Unfortunately, you can’t rely on the stats provided by your ad networks or other marketing apps you use.

In fact, that’s one of the biggest reasons that ClickMagick exists.

Ad network tracking is crippled by short attribution windows, incomplete cross-device tracking, estimated and delayed data, “greedy attribution,” and iOS “do not track” and other privacy-related issues.

And tracking is just an afterthought with all the other marketing apps you use, so you can’t rely on them either.

So the fact that ClickMagick won’t always match up with these other platforms is a good thing – because it means that ClickMagick is revealing your accurate, statistically significant, and actionable stats.

And it’s really important that you recognize this fact if you want to optimize your ads like the pros.

You don’t have to fully understand it, but you’ll never break through to the next level of ad performance until you accept that ad network tracking and attribution isn’t accurate …

… and that you can’t rely on your CRM or funnel builder either.

In fact, once you’re all set up with ClickMagick you shouldn’t even bother looking at any stats in your ad manager.

The only thing that’s accurate in your ad manager is your ad spend, and the only thing you should be doing in your ad manager is managing your ads, targeting and budget.

If you do want to dig in to the technical details to understand why, I’ve written extensively about the serious problems with Facebook Ads Tracking and Google Ads Tracking.

And also about the problems with Ecom Store Tracking (Shopify, WooCommerce etc), Funnel Builder Tracking (GHL, ClickFunnels, etc), and Server-Side GTM Tracking (Stape.io, etc).

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Most people assume that ad tracking and attribution is simple – just count the clicks and the sales, right?

But behind the scenes, it’s one of the most technically challenging parts of digital marketing. There are countless things that can break accurate tracking: browser restrictions, ad blockers, cookie issues, redirects, iOS privacy changes, cross-device behavior, attribution windows, and much more.

And unless you’ve spent years dealing with all of these challenges, it’s almost impossible to appreciate how fragile and complex accurate tracking really is.

On top of that, many marketers assume that all tracking solutions are basically the same – "they just count clicks and sales" – when in reality, the differences in tracking accuracy can be massive.

Some companies bolt tracking onto a broader analytics or ad management platform. Others are startups that have only been around for a few years and simply haven’t run into all the real-world edge cases yet.

At ClickMagick, tracking and attribution isn’t a feature – it’s the core product. It’s all we do, and we’ve been laser-focused on making it as bulletproof as possible for over 11 years.

In fact, I’ve been working on this problem since 1996, when I created one of the first click trackers for online marketers.

That was nearly three decades ago, and ever since, I’ve been refining the systems and strategies needed to deliver the most accurate tracking and attribution possible.

At ClickMagick, my team and I have built the most robust and reliable ad tracking platform on the market.

While our competitors are off launching new unrelated products and services, we remain 100% focused on helping you get as close to perfect tracking as modern technology allows – so you can trust your data, optimize your ads, and grow your business with confidence.

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I cringe when I see ads for other tracking apps claiming 100% tracking accuracy. They are literally either lying to the market, or they have no idea what they’re doing.

The simple truth is that 100% accuracy isn’t possible. You may get lucky and see 100% accuracy over a small number of clicks and conversions, but some conversions just can’t be tracked by any tracking platform.

The good news is that this is nothing to stress about. Keep reading to learn more …


A Real-World Example of a Missed Sale

1 – Someone is surfing the web at work. They click one of your ads and land on your website or store.

2 – This person – who has never bought from you before – decides to buy something from you, but for any number of reasons they can’t complete the purchase immediately while at work.

3 – Later that night, on their home computer, they enter the URL of your store into their browser and buy something.

This sale simply cannot be tracked back to the original ad click.

And because they accessed your site directly at home, without any tracking parameters in the URL or click history on their home computer, the sale cannot be attributed to anything other than an organic click.

This is the case no matter what tracking software you’re using. And there are lots of other scenarios like this as well.


A Few Untracked Sales Don’t Impact Your Results

ClickMagick is not your CRM or accounting system. The purpose of ClickMagick is to help you optimize and improve your ads and other online promotions. And fortunately you don’t need 100% tracking accuracy to do this.

The truth is that a few untracked sales here and there is not going to affect the stats you rely on to make decisions about your ads and marketing in any statistically significant way.

If your conversion rate is 9.2% and your cost to acquire a customer from a particular traffic source is $48.24 for example, these numbers aren’t going to change in any meaningful way if you’re only able to track 97 out of every 100 sales.


Prove It to Yourself with a Simple Test

Run a report in ClickMagick and note your AOV for example – the sum of your revenue divided by the number of sales.

Then, using the raw data that ClickMagick makes available in your logs, manually compute your AOV using a calculator while purposely excluding a few orders.

The difference will be tiny, and certainly not statistically significant, which means you don’t have to stress about it.


How to Improve Your Tracking Accuracy

Most “missed” sales occur when people switch devices between clicking your ad and making a purchase …

So the number one thing you can do is try to get them to opt-in and give you their email address as early as possible in your sales funnel. This will allow “cross device tracking” to automatically detect them even if they purchase on another device with no tracked click history for example.

Many affiliates are at a big disadvantage here if they are simply redirecting people to affiliate offers …

And affiliates will see a meaningful increase in tracking accuracy, and the success of their affiliate marketing business as a whole, if they offer something of value in exchange for the visitor’s email before presenting any affiliate offers to them.


When to Worry About Missed Conversions

That’s a pretty tough question for us to answer. It really depends on your business, how you’re advertising, what you’re selling or promoting, your ad and product costs, and many other factors.

Technically, you should only be concerned if the conversions not being tracked are actually affecting the overall accuracy of the stats you’re using to make important marketing decisions. This is almost never the case.

The best advice we can give you is to do the simple exercise above and manually compute a few of your stats, purposely excluding a small number of conversions, and see if the resulting stat is affected in a meaningful way.

While 100% accuracy isn’t possible with any tracking app, there’s nothing more accurate than ClickMagick when set up and used correctly. Our average user sees between 97-99% accuracy, which is about as good as it gets.

Anything less than that usually indicates there’s room for improvement somewhere, so if you’re not seeing results in that range definitely reach out and we’ll be happy to review your setup and see what we can do to help.

Our team is made up of real marketers who’ve been in your shoes – we get it, and we’re here to help.

If you have any questions or concerns about your tracking accuracy, please reach out to our support team any time.

You may also want to check out the article below, which talks about the specific causes of stats discrepancies:

Why don’t my ClickMagick stats match other apps?