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What do the Meta, Google and TikTok cards mean?
The Meta, Google, TikTok and source cards explained, including the cards marked by Meta or by GoogleAds that use the platform's own numbers.
Two kinds of cards
Attribution is how TrueROAS decides which ad gets credit for a sale. The Meta, Google and TikTok cards come in two kinds:
- Tracked by TrueROAS. The sales and orders TrueROAS gave to that ad platform, and the ROAS, CPA and AOV worked out from them. Many of these also count visits without a campaign behind them, such as Facebook and Instagram visits without ad tracking. See Why don't my Dashboard Meta or Google sales match the Ads Manager?.
- Reported by the platform. Cards whose title ends in by Meta or by GoogleAds, the TikTok cards with the tooltip Reported via TikTok API, and the TikTok Clicks, CPC and CTR cards, which have no such tooltip, use the platform's own numbers. A few are worked out by TrueROAS from those numbers or converted to your store's currency, as the tables and the currency section below show.
The icons do not tell the two kinds apart. A full-size card shows the logo of its ad platform, and most small cards show the same row of icons for your store, Meta, Google Ads, TikTok and Pinterest.
The difference between the two kinds is the platform's over- or under-reporting. See Why don't my TrueROAS numbers match Meta or Shopify?.
Meta cards
| Card | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Meta Ad ROAS, True Meta ROAS | Two cards with the same number: sales TrueROAS gave to Meta, divided by Meta spend. |
| Meta Ad Spend | What Meta charged. |
| Meta Ad Sales, Meta Sales | Sales TrueROAS gave to Meta. Meta Sales also draws what Meta reports as a second line. |
| Meta Orders | Orders TrueROAS gave to Meta. |
| AOV | Meta sales divided by Meta orders. |
| CPA | Meta spend divided by Meta orders. New CPA after the slash divides by new customers only. |
| MER (Meta) | Total store sales divided by Meta spend. |
| Sales by Meta, ROAS by Meta | Purchase value and ROAS as Meta reports them. |
| Clicks by Meta, Impressions by Meta, Frequency by Meta, CPM by Meta | Link clicks, times the ads were shown, average views per person and cost per 1,000 impressions, from Meta. |
| CPC by Meta, Unique CPC by Meta, CPC Breakdown by Meta | Cost per click, cost per person who clicked, and both in one chart. On the breakdown the big number is the cost per click, and Unique CPC is the second number. |
| CTR by Meta, Link CTR by Meta, Outbound CTR by Meta, Unique CTR by Meta, Unique Outbound CTR by Meta, CTR Breakdown by Meta | Click-through rates from Meta, counted on all clicks, link clicks, clicks that left Meta, and once per person. The breakdown shows them all in one chart. Its big number is Outbound CTR, and the short labels Unique, Link and Unique Outb. stand for Unique CTR, Link CTR and Unique Outbound CTR. |
| Product Views by Meta, Leads by Meta, Complete Registrations by Meta | Product page views, leads and completed registrations Meta counted. |
| View Through by Meta, View Conversions by Meta | Sales and orders Meta counts from people who saw an ad, never clicked it, and bought within a day. See What does the View-Through switch do?. |
| TrueROAS vs Meta Ads | TrueROAS Meta sales as the big number, the Meta-reported sales under it, and both as lines. |
| Facebook, Instagram | Sales from Facebook or Instagram links without ad tracking, such as a post, a profile link or a shop. What else they can count, and how they relate to the Meta cards above, is explained in Why don't my Dashboard Meta or Google sales match the Ads Manager?. |
Google cards
| Card | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Google Ads ROAS | Sales TrueROAS gave to Google ads, divided by Google spend. |
| Google Ad Spend | What Google Ads charged. |
| Google Ads Sales | Every Google sale except unpaid search, with the Google-reported value as a second line. |
| Orders, AOV, CPA | Orders TrueROAS gave to Google ads, sales per order and spend per order. Without Google ads orders, CPA shows the whole Google spend. When New CPA shows after the slash, CPA divides by every Google order, unpaid search included, and New CPA by the new customers among them. |
| MER (Google) | Total store sales divided by Google spend. |
| Organic Sales | Sales from unpaid Google search results. |
| Branded Search (excl.) | Sales from the Google campaigns you marked as branded. |
| Conversions by GoogleAds, Conversion Value by GoogleAds, ROAS by GoogleAds | Conversions and their value as Google Ads reports them, and that value divided by Google spend. |
| Clicks by GoogleAds, Impressions by GoogleAds, Cost Per Click by GoogleAds, CTR by GoogleAds | Clicks and impressions from Google Ads, and the cost per click and click-through rate TrueROAS works out from Google's figures. |
| TrueROAS vs Google Ads | TrueROAS Google sales next to the Google-reported sales. |
TikTok cards
| Card | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Tiktok Ad ROAS | Sales TrueROAS gave to TikTok, divided by TikTok spend. |
| TikTok Ad Spend | What TikTok charged. |
| TikTok Sales, Orders, AOV, CPA | Sales, orders, sales per order and spend per order, tracked by TrueROAS. Without TikTok orders, CPA shows the whole TikTok spend. |
| MER (Tiktok) | Total store sales divided by TikTok spend. |
| TikTok Conversions, Tiktok Ad Sales | Conversions and their value as TikTok reports them. The chart of TikTok Conversions draws the TikTok orders TrueROAS tracked instead, and Tiktok Ad Sales shows a total only, with no daily breakdown. |
| Clicks, CPC, CTR | Clicks, cost per click and click-through rate from TikTok. |
| TrueROAS vs TikTok Ads | TrueROAS TikTok sales next to the TikTok-reported sales. |
Cards for all ad platforms together
These cards add up Meta, Google and TikTok only. Spend from Pinterest, Microsoft Ads, Snapchat and AppLovin, and spend you entered by hand in Cost Manager, is left out. Which visits their sales and orders include is explained in Why don't my Dashboard Meta or Google sales match the Ads Manager?.
