Alan Carroll is the Head of Paid Media at Acadia.
A significant attribution update is coming to Meta this month, and if you're running paid campaigns, it's worth understanding how this will affect your reported performance. Read the full announcement from Meta.
Here's the practical reality: your current in-platform targets are likely going to feel more constrained than intended after the update.
Why? Conversions that were previously attributed to the default Click metric, even when no actual link click occurred, will now be recategorized under the new “engage-through” metric.
This effectively moves a chunk of your attributed conversions off the longer attribution window and onto a shorter one. The result is simple: fewer conversions will be attributed to your campaigns on paper.
This doesn't mean your ads stopped working. It means the way performance is measured is changing, and targets that were set under the old model may suddenly feel out of reach.
Want the full picture? Read Meta's official breakdown of the changes below to understand exactly what's updating and what they recommend.
Original Message from Meta:
Starting in March, we will begin rolling out two notable changes to attribution reporting for offsite web metrics (e.g., results, cost per result, purchase conversion value, etc.).
- Click-through attribution will be updated to report link click attributed conversions only, vs. conversions attributed to all clicks today.
- Engaged-view attribution is now called engage-through attribution and will report non-link-click attributed conversions alongside existing 5-second engaged-view conversions. As part of this change, the "1-day engaged-views" metric will be replaced by "1-day engagement," reflecting the broader set of interactions.
These changes are designed to give advertisers the best of both worlds – click-through attribution reporting that will have more consistency with third-party reporting tools like Google Analytics, as well as engage-through attribution that will provide visibility into the added value of uniquely social interactions, such as a like, share, or comment – bringing advertisers one step closer to understanding the true impact of their ads.
Why we’re making these changes
- As consumers increasingly discover products through social media and engage with immersive formats like video in diverse ways, like sharing with friends, advertisers must look beyond click-based attribution to truly understand and improve ad performance.
- We understand, however, that many of the measurement tools advertisers rely on, such as third-party MTAs like Google Analytics, were designed for a search-first model where the primary customer interaction is clicking a link.
- While we continue to stand by incrementality experiments like Conversion Lift studies as the best way to measure the true ROI of advertising, we also want to help advertisers better utilize their existing measurement tools.
What this means for you
- As we begin rolling out these updates in March, advertisers and agencies will begin to notice changes inside Ads Manager reporting to offsite web metrics (e.g., results, cost per result, purchase conversion value, etc.), with ad sets using click-only attribution settings (e.g., 1-day click, 7-day click) expected to see more changes.
- Please note that metrics will also be updated in our Insights API.
- The attribution settings breakdown feature can be used to see click-through attributed results that should align closer to third-party reporting tools, and engage-through attributed results that more cleanly capture the value of social interactions.
- To minimize disruption for your clients, we recommend the following once your client has migrated to the new definitions:
- If your client applies adjustments to Ads Manager metrics based on incrementality or another third-party source of truth, they should update their adjustment factors (i.e., multipliers) to account for the changes. This means that any Ads Manager performance targets (e.g., cost per result) should also be updated.
- If your client utilizes ROAS or cost per result bid strategies and starts experiencing delivery constraints, they should update their ROAS or cost per result goal accordingly.
- We also encourage advertisers to consider expanding beyond click-only attribution settings to utilize engage-through and/or view-through as well.
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