Why Meta and Google claim more orders than your store recorded
Because each platform counts an order as its own when its ad or email reached the buyer inside its own window, and none of them checks the others. Add the claims up and they can pass what the store sold. Convey Growth counts each order once, from the store's own record, and shows each platform's claim beside it.
One week, two stores.
| What | Value | Window |
|---|---|---|
| orders the platforms claimed between them, as a share of every order a coffee roaster took | 100.8% | one week, Sep 2026 |
| what email claimed at the same roaster, against what the store could tie to email | 10.8x | one week, Sep 2026 |
| orders Meta claimed at a bakery, 7-day click | 243 | Sep 25 to Oct 1, 2026 |
| orders the bakery's store could tie to a Meta first visit | 134 | Sep 25 to Oct 1, 2026 |
Counted from each store's own order record. Client names stay private.
Why the counts don't match.
Every platform keeps its own window. Meta's default counts a purchase made within seven days of a click on an ad, or one day of a view. Google Ads counts conversions inside its own window, often weeks long. An email platform counts an order when the buyer opened or clicked an email in the days before. Each rule makes sense alone. Together they overlap.
A view counts as credit. Someone scrolls past an ad in the evening, searches the brand the next morning and buys. Meta can claim that order. So can the search ad they clicked on the way in.
An open isn't always a person. Apple Mail loads emails in the background, which registers an open whether or not anyone read it. An email platform that credits opens can credit orders the email never touched.
Nobody subtracts. The same order can sit in Meta's report, Google's report and the email report at once. None of them removes what another already counted, so the totals only go up.
How we count it.
The board starts from the store's order record: each order once, with where the buyer came from on their first visit. Beside that, it shows what each platform claimed that week, so the gap is in plain view and watched week to week.
Budget moves on one number: paid cost per new customer, which is Meta and Google spend over the new customers the store recorded. The platforms' own reports still matter for comparing one ad against another inside the same platform. They just don't get to grade the whole account. More on the three numbers.
Check it yourself this week.
Add up the claims. Take last week's orders from Shopify. Then add the purchases Meta, Google and your email platform each claim for the same seven days. If the total passes the store's count, the difference is overlap, not growth.
Tag every link. UTM tags on every ad and email link let the store record where each first visit came from, in its own record, not a platform's.
Judge spend on new customers. Divide last week's Meta and Google spend by the new customers Shopify recorded. That's the number to watch when someone asks for more budget.
Questions.
Is the platform lying?
No. Each platform follows its own rules and reports honestly by them. The rules just don't agree with each other, and none of them subtracts what another platform already counted.
Should we stop reading platform ROAS?
No. It's the right number for comparing one ad against another inside that platform. It's the wrong number for deciding how much to spend in total, because every platform grades its own homework.
Can the store's own record be wrong too?
Yes. An order that came through an untagged link shows up as direct or unknown. That's why every link gets tagged before spend goes up.
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