible that the user saw the ad and it contributed to the decision to make the purchase, it’s also possible that the impression made no impact on them at all. It’s impossible to know for sure.

View-through conversions have less value overall because no click was made to indicate that the ad itself inspired an action. But that doesn’t make them worthless.

Where view-through becomes especially problematic is when advertisers use remarketing strategies and highlight their elevated ROAS and inflated conversion results as evidence of their success. This can be misleading if it’s not made clear that the results came from remarketing.

Attribution Setting

The attribution setting is defined within the ad set when utilizing a Website conversion location and maximizing the number or value of conversions.

The default attribution setting is 7-day click, 1-day view, and 1-day engaged-view.

Engaged-view merely means that, when using video in your ads, Meta will focus on people who watch at least 10 seconds of it before converting — regardless of whether the conversion is attributed from a click or view.

You can change any of these settings…

Here are your options:

• Click Attribution: 7-day or 1-day
• Engaged-View: 1-day or None
• View-Through: 1-day or None

This setting will control two things:

1. How conversions are reported. Conversions will only be reported by default that qualify under your attribution setting. If you define the attribution setting as 1-day click, Meta will not report on conversions that happen beyond one day or via view-through (these other conversions can still be uncovered using the Compare Attribution Settings feature).

2. How ad delivery is optimized. Since Meta prioritizes getting you the results that you want, the attribution setting can impact how your ads are delivered. If you define the attribution setting as 1-day click only, your ads will be shown to people most likely to convert within that window.

Conversion Reporting

When maximizing the number or value of conversions, you will need to select a conversion event.

This event will be what fills the Results column in Ads Manager.

But you can add columns for other conversion events as well. Click to customize columns…

Then add columns for standard events, custom events (if they’ve been used in ads before), or custom conversions.

Even if your conversion event is a Purchase, you can view how many other conversions resulted from your ads.

Note that one person can perform multiple conversions.

Compare Attribution Settings

Conversion results require important context to make sense of them. Otherwise, results can be misleading or cover an important part of the story. This context is found by using the Compare Attribution Settings feature.

This feature is found when clicking the Columns dropdown menu (Compare Attribution Settings is right above Customize Columns).

By default, your conversion results will be based on the attribution setting defined within the ad set. But you can use this feature to see how those results break down — or even uncover conversions that happened beyond your attribution setting.

Select all of the attribution settings that you want. We’ll select them all for the fun of it…

Note that there’s an option for 28-day click, even though that option was phased out from attribution settings after iOS 14+ changes. While your default reporting will never exceed 7-day click now, you can still view conversions that occurred within 28 days of clicking.

Once selected, Meta will create a column for each attribution setting when viewing a type of conversion.

1. Purchases (36): There are 36 total purchases reported based on the attribution setting.

2. 1-Day View (12): 12 conversions happened within a day of viewing your ad (and not clicking).

3. 1-Day Engaged-View (0): A video was not used in the ad, so no engaged-view conversions are reported.

4. 1-Day Click (13): 13 conversions happened within a day of clicking on your ad.

5. 7-day Click (24): 24 conversions happened within 7 days of clicking on your ad.

6. 28-day Click (32): 32 conversions happened within 28 days of clicking on your ad.

Now we need to do a little math to decipher what this means…

1. 36 conversions happened within 7 days of clicking or 1 day of viewing the ad.

2. 11 conversions happened beyond 1 day but within 7 days of clicking the ad (24 minus 13).

3. 8 conversions happened beyond 7 days but within 28 days of clicking the ad (32 minus 24).

4. A total of 44 total conversions can be attributed to your ad (Total Purchases + those that happened beyond 7-day click).

The Compare Attribution Settings feature is a great tool for helping us understand how our results break down to get a better sense of the overall confidence we may have in them. Consider these scenarios:

1. 70% of conversions are 1-day view. With such results, I’d have less confidence that my ads truly contributed to all of these conversions.