| Card | What it shows |
|---|---|
| True Ad ROAS | Sales TrueROAS gave to Meta, Google and TikTok, divided by their spend. |
| Ad CPA | Spend of the three platforms divided by their orders. New Ad CPA after the slash divides the same spend by every new customer of your store, whatever the channel. |
| Ad AOV | Sales of the three platforms divided by their orders. |
| Orders from Ads | Orders TrueROAS gave to Meta, Google and TikTok. |
| Blended Ad Value | Sales of the three platforms added together, with the order count in the title. |
Sales by source
Small cards for the other sources. All of them except Pinterest Ad Spend show the revenue TrueROAS gave to that source. What Direct Sales, Bing Sales and Other Sources include is explained in Why don't my Dashboard Meta or Google sales match the Ads Manager?.
| Card | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Email Sales | Orders after a click in an email. |
| Direct Sales | Orders where TrueROAS found no click to give credit to. |
| Bing Sales | Orders after a Bing search. |
| WhatsApp Revenue | Orders after a click from WhatsApp. |
| Other Sources | Orders from sources TrueROAS could not group into a channel, such as affiliates. A small line under the title names the sources; hover over it to read them all. |
| Pinterest Ad Spend | What Pinterest charged for your active and paused campaigns. It shows a total only, with no daily breakdown. |
Currency
Cards built on your orders use your store's currency. When an ad account uses another currency:
- Meta Ad Spend, Google Ad Spend and TikTok Ad Spend are converted to your store's currency, and the ROAS, CPA and cost per click that TrueROAS works out use the converted spend. The daily charts that use Google spend, such as the one on Google Ad Spend, work with the spend before conversion.
- Pinterest Ad Spend is read as US dollars and then converted to your store's currency.
- Sales by Meta, View Through by Meta and the Meta figure under TrueROAS vs Meta Ads are converted. CPC by Meta, Unique CPC by Meta, CPM by Meta and CPC Breakdown by Meta stay in the Meta ad account's currency.
- Google's conversion value is never converted. It stays in the Google Ads account's currency on Conversion Value by GoogleAds, under TrueROAS vs Google Ads and in the second line of Google Ads Sales. ROAS by GoogleAds divides it by the converted spend, so it mixes the two currencies when they differ.
- Tiktok Ad Sales is converted to your store's currency but shows the currency sign of your TikTok ad account.
To set your store's currency, see Which currency and time zone do my numbers use?.
Good to know
- Some of these cards are on the standard Summary, Meta, Google and Tiktok dashboards. The rest are only in Available Metrics, often under another name. See Which cards are on the standard Summary, Meta, Google and Tiktok dashboards? and What is each card called in Available Metrics?. Any card can be added to any dashboard. See How do I add, move, resize and remove cards on a dashboard?.
- Until an ad platform is connected and an ad account is picked, its sales and orders cards still fill from your store's orders. Its spend, MER and reported cards stay at 0, and its ROAS and CPA cards cannot be worked out. See How do I connect or change the ad account behind the Meta, Google and Tiktok tabs?.
- With Incremental Attribution on for your login, the Meta, Google and TikTok sales and orders cards gain sales, while Email Sales, Direct Sales, Organic Sales, Bing Sales, Other Sources, Facebook, Instagram and Branded Search (excl.) lose some. The Meta sales and orders first lose what Facebook and Instagram give up and then receive Meta's share of the moved sales, so they can rise less than the green label such as +$2,800 impact next to the switch, or even drop. Order counts can then show decimals. See What is Incremental Attribution and how does it work?.
- MER (Meta), MER (Google), MER (Tiktok), WhatsApp Revenue and the cards reported by the platform stay the same with Incremental Attribution on. The charts on many cards also keep showing the numbers without it.
- The Meta and Google Campaign Name Filter settings narrow the spend and the reported cards for the whole store, not the sales and orders TrueROAS tracked. See What is the difference between the Meta Campaign Name Filter and Campaign Auto-Filters?.
- Combining several Meta ad accounts changes what the Meta cards add up. See Can I combine several Meta ad accounts in one store?.
- There are no Pinterest or Snapchat sales cards, no Microsoft Ads spend card and no card for a single campaign, and clicking a card does not open anything. Use the Ads Manager for campaigns. See What is the Ads Manager and what can I do there?.