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Platform over-claim tracker: Meta, Google Ads and TikTok against your shop's orders

Meta, Google Ads and TikTok each credit a purchase to their own ad when the buyer clicked or saw it inside their own window, so one order can be claimed by all three and the claims add up to more than your shop took. The tracker sums the claims week by week against your real orders; the platforms' own rules are quoted below.

Last checked 5 November 2026. The spreadsheet (.xlsx) has one row per week with the formulas built in, a notes row that says where each number lives, and the platforms' quoted rules; the one-page PDF guide walks the first week.

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Why the claims add up to more than the orders

A customer who clicked a Meta ad on Monday, a Google Shopping ad on Wednesday and bought on Friday is one order in your shop. Meta credits it (a purchase within 7 days of a link click), Google Ads credits it (within its 30-day click window), and GA4 gives it to a channel by its own model. Nobody is lying; each platform answers only "did this buyer touch my ad inside my window?". Add the claims up and the same order is counted two or three times.

The platforms’ own rules

Meta

Google Ads

GA4

TikTok’s help pages on its attribution windows did not load on 5 November 2026, so no TikTok rule is quoted; the sheet has TikTok columns for what its Ads Manager reports. All quotes read 5 November 2026.

What merchants wrote

  • “Facebook is showing several times more attributed revenue than Shopify shows from Facebook.”

    r/FacebookAds poster (Shopify store). Reddit r/FacebookAds, 10 Sep 2026. Source

  • “We’re using the native Shopify integration and the purchase events are massively overblown. Like 3x.”

    r/FacebookAds poster (Shopify store owner). Reddit r/FacebookAds, 18 Sep 2026. Source

  • “Events Manager shows 306 ATCs, 23 Checkouts and 8 Purchases for the same period. We actually had 7 real WooCommerce orders”

    r/FacebookAds poster (WooCommerce store; Ads Manager showed 1 purchase, so the same platform both over- and under-counted). Reddit r/FacebookAds, 6 Sep 2026. Source

  • “We used to do well on Google but i have noticed its been claiming sales from meta/organic, so we have been overspending.”

    r/googleads poster (jewellery store owner). Reddit r/googleads, 5 Sep 2026. Source

The sheet’s columns, and where each number lives

  1. 1

    Week starting (Monday)

    One row per calendar week, Monday to Sunday. Set every platform's date range to exactly those seven days.

  2. 2

    Meta purchases

    Meta Ads Manager > Campaigns, date range the week, column Purchases, all campaigns. Write the attribution setting it shows in the notes column.

  3. 3

    Meta purchase conversion value

    Same report, column Purchases conversion value.

  4. 4

    Google Ads conversions

    Google Ads > Campaigns, the week, column Conversions, with only your purchase action set as Primary.

  5. 5

    Google Ads conversion value

    Same report, column Conv. value.

  6. 6

    TikTok purchases

    TikTok Ads Manager > Campaign, the week, the purchase conversion column you optimise on. Leave empty if you run no TikTok ads.

  7. 7

    TikTok purchase value

    Same report, its conversion value column.

  8. 8

    GA4 purchases

    GA4 > Reports > Monetization > Ecommerce purchases (or Engagement > Events > purchase), the week, the Purchases total.

  9. 9

    GA4 purchase revenue

    Same report, Purchase revenue. Check first whether it holds VAT: causalityengine.ai/free/ga4-revenue-vat.

  10. 10

    Shop orders

    Your shop admin > Orders, the week, paid orders only; test and cancelled orders left out.

  11. 11

    Shop net revenue excl. VAT

    Your shop's sales report for the week: after discounts and returns, excl. VAT and shipping.

  12. 12

    Claimed purchases (Meta + Google + TikTok)formula

    Formula: the three platforms' purchases added up.

  13. 13

    Claims per shop orderformula

    Formula: claimed purchases ÷ shop orders. 1.00 means the claims add up to exactly your orders; 2.00 means every order is claimed twice over.

  14. 14

    Claimed value per € of shop revenueformula

    Formula: the three platforms' values added up ÷ shop net revenue. Only meaningful when the platforms and the shop are on the same VAT basis.

  15. 15

    GA4 purchases per shop orderformula

    Formula: GA4 purchases ÷ shop orders. Far below 1.00: consent or a missing tag; above 1.00: the purchase event fires more than once.

  16. 16

    Against the previous 4 weeksformula

    Formula: this week's claims per shop order minus the average of the four rows above it. A jump after nothing changed in the shop is a platform change, not more sales.

  17. 17

    Notes

    Attribution settings, campaign launches, tracking changes, with dates.

What the tracker can't tell you

The tracker shows that the claims overlap. It cannot say which claim is true, because every platform answers "did the buyer touch my ad?", not "would they have bought without it?". The free first finding on /start reads your GA4 Attribution paths export in your browser and shows what last click gave each channel; the read shows what each channel caused.

€99 excl. VAT, once, with a full refund within 30 days, and you keep the read. See the first finding free