2. 20% additional conversions happened beyond 7-day click. These are results that are not reported by default, but indicate that our ads made a greater impact than expected. This could be due to an email sequence post-conversion or a longer buying cycle for a high-priced product.

First Conversion Reporting

There’s another way to add important context to your results using Compare Attribution Settings, and it’s with First Conversion reporting.

When you select attribution settings, you’ll have the following three options…

By default, Meta reports all conversions that happen within the attribution window. For example, someone could make two separate purchases during a seven-day period. If that happens, you could have two attributed purchases within a 7-day click attribution window.

But First Conversion would only count the first attributed conversion of that type. You could have multiple purchases, registrations, and add-to-cart events that fall within the attribution window. When selecting First Conversion, only the first of each would be counted.

Allow me to share an example of how this can be helpful. I am running an ad to promote my Cornerstone Tips lead magnet. Once the form is submitted, the confirmation page includes encouragement to register for other lead magnets.

The result is that one registrant might subscribe for multiple things, which will lead to multiple reported registrations. By using First Conversion reporting, I can break this out…

In this case, we can make a reasonable assumption that about 427 unique people completed 533 registrations. While 533 total registrations is accurate, the 427 number provides more context regarding the true number of people that my ads inspired.

I’ve used First Conversion repeatedly to solve reporting problems just like this one.

Reporting Errors

It’s important to have knowledge of attribution and use the tools available to you to add important context. But there are times when reporting is flat-out wrong.

As much as advertisers want to blame Meta for flawed reporting, it’s almost never Meta’s fault. In some cases, it may require troubleshooting on your part.

1. Inflated results. Complaints of inflated results off come from an inability to match Ads Manager with third-party reporting. Your results can appear inflated due to remarketing or multiple conversions performed by unique customers. These results wouldn’t be inflated, but would require a closer look.

Otherwise, results can be inflated due to a conversion event issue. If Meta is reporting conversions that did not happen, it may be due to one of the following:

• Firing the event on the wrong page or prematurely
• Events from multiple sources are not deduplicated

In these cases, you need to test your events and check logs to pinpoint the problem.

2. Underreported results. Otherwise, you may find that Meta isn’t able to attribute conversions fully. This can be due to privacy/tracking issues, particularly since iOS 14+ (though many of these conversions are modeled now). Meta may also be unable to attribute a conversion because it falls outside of the attribution setting.

Reporting Holes

Even if you are knowledgable of how attribution works and you’re diligent about providing important context, I recommend that you fully embrace the fact that reporting will never be perfect. Ads Manager numbers will almost never match up perfectly with third-party reporting.

That’s not necessarily because Ads Manager is wrong or the third-party reporting is wrong. But there are important quirks that make 100% consistently virtually impossible. Beyond clear errors that lead to over or under-reporting, you should otherwise embrace these likely differences.

There are some very clear reporting holes that often lead advertisers on an endless chase to find answers…

1. View-through conversions. Unless there’s direct integration with Ads Manager, third-party reporting will not have any information about whether a person viewed your ad and did not click prior to converting. This is information that only Meta has and you’ll drive yourself crazy attempting to verify it.

2. Clicks that don’t drive traffic. It took me more than a decade to realize this, but click attribution does not require a click on an external link. While the vast majority of conversions resulting from a click may result from people clicking on the link in your ad, some may not. And that would mean UTM parameters become useless for this segment of click conversions, which are no different than view-through conversions when it comes to being able to verify them.

3. The 7-day purchase decision. The easiest conversions to verify are those that happen immediately: A person clicked your ad, was redirected to your website, and immediately converted. But that’s not always how it works. Some conversions, especially the purchase of higher priced products, can take multiple days following the first click. It can take customers across devices and browsers, potentially negating URL parameters.

And that assumes that the conversion happens within the 7-day attribution window at all. As mentioned above, you can often find hidden conversions that happened using the 28-day click attribution setting. But depending on what you’re promoting, the customer journey may be even longer. This makes attribution and measurement difficult.

