Best way to see meta attribution in Shopify?
We only target cold audiences so we are using the ‘First-time vs returning customer sales’ report in Shopify. How should we filter to get only sales attributed to paid ad spend (we only spend on Meta)? I know attribution is tricky and not fully accurate but we need past new customer revenue to base our targets on for growth. I was filtering by ‘referring channel’ is Facebook or Instagram, but it seems too low. I added in ‘direct’ or ‘google’ and it seemed too high. Any recommendations?
The short answer is:
You don’t need both a Pixel and a Dataset because a Pixel is now an old term for what Meta currently calls a Dataset.
They are the same thing and refer to your data source.
The low conversion recording rate of 40% is a common issue caused by privacy settings and ad blockers blocking your browser-based tracking.
You should focus on setting up a server-side connection using the Meta Conversions API to send events directly from your Shopify server to Meta.
You need to ensure the Conversions API is active and properly sending events to your Dataset, as this is the best way to reliably track conversions, especially cross-device ones.
The long answer is:
The confusion between Pixel and Dataset is understandable because Meta renamed the Pixel to Dataset in Events Manager.
The terms are interchangeable for the purpose of where your web event data is stored.
Essentially, a Dataset is the container in your Meta Events Manager that holds all the data sent from your website, whether that data comes from the browser-based tracking code (the Meta Pixel) or the server-to-server connection (the Conversions API).
When you see both turned on, they are both pointing to the same data container, or Dataset, which is good.
You definitely do not need to install two separate things on your website.
Your feeling that you have a lot of offline or cross-device conversions is correct, and the primary reason you are only recording about 40% of your conversions is that you are likely relying on the browser-based Pixel alone.
The Pixel uses cookies and browser scripting, which is easily blocked by ad blockers, cookie consent refusals, and privacy features on mobile devices like those from Apple (Intelligent Tracking Prevention and App Tracking Transparency).
When a user sees your ad on their phone but switches to their computer to customize and purchase, the Pixel often fails to link the actions across devices or even on the second device if the browser blocks tracking.
To reliably track these cross-device purchases and increase your recorded conversions, you must implement the Meta Conversions API (CAPI) alongside the Pixel in a hybrid setup.
CAPI sends data directly from your server to Meta, bypassing browser limitations.
For a Shopify store, the easiest way to do this is often through the official Shopify Meta app, which can set up CAPI automatically.
However, for a high-quality, long-term, and more robust solution that gives you maximum control and reliability, a server-side solution is best.
This involves connecting the Shopify API to Server-Side Google Tag Manager (Google Tag Manager) and hosting the server container on a service like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
This combination is an excellent and cheap solution because it achieves three things: first, it uses the Shopify API to pull definitive transaction data from your backend, ensuring the Purchase standard event only fires on actual, successful sales.
Second, Server-Side Google Tag Manager allows you to control exactly what data is sent to Meta, improving your Event Match Quality score by reliably sending user data like email and phone number, which helps Meta attribute the cross-device conversion back to the original ad click or view.
Third, a managed server solution like Stape is a cost-effective way to host the server environment needed for Google Tag Manager without the complexity of a full cloud setup, all while ensuring that all your data is properly deduplicated against the Pixel events.
This robust server-side connection is the only way to get a conversion recording rate much closer to your actual sales numbers.
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