Attribution Discrepancy Reconciliation

Attribution discrepancy reconciliation is critical for accurate marketing reporting. Common discrepancies: Meta reports 100 conversions, Shopify shows 75 - a 25% gap. Google Ads shows $50k revenue, GA4 shows $42k - a 16% gap. Causes of discrepancies: Different attribution windows (Meta 7-day vs Shopify 30-day), Attribution overlap (both Meta and Google claim same sale), View-through attribution (Meta includes, Shopify doesn't), Time zone differences (platform reports at different times), Return/refund timing (platforms don't update for returns), and Bot/invalid traffic (platforms count, Shopify filters). Reconciliation process: Export platform data (Meta, Google, TikTok conversions), Export Shopify data (actual orders by UTM source), Compare by date range (use same time zone), Identify gaps (which platform over/under reports), and Calculate true ROAS (use Shopify revenue ÷ ad spend). Best practices: Reconcile weekly (catch issues early), Use consistent attribution windows (7-day click across all platforms), Track overlap (use Causality Engine or manual analysis), and Report true ROAS to CFO (not platform ROAS). Typical findings: Platform ROAS is 20-40% higher than true ROAS, 15-30% attribution overlap between Meta and Google, and 10-20% of platform conversions are view-through (low incrementality). Tools: Causality Engine (automated reconciliation), Manual spreadsheets (time-consuming), and Triple Whale (aggregation, not reconciliation).