Your Turn

If you understand Meta ads conversion results at this level, you’re ahead of most advertisers. Anything else you’d add?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Meta Ads Conversion Results: A Guide appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Attribution may be the single most important element of advertising. It not only helps advertisers see what works and what doesn’t by assigning conversion credit to ads, but it impacts optimization and targeting. Get this wrong, and your mistakes spill down through every step of your advertising.

Last week, we covered the most common optimization mistakes that advertisers make. This week, let’s focus on attribution mistakes.

Maybe you are making some of these mistakes. It’s not too late. Make the necessary corrections.

Let’s get to the most common attribution mistakes…

What is Attribution?

First, let’s be clear about what we’re talking about.

Attribution is the ability to give credit to an ad for a conversion. While a simple concept, there are several layers to proper attribution that can impact advertising performance.

When something goes wrong with attribution, it’s due to a failure in one of these areas…

1. Setup. You’ve done everything on the back end to make sure that results are reported accurately and completely.
2. Application. You know how to apply your knowledge of attribution to different optimization strategies.
3. Interpretation. You are able to make meaning of your results.
4. Understanding. You understand how attribution works, it’s strengths, and weaknesses and how that impacts your approach.

Now let’s break down the most common mistakes.

1. Improper or Incomplete Setup of Pixel or Conversions API

Conversion attribution is impossible without first setting up a way for Meta to know how people are engaging with your business away from the Meta family of apps.

This starts with the Meta pixel. It needs to be on every page of your websites. When possible, it needs to be on other websites you don’t own where you sell products.

At one time, setting up the pixel (and events, which we’ll get to in a moment) was enough. But mostly due to privacy laws and weaker tracking, passing first-party data is critical to complete attribution. If you haven’t set up the Conversions API, you are sending incomplete data to Meta.

That could come in two forms:

1. Web API. This is the most common form of the Conversions API. By sending conversion information from the web API in addition to the pixel, you can help fill in blanks where the pixel can fail. There are multiple methods to accomplish this, but I use Stape to set up the API Gateway.

2. Offline or CRM API. If all business is done on your website, the web API may be sufficient. Otherwise, offline leads and purchases need to be passed to Meta via an offline or CRM API. This allows the possibility that you can see when your ads lead to conversions that happen away from your website. Meta can also optimize for these conversions.

2. Failure of Standard Events, Custom Events, and Custom Conversions

Of course, setting up the pixel and Conversions API is half the battle. Make sure you do that. But it’s the events themselves that define when someone performed an important action.

Events help define whether someone performed a purchase, registration, search, or other important action on your website. Custom conversions help provide granularity to your reporting, like the specific product that was purchased.

Failure in this area comes down to three primary things…

1. Misunderstanding their roles and unique purpose. Do you know the differences between standard events, custom events, and custom conversions? Most advertisers don’t, confusing custom events for custom conversions. Advertisers will attempt to use one in place of another. The reality is that you need to use all three.

2. Improper or incomplete setup. Set up standard events for all important actions when possible. Set up custom events for those unique actions that aren’t predefined. Pass the necessary details of these actions via parameters. Create custom conversions to add granularity to your reporting.

3. Over or under reporting. When results are clearly wrong, advertisers are often quick to blame Meta. But start with yourself. The pixel, Conversions API, and events all need to be set up properly to fire on the right page and at the right time. Do this incorrectly, and you may send too many or too few events, which will impact your reporting.

3. Inability to Understand Meaning of Conversion Results

One of the most fundamental failures is misunderstanding your results, how they are calculated, and the context behind different types of attribution.

By default, conversions are counted when someone clicks your ad and converts within seven days or views your ad and converts within a day (without clicking). Far too many advertisers have no idea this is the case. They assume that all reported conversions in the Results column are due to someone clicking their ad and immediately converting.

