Advertising

Advertising shows what your connected ad platforms spent and what each one reports in return, on one page. With das Pixel installed, it adds a second view: the sales das Pixel measured against those ads.

Open Advertising under Performance in the navigation. A store that can’t use the page sees a blurred preview of it instead.

How It Works

Before Any Data Shows

The page needs at least one connected ad platform whose spend has synced. Until then it shows Connect an Ad Platform, with a Browse Integrations button. While a platform’s first import runs, it shows a message such as Fetching Your Google Ads Data instead.

The page covers Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Microsoft Ads and Reddit Ads. Once data is on the page, a line such as Updating Meta Ads tells you a refresh is running. The figures below it are from the last sync and refresh on their own.

Date Range, Compare and Platforms

• Date range: the page opens on the range you saved as your default in Preferences, or Last 30 days if you haven’t saved one. Each day of spend counts on the day the ad platform reports it, which isn’t tied to your store’s time zone.
• Compare: adds a change figure to Total Ad Spend, Total Impressions and Total Clicks. The other cards and tables don’t compare.
• All Platforms: appears once you have more than 1 platform. Pick one or more, and the page updates when you close the menu.

Amounts are in the currency that appears on the most days of spend, across your campaigns. It can differ from your store’s currency, and nothing is converted: an account billed in another currency is added up as if it matched.

The platform filter applies to everything on the page except Attribution by Channel, Engagement Funnel, Attribution Reconciliation, GA4 CPC Sessions and Store Conversion Rate. Those 5 follow the date range only.

The Tiles

The 12 tiles at the top cover the date range and every platform you’ve selected:

• Total Ad Spend: what your platforms report you spent.
• Attributed Revenue: the Total Sales of orders das Pixel credits to a paid ad click, net of refunds.
• ROAS: Attributed Revenue divided by Total Ad Spend.
• Reported Conversions, Reported Conversion Value and Reported ROAS: the platforms’ own figures, each counted in that platform’s own attribution window. Reported ROAS is Reported Conversion Value divided by spend.
• Ad ROI: Reported Conversion Value times your gross margin, minus spend, divided by spend.
• Total Impressions and Total Clicks: how often your ads were shown and clicked.
• Avg CPC: spend divided by clicks.
• Avg CPM: spend divided by impressions, times 1,000.
• CTR: clicks divided by impressions.

Microsoft Ads and Reddit Ads don’t send conversions to By the Numbers. Their spend counts in Total Ad Spend, but it’s left out of the reported figures. When every platform in view is one of the two, the reported tiles show a dash and Not reported by these platforms.

Ad ROI uses your gross margin over the date range: gross profit divided by total sales. It shows a dash, with Set up COGS to see ROI, until at least one product variant has a unit cost. It also shows a dash when there’s no spend.

When Attributed Revenue Is Blank

Attributed Revenue needs das Pixel to be installed, with a date range that starts on or after the day it was connected. Otherwise:

• ROAS shows Reported ROAS in its place, captioned as the ad platforms’ own figure.
• Attributed Revenue shows a dash and a note giving the date das Pixel attribution begins, when your range starts before das Pixel was connected.
• Attributed Revenue shows a blurred sample when das Pixel isn’t installed, with Install das Pixel to Measure This Yourself. It shows the same sample with a button that opens the plans page when your store can’t use das Pixel yet.

Charts and Tables

• Ad Spend Over Time: spend by platform, stacked. Use the toggle in the card’s corner to switch between Line and Bar.
• The platform table: one row per platform, with Spend, Impressions, Clicks, CPC, CPM, CTR, Conversions, Conv. Value, Reported ROAS and Ad ROI. Microsoft Ads and Reddit Ads show a dash in the last 4 columns.
• CPC Over Time, under Efficiency Over Time: cost per click by platform, with the same toggle.

Both charts group by day for ranges up to 32 days, by week up to 91 days, and by month beyond that. A week starts on Monday.

Campaign Performance

The campaign table has one row per campaign stored for your store, including campaigns that spent nothing in the range. It shows 25 rows a page, and the header of any column except Decision sorts it. It opens sorted by Spend, highest first.

The columns are the platform table’s, with Campaign and Status added. Status is the status the platform last reported, normally Active, Paused or Removed.

A platform’s own word shows when it isn’t one of those. A campaign with no name reads (unnamed).

The Campaign Performance report lists the same campaigns as a report.

Measured Columns

When das Pixel attribution covers the range, the table adds 4 columns. A note above the table names the window they use, last paid click with a 30-day or 7-day window.

• Measured Revenue: the revenue of the orders das Pixel tied to this exact campaign, net of refunds. It reads Platform-Level Only when das Pixel traced revenue to the campaign’s platform but couldn’t tell which campaign.
• Measured Contribution: Measured Revenue times your gross margin, less the campaign’s spend and the percentage costs you entered. It shows a dash without unit costs, and when the ad account bills in another currency than your store. It also shows a dash when some of the platform’s traced revenue couldn’t be tied to a campaign.
• New Customer %: the share of Measured Revenue that came from a customer’s first order. Guest checkouts show beside it as unknown, never as new.
• NC-ROAS: the new-customer part of Measured Revenue, divided by spend. It shows a dash when the ad account bills in another currency than your store, or the campaign has no spend.

