Why Meta reports more conversions than Google Ads
Add up the conversions each platform claims and the total often exceeds your real sales, with Meta usually claiming the larger share. Neither is lying; they use different attribution rules and both take credit for the same conversions.
Why both over-claim
Each ad platform attributes a conversion to itself if its ad was involved within its own window. A customer who sees a Meta ad, later clicks a Google ad, then buys gets counted by both. Sum the platforms and you double-count, which is why their combined total beats your actual orders.
Why Meta tends to claim more
- View-through conversions: Meta counts conversions from people who merely saw an ad, not just clicked. See view-through conversions.
- Longer, more generous windows than a strict last-click model.
- Modelling to recover conversions lost to iOS limits.
How to read it
Do not sum platform-reported conversions and expect them to equal reality. Use a neutral referee, GA4 or your actual order data, to see total sales, and use each platform's own numbers to judge that platform's relative trend over time. This is the same trap as a ROAS that differs on every platform.
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