That conversion may not be immediate. It may happen later that day. It may happen seven days later. Or your customer may not have clicked at all, but they were shown your ad.

Attribution mistakes often come down to misunderstanding that either all conversions are equal or that all conversions of a type (1-day click or 1-day view) are always good or always bad.

Context matters.

If you are an experienced advertiser who appreciates the nuance of the various types of attribution, you regularly use the Compare Attribution Settings feature to see how your results break down. You’ll even add a column for 28-day click, which is otherwise buried.

How many of your conversions are view-through? Depending on what you’re promoting, a high percentage is a red flag. You may want to discount them. Or simply acknowledge that they aren’t as meaningful as the the click-through conversions.

Of course, if you’re selling a product and a high percentage of those view-through conversions are engaged-view (and your ad uses video), you may have more confidence in those numbers.

There’s also the matter of visitors performing a conversion event multiple times, which can lead to the perception of inflated results. This can be addressed with First Conversion reporting.

4. Expecting Google Analytics and Ads Manager to Report the Same

One of the advertiser’s biggest annoyances is a client who insists that Ads Manager reporting is wrong because it doesn’t match up with Google Analytics.

How do you respond?

Meta and GA4 will measure your conversions differently. And frankly, Google has less data than Meta does.

Only Meta has the knowledge that someone saw your ad without clicking prior to converting. And Meta may be better equipped to attribute a conversion to an ad when a customer switches devices or comes back days later to complete a purchase.

It doesn’t matter that you use UTM parameters. This still doesn’t solve for view-through conversions. And it’s unlikely to be enough to help GA4 properly attribute a conversion from Facebook if it happens days after the initial click.

It’s important to use both. Use GA4 with UTM parameters as a second source of information. This can also help you spot problems if you are unable to explain the disparity.

But one isn’t “right.” Neither is perfect. Embrace this.

5. Always Leaving the Attribution Setting at the Default

A big mistake is misunderstanding how the attribution setting applies both to default reporting and optimization for ad delivery.

Once again, the default attribution setting is 7-day click and 1-day view. Not only does that mean that conversions will be reported that happen within that window, but Meta will optimize to show ads to people who are likely to convert within that window as well.

This is important. If you’re optimizing for purchase, a 7-day click and 1-day view attribution setting makes sense. But it may not for any other type of conversion.

You can make the case that a view-through conversion is relevant for purchases. Someone saw your ad. They were interested. But it is a big commitment. They need to discuss with their spouse, business partner, or higher ups. They either go directly to your website or Google your product later that day and convert.

But this explanation for view-through conversions falls flat when discussing the typical lead. If something is free and easy to acquire, it makes very little sense that someone wouldn’t simply act on that ad when they see it.

This also applies to when optimizing for custom events based on engagement actions. These events can happen repeatedly. The result is that Meta can inflate your results by simply displaying ads to people who visit your website regularly. Even if they don’t click.

There is a solution. Edit the attribution setting in these cases to be 1-day click only. Since view-throughs won’t be counted as conversions by default, the algorithm won’t optimize for that type of conversion.

You can still see 1-day view conversions, though. They just aren’t included in the default reporting. Use the compare attribution settings feature to see them. Expect that you’ll get fewer of them when they aren’t included in the ad set attribution setting.

Watch Video

I recorded a video about this, too. Watch it below…

Your Turn

What areas of attribution do you struggle with?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post 5 Most Common Attribution Mistakes Advertisers Make appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

If you’re an advanced Meta advertiser, you understand the value of the Compare Attribution Settings feature. Unfortunately, not nearly enough advertisers know that this exists or how best to leverage it.

Let’s fix that. In this post, you’ll learn:

1. What attribution is
2. Why Compare Attribution Settings is valuable
3. How to access the feature
4. Specific ways to take advantage of it

Let’s go…

A Note on Attribution

Before we get to the feature, a brief explanation is in order.

