Introduction
Digital marketers all know the struggle: You’re looking at the conversion results in Meta Ads reporting and it doesn’t align with the numbers you’re seeing in external reporting tools like Google Analytics.
Even though this is expected because Meta uses different attribution settings, it can be quite challenging explaining these differences in numbers (to your clients).
The (sometimes large) difference in results is mostly related to the view- and click-based attribution that Meta uses to report on conversion results, up to 28 days after someone viewed or clicked your ad.
When you report on conversion results in Meta Ads Manager, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a Meta owned channel like Facebook and Instagram was actually the last channel before the conversion happened.
For example, Meta Ads Reporting may show conversions that happened within a 7-day click window. However, other non-Meta channels may intervene in the path to purchase.
Here’s a simplified scenario
Day 1: Someone clicks on your Facebook ad, visits your website and leaves without converting.
Day 3: That same person now visits your website through a Google search and completes a conversion.
Meta Ads Reporting will now attribute the purchase to the Facebook ad click, as it happened within the 1-day view / 7-day click attribution window, despite the conversion path including another channel like Google search.
Definition of ‘Last (non-Meta) Click’
A click on the last non-meta channel that brought a user to your website before they converted during that same session.
In other words, the last click before a user enters your website. That click may have happened on any channel, except for Meta owned channels like Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
It’s the last click that opened your website and happened before the conversion.
When the user closes the website/tab, the session will end. When the user enters your website again later using a different channel, the last click will be attributed to that last channel accordingly.
Disclaimer: This tutorial shows how to technically configure a ‘Custom Metric’, meaning the ‘Last (non-Meta) Click’ isn’t a standard/official metric created by Meta. It’s a metric that you will need to create yourself with the intent of enhancing reporting and gathering insights. Therefore, the accuracy of this metric and its result isn’t Meta’s liability, it’s your own and the output depends on your manual setup.
How this custom metric will help you to better understand Meta Ads attribution
When you look at the Meta Ads reports, you won’t know if a conversion happened with or without the intervention of other channels. And when you look in Google Analytics, it will most likely attribute most conversions to other channels.
Now here’s where the magic happens. If you add a Custom Column that show the ‘Last (non-Meta) click’ conversion in Meta Ads Reporting itself, you are now able to see the amount of conversions that were actually ‘Last (non-Meta) click’ conversions, meaning the last click that happened before the conversion was on a non-Meta source. For example, a click on a Google search result.
This way, ‘Last (non-Meta) click’ conversions uncover valuable insights you would otherwise never, ever see…
This custom metric will give you a much better understanding on how Meta ads contributes towards conversions and how it influences the overall performance of other channels in the path to purchase.
How to implement ‘Last (non-meta) Click’ attribution for measuring conversions in Meta Ads reporting
I will be using Google Tag Manager to set up this configuration. You should have Google Tag Manager installed on your website and have full access to Meta Business Suite to be able to configure custom events and custom conversions in Meta’s Event Manager.
Do you have all tools and access in place?
Here we go!