New Customer % and NC-ROAS read Platform-Level Only for a campaign whose platform has revenue that couldn’t be tied to a campaign.

A note under the table says which of the costs you entered are inside Measured Contribution. Enter them on the Costs page. How to Enter Your Costs shows how.

The last column, Decision, has Record This Decision on each row. It opens a dialog to save a note on your charts, and it’s in beta. Annotations explains how.

The Attribution Section

With das Pixel installed, an Attribution section sits under the tiles. It shows:

• Direct Sales Traced to a Paid Ad Click: the headline figure, here following the page’s date range and platform filter. Direct Sales Traced to a Paid Ad Click explains it.
• Attribution Window: 30-Day Window, or 7-Day Window (platform-comparable). The 7-day option changes Spend, Measured and Claimed by Platform, What Paid-Click Orders Bought and the campaign table’s 4 measured columns. Everything else stays on 30 days.
• Spend, Measured and Claimed by Platform: for each platform, Spend, Measured Revenue, Platform-Reported Value and the Difference between them. It adds New Customer % and NC-ROAS, and Measured Contribution once you have unit costs. It’s closed until you open it.
• Who Your Paid Clicks Brought In, inside that section: the revenue behind the headline figure, by platform, split into First-Time, Returning and No Customer.
• What Paid-Click Orders Bought: the products and variants in one platform’s paid-click orders, with Units, Attributed Revenue, Refunded Units, Refund Rate and Gross Profit. It lists up to 100 by attributed revenue. It’s closed until you open it, and a tab picks the platform when you have more than 1.
• Attribution by Channel: revenue by marketing channel, from the last touch before each order, as das Pixel reports it. The channels are Paid Search, Paid Social, Organic Search, Social, Email, Referral, Direct and Other.
• Engagement Funnel: the sessions that reached each stage: Sessions, Product Views, Added to Cart, Checkout Started and Purchased.
• Attribution Reconciliation: das Pixel conversions next to the Shopify orders with the same source and campaign name, matched by name and not one by one. Order Revenue (Gross) is each order’s total with tax and shipping, before refunds.

The two closed sections read from the warehouse, so they load their figures only when you open them.

The Difference Column

Difference is the Platform-Reported Value less Measured Revenue. A platform and das Pixel count differently, so a gap is a disagreement and not an error. A paragraph under the table, Why the two disagree, gives the reasons.

When it can’t work out the gap, it says Reports no conversion value, Not measured for this range or Different currencies.

Under Platform-Reported Value, a label says which claim it is. Examples are Purchases Only, 7-Day Click and All Attribution Windows. Meta’s view-through figure shows on its own line and stays out of Difference.

First-Party ROAS & POAS measures every platform the same way over a date range. das Pixel Attribution explains how a click is chosen.

Sessions and Conversion Rate

• GA4 CPC Sessions: daily Google Analytics sessions whose medium is cpc. Visits from ads tagged with another medium aren’t counted. View Report opens the full report. The card is hidden until Google Analytics is connected.
• Store Conversion Rate: sessions as bars and the conversion rate as a line. The source is named on the card: das Pixel when it’s installed, otherwise Google Analytics. The two are never blended. With das Pixel, a conversion is a session that included a completed checkout. With Google Analytics, it’s the conversions Google Analytics reports. The section is hidden until one of the two is set up.

While the first Google Analytics import runs, GA4 CPC Sessions shows Fetching Your Google Analytics Data. It shows Google Analytics Setup Incomplete when Google Analytics is connected but no property is selected. With das Pixel installed, the conversion rate card shows neither.

What It Means for You

Start with the tiles, then check the platform table.

• Compare ROAS with Reported ROAS. A platform’s own figure can sit above it, because each platform claims credit on its own terms and 2 platforms can claim the same order.
• Read Ad ROI with Reported ROAS. A Reported ROAS above 1.00x can still lose money once the cost of the goods is counted.
• Add unit costs. Ad ROI and Measured Contribution stay blank without them. Unit Cost Coverage shows which products have none.
• Look at campaigns before moving budget. Sort the table by Measured Contribution or Reported ROAS, and treat Platform-Level Only rows as unknown.
• A credited click shows that the click came first. It doesn’t prove the ad caused the sale.

The last 7 days of spend can still change as each platform corrects its numbers. How Often Is My Data Updated? lists each platform’s schedule.

Related

• How to Connect Google Ads, How to Connect Meta Ads and How to Connect TikTok Ads: connect a platform.
• P&L: ad spend next to your profit.
• Ads Benchmark: how your spend and efficiency compare with stores like yours.