1. Attribution is how Meta gives credit to an ad for a conversion. Attribution can either be click or view-through. Examples include:

• 1-day view: Someone converts within one day of viewing (not clicking) your ad
• 1-day engaged-view: Someone converts within one day of viewing (not clicking) at least 10 seconds of your skippable video ad
• 1-day click: Someone converts within one day of clicking your ad
• 7-day click: Someone converts within 7 days of clicking your ad

2. The Attribution Setting determines optimization and reporting. Established in the ad set when optimizing for conversions, the default Attribution Setting is 7-day click and 1-day view.

In other words, Meta will do two things:

1. Optimize to show your ads to people who are most likely to convert within the Attribution Setting.

2. Report your conversions, by default, based on that Attribution Setting.

Compare Attribution Settings

The value of the Compare Attribution Settings feature is that you can view conversion results based on any of the attribution windows, regardless of the Attribution Setting used.

Here are a couple of examples (we’ll get to more detailed approaches further down):

1. You used an Attribution Setting of 1-day click. Therefore, the default reporting will only include conversions that happened within 1 day of clicking. You want to see how many conversions happened within 7 days, too.

2. You want to see how many conversions happened within 1-day view. The default is 7-day click and 1-day view, and you’d like to see the share of click and view conversions.

To access this, open the Columns dropdown menu in Ads Manager and select Compare Attribution Settings.

You will then get this menu…

You’ll notice that there are five options in the top section, whereas we only discussed four options for the Attribution Setting. You can also select 28-day click, which is a big deal. This was previously available (and the default) prior to iOS 14 changes in 2021.

Click “Third-Party Reporting” for two more options: View and Click from SKAdNetwork.

These are for app ads. We’ll focus on the top five.

If you select any of the first five, a column will be added for any conversion metric. Here’s an example…

The first column is for how the conversions were reported based on the Attribution Setting. The remaining columns are those you have added from Compare Attribution Settings.

The Math

If you look at the screenshot above, the metrics can be confusing, if not misleading. Let’s recap what is reported.

• Reported: 3,977
• 1-Day View: 30
• 1-Day Engaged-View: 0
• 1-Day Click: 3,890
• 7-Day Click: 3,947
• 28-Day Click: 4,001

The mistake that advertisers can make is that they interpret all of these numbers as separate conversions. But there is overlap.

For example…

28-day click includes 7-day click and 1-day click.
7-day click includes 1-day click.

The reported number is 3,977, and the Attribution Setting used was 7-day click (3,947) and 1-day view (30). Add those two together and you get the reported number.

But, the vast majority of these conversions are 1-day click (3,890). Only 57 happened beyond 1 day and within 7 days (3,947 minus 3,890). There were also another 54 conversions that happened beyond 7-day click and within 28 days (4,001 minus 3,947).

If you wanted to give a total number of conversions that happened within 28-day click and 1-day view, it would be 4,031 (4,001 plus 30).

View-Through Conversions

Now let’s go through some specific use cases of the Compare Attribution Settings feature.

One of the most important is related to view-through conversions. A decent percentage of advertisers don’t even know that view-through conversions are a thing. But they are included within the default Attribution Setting.

View-through conversions have a bad reputation, but I have no issue with them overall. They can absolutely be the source of misleading results, but that’s your job as an advertiser to sort it out.

In my opinion, it makes sense to count view-through conversions for purchases. Someone saw your ad, didn’t click, and they bought your product within a day. You can make the argument that your ad contributed to that conversion.

Most frequently, this is the result of remarketing. You are targeting someone who regularly visits your website or gets emails from you. They saw your ad and didn’t act, but it may have helped push them to purchase when they eventually made that decision.

Is a view-through conversion as valuable as a click-through conversion? Probably not. That’s why you should use this feature to see how many of your conversions happened within 1-day view.

In most cases, you should remove 1-day view from your Attribution Setting for conversions other than purchases, particularly for actions that can happen multiple times. Otherwise, your conversions are likely to get inflated by view-through conversions that had minimal impact.

