Conversion Insights

[ChevronMediaAgency]

My conversion insights show X revenue, but my google analytics and Shopfiy analytics both show Y in revenue from Pinterest.  Do you know what can be causing the major difference in numbers? 

[PinterestFernanda]

Hi @ChevronMediaAgency, welcome to the PBC!

The Conversion Insights page is based on the Pinterest tag. The problem you are having may be caused by a misimplementation of your Pinterest Tag. If the checkout is not passing the correct information, there will be discrepancies between Pinterest and third parties.

You can review your Pinterest Tag installation with this Help Center article. 

I hope this helps. Give us a shout if you need anything else! 🙌

[ChevronMediaAgency]

@PinterestFernanda thank you! Would this cause the revenue to show much higher on Pinterest conversions verses Shopify analytics? 

[ChevronMediaAgency]

I checked the tag on the website with the Pinterest tag helper extension. It only shows a warning error when I go to the individual products on the website, but there are no errors on the checkout page.

Here is warning error I receive on the product website pages-

PageVisit event was sent successfully with warnings.

Warning - Product Category is missing

Type:Javascript

Page URL:website.com (removed for privacy)

Event Data

• Currency:USD
• Line Item 0
  • Product Category: (missing)
  • Product ID:6866182373442
  • Product Variant ID:40137950298178
  • Product Name:product name (removed for privacy)
  • Product Price:9.99

[PinterestFernanda]

Hi @ChevronMediaAgency! Yes, If the checkout event is registering an amount higher than the product or if it's firing where it shouldn't be firing, this could happen. 

Regarding your latest reply, since its ‌a very account specific question, I would recommend filling a ticket with our team who will be able to diagnose and figure out what's going on with your profile. 

Let us know if you have any questions in the meantime! 🙂 

[hostesstori]

Google Analytics is a last-click attribution model. So, they're only going to attribute a conversion from Pinterest based on last click. Pinterest has a longer attribution window (which you can change as you'd like), and they attribute conversions that Pinterest has "aided" in such as views, engagements, and clicks. 

[ChevronMediaAgency]

@hostesstori thank you for info! 

So that means a Pinterest user could have clicked on a X company's Pin, clicked to go to the website. And then a few days later that user was shown a Facebook ad for X company- clicked on that ad and made a purchase- Google analytics would count that as a purchase coming from Facebook ads and Pinterest would count that as a purchase from them - if the attribution window was set for more than 1/1/1?

@PinterestFernanda 

[hostesstori · Accepted solution]

That's exactly right. Attribution is always a marketer's achilles heel. 

Also, there's the issue of cross device tracking (though, not unique to Pinterest OFC).

There is a general stat somewhere, but Pinterest claims that ~80% of conversions are not coming from clicks. If you're spending on advertising on multiple channels this gets a little problematic with everyone claiming they made the sell, right?

One way I've worked to solve this with different advertisers is to:

1) Come up with a Pinterest attribution window you're most comfortable with. Understanding Pinterest IS a planning platform (and take into account the price point of your products–meaning $$$ longer consideration phase) so those view throughs will matter. You have to do what makes sense for your business. Often, we settle somewhere in the middle like a 30/30/7.

2) Often we come up with a % of Pinterest conversions we're comfortable accepting as our truth. I like to really dig into the data and sort of do a mini conversion analysis to see what % makes the most sense. For example, after such an analysis with a client we agreed to accept 42% of all conversions from Pinterest as truth. This allowed us to have a baseline we were confident in and could then optimize budgets against. 

Note: If we optimized ads off of GA reporting we'd be undervaluing the success of Pinterest. And, if we only optimized off of what Pinterest was reporting we likely we were attributing too much to Pinterest.

Anyway, of course this is a personal/business decision. Just sharing someways I've worked through this in the past! 

Hope it helps!