Discrepancy between Adobe and FB Campaign Data

[utsavm1234]

Hello Members,

My organization is running a Paid Campaign in FB and FB is sending us monthly reports on the performance. Actually, the campaign is about purchase. From FB ads, people are landing on our page and buy products from there.

We are capturing data under Adobe Analytics.

Now when we are comparing the data (FB and Adobe) – there is a huge gap. FB data is much higher than Adobe Data.

I came to know about a fact (not sure whether it is true or not) that if visitors are using the FB app, it will likely come through as dark social or "Typed/bookmarked" as resource.

My questions are:

1. Is the statement above true?
2. If true; can it be a possible reason of data discrepancy between FB and Adobe?
3. If the answer to 2nd question is “YES” – is there any way to overcome that?
4. If the answers of first 3 questions are negative; any suggestions about how we should move ahead with the analysis of this data discrepancy?

I know asking too many questions and maybe irrelevant  as well, but as a newbie – I think this is the right place to clear my doubts.

Regards

Utsav

[Jennifer_Dungan]

There's a lot to unpack here.

First, there will always be discrepancies when comparing two different systems, as they work differently than one another.

Next, yes there is always the chance of social links coming through with no referrals, this can happen on the web if a "noreferrer" directive is added to the links on a site. Now, in regards to facebook... in most cases, I have seen their apps have referrers set to m.facebook.com (but there could still be exceptions to that).

However, much of the discrepancy you are dealing with likely has to do with some other factors:

• What is the attribution model set to in Facebook? Likely 30 days
• What is the attribution model in Adobe? Are you looking at "Referrers" directly (This would be visit level)? Are you looking at "Tracking Code" (this is set to 7 days by default, but could have been changed)? Are you looking at Marketing Channels (I believe this is 30 days by default, but again can be changed)?
• Facebook is greedy, FB doesn't see anything else that happens on your site... so Adobe will be looking at the last touch, and Facebook will take credit over those in its own system cause it doesn't know any better

Let's unpack the "Greedy" point....

• Some one goes to FB
• Clicks on one of your links
  • This sets the FB cookie
  • This also will be tracked in Adobe
• User Leaves
• 2 Days later, user comes to your site from a Paid Search Campaign
  • FB doesn't know that, as far as FB is concerned you are still a live lead
  • Adobe overwrites the last touch with Paid Search / Search Engine traffic
• 3 Days after that, the user clicks on an email campaign
  • FB still doesn't know anything about this
  • Adobe overwrites the last touch with Email Campaign
• User Converts
  • FB takes credit, cause you still have FB cookie
  • Adobe attributes the conversion to the Email Campaign

[kayawalton]

In addition to what @Jennifer_Dungan has pointed out, there are also other factors to consider:

Did your organization implement an FB pixel on your website?

The presence (or lack thereof) of the pixel could affect the data coming from your FB ads. Having the pixel implemented allows FB to track the path of the traffic they refer to the website, and to Jen's point, claim attribution for when the user eventually converts even if Adobe looks at the last touch.

Did you implement tracking parameters for the FB ad campaign?

This will minimize the impact of "dark social" referrals from your ad campaign and allow you to identify whether a conversion had touched your FB ads at some point. Most referrals coming through link posts and ad links from the Facebook app are registering as direct traffic (Typed/Bookmarked) unless your organization had set up Facebook Instant Articles and tied them into Adobe Analytics at some point. FB Instant Articles has since been deprecated earlier this year, but it might be helpful to know that history from your organization's data. 

[utsavm1234]

Thanks Kayawalton for your answers,

Did your organization implement an FB pixel on your website?

Yes, that's present. I have to compare the total online sales data to clarify whether same things happening for us or not - as mentioned by Jennifer.

Did you implement tracking parameters for the FB ad campaign?

No, this is not being done. I will coordinate with Developer who is taking care of the implementation. Can you refer a link that can guide us to implement this?

[utsavm1234]

Thanks Jennifer for your answers;   

Next, yes there is always the chance of social links coming through with no referrals, this can happen on the web if a "noreferrer" directive is added to the links on a site. Now, in regards to facebook... in most cases, I have seen their apps have referrers set to m.facebook.com (but there could still be exceptions to that).

Does it means that we will see "m.facebook.com" as referring domain in Adobe Analytics? If yes, we are seeing very less number of traffic through that. Sharing you screenshots for Sep 2023:

I am agree with you that FB is greedy.

And your explanation is awesome. I can't tell you weather that is exactly happening for us or not, because I need to compare total online sale reported by adobe with FB data.

[Jennifer_Dungan · Accepted solution]

I'm glad my explanation helped

You could try using Attribution IQ (participation - X Days) model on your conversions against your referrers to see if FB drove more traffic earlier, but not on the direct conversion?

Yes, I have seen Facebook app traffic come through the referring domain m.facebook.com. But I also have seen no referrer at all... (it would be nice if they were consistent)

It can be really hard to keep on top of FB behaviours... for all your specific campaigns, creating a proper campaign id (either using UTMs or CID, etc parameters) will help you better identify your campaigns so that you can dig into the attribution more closely.

Unfortunately, I really can't check what is happening currently; I work for a Canadian News Organization.. not sure if you are aware, but there is a major dispute over Canada's Bill C-18 and organizations like Facebook, and right now, no news links can be shared to or from Canadians in that platform... so our FB referrals is pretty much non-existent....