The Attribution Gap: Why Your ROAS Is Lying

Body republishes 7 days after the LinkedIn edition. LinkedIn URL will be pasted above once the issue ships Tuesday 09:30 Dhaka.

The gap in one paragraph

Every ads platform reports the sales it thinks it caused. Add Meta, Google, TikTok, and email together and the sum is usually 1.4x to 2.1x your actual revenue. That is not a bug. It is view-through windows, cross-device stitching, and organic-assisted conversions all claiming the same order.

The three overcount sources

1. View-through: someone saw the ad, did not click, bought later. Meta counts it. Your finance sheet does not.
2. Cross-device: mobile scroll, desktop purchase. Every platform stitches this differently. Some double count.
3. Organic assist: the customer was going to buy anyway. The last-touch ad still gets credit inside Ads Manager.

The one number that ends the argument

Marketing Efficiency Ratio (MER) = total revenue for the period divided by total ad spend for the period. No attribution, no windows, no debate.

Run it weekly. Compare it to the same period last quarter. If MER is improving and platform ROAS is falling, ignore the platform. If MER is falling and platform ROAS is rising, something in tracking is inflating.

What to do next

• Book a growth audit: I calculate blended MER and reconcile it to your platform ROAS in the first session.
• Try the free Performance Leak Auditor to catch the biggest tracking overcounts in ten minutes.
• Reply with your last 30 days of MER and platform ROAS. I will tell you which side to trust.

Morshed