When in doubt, use Compare Attribution Settings to break down how many of the conversions are happening from 1-day view. If a majority or close to a majority of your conversions are view-through, you should consider removing it from your Attribution Setting. You want to be sure you’re getting a good cost per click-through conversion first and foremost.

Engaged-View Conversions

Engaged-view is the newest attribution, and I admit it’s still somewhat confusing. It applies when someone watches at least 10 seconds (or 97%) of your skippable video and converts without clicking within a day.

If you aren’t running video ads, don’t expect to get any engaged-view conversions. This adds a greater level of value to your 1-day view conversions. While these people didn’t click, we know that they at least watched your video for 10 seconds.

You can also compare 1-day view to 1-day engaged-view to get an idea of the overall quality of those view-through conversions.

Click Conversions

Make no mistake, click conversions are the most valuable. You can have the most confidence in these numbers.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that these numbers will match up with third-party reporting or Google Analytics. Even 1-day click doesn’t mean that someone clicked and then immediately converted. It just means that someone converted within a day of clicking.

Personally, I would only use 7-day click for purchases. There’s rarely any reason that someone would convert via view-through or several days after a click for a lead or lower-commitment conversion (there are always exceptions).

Especially when optimizing for a purchase, compare attribution settings to get a sense of where most of your conversions are falling. If most are within 1-day click, you may consider adjusting the Attribution Setting accordingly.

Of course, there’s one more click conversion option…

28-Day Click

Prior to iOS 14 changes in 2021, default attribution was 28-day click and 1-day view. What’s crazy to think about now is that back then, advertisers often complained that reporting seemed inflated. Now it’s the opposite.

While 28-day click isn’t available as an Attribution Setting in the ad set, you can still see how many conversions happened within 28 days of clicking your ad. And you absolutely should, particularly for purchases — especially high-priced purchases.

Look at it like this…

Your ad inspired someone to click your ad. They were interested in your product. But maybe it is a bit expensive and a high commitment. Maybe this person needs to consult their spouse, business partner, or higher up before making this purchase.

They copy or bookmark the link. Maybe they send it to that spouse or business partner. And maybe they wait for a meeting or the right moment in the budget to make this purchase.

And then, somewhere between eight and 28 days later, they make the purchase. Your ad contributed to that conversion. It was likely what inspired every step that followed.

The other example is that someone clicked your ad and was interested but didn’t buy right away for some of the reasons mentioned. Maybe they subscribed to your newsletter or for email reminders and they eventually acted on a message from you. Or maybe they remembered the product and later Googled you to find and purchase the product.

The bottom line is this: 28-day click doesn’t inflate your numbers. You simply need to provide important context when presenting your results.

Do not ignore 28-day click. These people actually clicked your ad. Meta knows that they later purchased. Just make sure to be clear about how many of your conversions are beyond 7-day click.

For the more expensive products, you may see that a lot of purchases are hidden here and completely change how you perceive results. For the typical campaign, though, you may be surprised to see an extra 5-10% or so.

First Conversion Reporting

One development in 2024 was the ability to isolate First Conversion reporting. Once you select any of the attribution settings, you should see the following options…

By default, Meta reports on all conversions. First Conversion means that Meta will report the first qualifying instance of an event. For example, if someone who clicks your ad performs multiple purchases within the attribution setting, only the first will be reported.

The difference between All Conversions and First Conversion is likely minimal for purchase events. But, you may see a far greater disparity when an event often occurs multiple times.

I’ve found First Conversion most helpful when providing much more realistic and precise reporting for custom events that are based on website engagement (scroll depth and time spent). These results can be grossly inflated by repeat actions.

I’ve also used First Conversion to help solve reporting discrepancy problems. Keep in mind that First Conversion isn’t meant to replace All Conversions. It’s not necessarily “better” in all cases. But, it’s a good option that may be preferred, depending on the conversion event.

Watch Video

I recorded a video about Compare Attribution Settings, too. Watch it here…

Your Turn

Do you use the Compare Attribution Settings feature? What other ways do you use it?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Compare Attribution Settings: Get the Most of Meta Conversion Data appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Engaged-View Attribution provides a unique way to measure conversions after engagement with your video ads. It could be a sign of where attribution is heading.

Let’s take a closer look at what Engaged-View Attribution is and how it fits in with Meta ads attribution generally. In this post, we’ll cover the following…

• What is Engaged-View Attribution?
• Placements and Skippable Video Ads
• View-Through Conversions
• Ad Set Attribution Setting
• Results and Compare Attribution
• Value of Engaged-View
• The Future of Ads Attribution
• When to Use

It’s a lot! Let’s go…

What Is It?

First, attribution is how Meta provides credit to your ads for conversions that typically occur on your website. Credit can be given to ads that received a click (within 1 or 7 days of the conversion) or only a view (within a day).

Meta defines Engaged-View Attribution as the following:

When someone plays 10 seconds of a skippable video ad, or watches at least 97% of the video ad, if the video ad is shorter than 10 seconds, this will count toward engaged-view attribution. The person watching the video also needs to convert on your advertising objective within 24 hours.

Let’s simplify this. The following all need to be true for Meta to count an Engaged-View conversion:

1. Someone views a “skippable” video ad
2. They watch that video for at least 10 seconds (or 97% if under 10 seconds)
3. They don’t click to your website
4. They end up converting within 24 hours

Meta provides the following example of an Engaged-View conversion:

Sharon sees a video ad for yoga on-demand class in her Instagram Stories. She played the ad for more than 10 seconds instead of skipping to the next story/video. She continued to consume other content. The next day, she remembers the video and signs up for the on-demand yoga classes. In this scenario, Sharon signing up for yoga class the next day would be attributed to the campaign as an Engaged-view conversion.

Skippable Video Ads

It’s important to understand that Engaged-View Attribution doesn’t apply to all video ads. Meta’s documentation specifically mentions “skippable” videos. The question then becomes, “Which placements may have video ads that cannot be skipped?”

Meta provided some clarity on this:

Engaged-view is available for all placements except Facebook in-stream video ads that cannot be skipped.

In other words, Engaged-View attribution should be relevant most of the time. The rare exception is when an in-stream video cannot be skipped. How often that happens isn’t entirely clear.

View-Through Conversions

Meta didn’t do a great job of clarifying that this is only for view-through conversions. But it’s found here within Meta’s documentation…

Without that line, it was implied in multiple ways but was never explicit. It’s important to remember this when looking at your results.

Engaged-View conversions will always be a segment of your 1-day view conversions. If someone views a skippable video ad for 10 seconds, clicks to your website, and then converts within a day, it will not be counted as an Engaged-View conversion. It falls within click conversion.

Ad Set Attribution Setting

To access the Engaged-View Attribution Setting, you’ll first need to use the Sales, Leads, or Engagement objective and select “Website” as the conversion location.

Make sure to select your pixel and conversion event, too. Then scroll down a little within the section and click the “See More Options” link to see your Attribution Setting.

Hover to edit it, and you’ll see the following drop-down menus…

This is a design change. Previously, there was one drop-down menu to select from the various click and view Attribution Settings. Now, you select click and view attribution windows separately, and there’s a third drop-down for Engaged-View.

Beyond that, nothing’s truly changed. The only click options are 7 days or 1 day.

The only view options are 1 day or none.

If you did select “none” for your view window, Engaged-View would not be available.

Otherwise, you’ll have the options of 1 day or none for Engaged-View.

Results and Compare Attribution

You can add context when viewing your results in Ads Manager to see how many conversions happened within an Engaged-View. Select “Compare Attribution Settings” from the Columns drop-down menu.

The Results column in your reporting will display conversions that happened within the Attribution Setting you selected in your ad set by default. But you can add columns for each attribution window to see how that reporting breaks down.

Remember that you will only see Engaged-View for video ads that lead to a view-through conversion. The Engaged-View numbers will be included within the 1-day view numbers.

Here’s an example…

Let’s break down what this means:

1. There are 92 total conversions between click and view attribution.
2. There are 54 total 1-day view conversions.
3. Of those 54 1-day view conversions, 9 are 1-day engaged-view.

In other words, there are 45 1-day view conversions that didn’t qualify as engaged-view (54 minus 9).

Value

What need does Engaged-View attribution fill? I think there are two primary areas where it can provide value.

1. Improved optimization. If you run a video ad with the goal of a website conversion, Engaged-View may improve the signals that the algorithm focuses on. View-through conversions are often criticized because you can pad your results through remarketing this way. This doesn’t help you. But if the algorithm focuses on engaged-view conversions in this case, you may see more quality conversions.

2. Quality verification. The Compare Attribution Settings feature can provide insight on the quality of your reported conversions. If you see that a high percentage of your conversions are 1-day view, you may have less confidence in the results. But, if a greater percentage of those 1-day view conversions are Engaged-View, it would improve your impressions of those results.

The Future of Ads Attribution

While Engaged-View in its current form has a lot of issues, I still see some potential here. First, it’s important to recognize that Meta is doing something completely different by leveraging in-app engagement for conversion attribution. That’s new.

First, as I’ve said throughout above, why isolate this to skippable video ads? While I understand the argument to eliminate forced-views from Engaged-View conversions, I honestly don’t know that it’s necessary. If you’re forced to watch a video and you converted within a day, it seems perfectly reasonable to suggest that the video contributed.

But, maybe we’re overthinking all of this. Why limit it to videos? Why not instead use some sort of standard for measuring an “engaged view” that applies to any format or placement?

What we want to eliminate is that ad that barely appears for a person before they convert within a day. But, what if they reacted? Commented? Shared? Opened it? Stared at it in 100% view for 10+ seconds? All of these things could be considered deep engagement for signals Meta could use for optimization and measurement.

Maybe it’s an expansion of Engaged-View to include other formats and different types of engagement. Even if it’s not, Meta’s shown the willingness to include in-app signals in this way where they hadn’t previously. It could mean a future shift in conversion attribution.

When to Use It

The obvious answer is when running a campaign where your performance goal is a website conversion and you use video ads. There’s probably no clear reason not to use Engaged-View Attribution.

It’s important to remember that Engaged-View conversions are a segment of View-Through Attribution, which is normally a minority of your conversions anyway. And it’s only for a handful of placements.

In other words, we’re talking about a very specific use case and probably a very small number of conversions.

That use case, though, will find this valuable. When thinking about hypothetical scenarios where this will be most helpful, I come up with the following points of focus…

1. Higher budgets. If Engaged-View Attribution is likely to represent the smallest segment of your conversions, higher budgets will likely be necessary to generate those conversions.

2. Remarketing. This may be the most valuable part of Engaged-View. If you target your email list or recent website visitors, many of your conversions may end up being from people who were served your ad (didn’t really see it) and would have gone to your website to convert within a day anyway. That leads to padding numbers and can devalue your conversion results.

But Engaged-View could provide further verification of the value of your view-through conversions. If you know that a large percentage of these people watched at least 10 seconds of your video before converting, you may trust those results more.

3. Verbal CTAs. I’ve been trying to think of real-world scenarios that are likely to happen, and this is what I came up with: An influencer records a video showcasing your product and gives a verbal CTA to go to a shortened URL and buy the product. No link in the copy (or it wasn’t clicked). While this may be more indicative of an organic video than an ad, it’s more reflective of video conversions that could result in an Engaged-View now.

Your Turn

What do you think? How will you use Engaged-View Attribution?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How Engaged-View Attribution Works for Meta Advertising appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.