Advertising
Sending conversions back without double-counting
Before you switch on server-side sending to Meta, Google or Pinterest: exactly what to turn off first, tool by tool, and why running both double-counts every sale.
Read this before you switch anything on
Sending conversions back is the opposite direction from everything else Vibel does. Instead of collecting what happened, Vibel tells Meta or Google about each sale so their reporting and their bidding can see orders the browser pixel missed.
It is genuinely useful, and it is the one feature that can quietly cost you money if the order of operations is wrong. The rest of this page is that order of operations.
Why running two senders double-counts
Every platform can deduplicate a server-side event against a browser event for the same order. That mechanism exists precisely so you do not have to choose between a pixel and a server feed.
But it only works when both events carry the SAME event id. Vibel sends its own id format. Another tool sends its own. Two different ids means the platform sees two separate purchases, and every sale is counted twice.
So this is a switch, never an addition. Whatever is sending today must stop before Vibel starts. Running both for a week to compare them is the one thing that does not work.
Good to know
- Doubled conversions do not just distort a report. Smart Bidding and Advantage+ optimise against that number, so the damage continues after you fix the reporting.
What is probably already sending
Check each of these. Most stores have at least one, and many have two without realising it.
- A third-party tracking app (Wetracked, Elevar, Analyzify and similar). These usually send server-side to Meta and Google both. Turn off its Conversions API sending, not just its pixel.
- Shopify's own Facebook & Instagram sales channel. It has a data-sharing setting with a Conversions API level - often set to Maximum. This is the one most people forget, because it is a sales channel rather than a tracking app.
- Google & YouTube sales channel, or a Google Ads conversion tag installed through it. Check which conversion action is marked primary in Google Ads.
- Google Tag Manager containers with a server-side tag. GTM is invisible from the storefront markup, so a scan cannot rule it out - you have to look in GTM itself.
- A theme snippet added by a previous agency. Search your theme for fbq or gtag if you are unsure.
Good to know
- In Vibel, the Check what's already installed button under each platform reads your storefront and reports what it can see. It cannot see anything installed through a tag manager, and it says so rather than implying the store is clean.
The order to do it in
Do one platform at a time, and do Google last.
- Pick one platform, Meta first. Find the tool currently sending its conversions and switch that sending off.
- Confirm it stopped. In Meta Events Manager, the server-side event count for that dataset should fall to zero within an hour or so.
- In Vibel, choose the correct dataset for each store. Vibel proposes the pixel already installed on each storefront, so most stores fill themselves in - but check them, especially if you run separate pixels for separate regions.
- Send a test event from Vibel and confirm it appears in that platform's own event manager. Vibel requires this before it will let you enable a platform, because a send nobody has ever verified should not reach real traffic.
- Turn the platform on in Vibel and watch its reported conversions for a few days. A rise is expected; a doubling is not. If the count roughly doubles, something is still sending - turn it back off and find it.
- Only once Meta is settled, repeat for Google. Google last, because if the tool you are replacing owns the conversion action Google bids on, swapping it changes what Smart Bidding optimises against - that is a bidding change with a relearning period, not just a reporting change.
What to expect afterwards
The platform's own reported conversions and ROAS will go up. That is not new revenue. It is the platform now claiming credit for orders it previously could not see, and it happens on every platform you enable.
If you enable two platforms, both may claim the same sale. That is not a bug and not double-counting in the sense above - each platform reports independently and none of them know about the others. It is why adding up platform-reported revenue never matches your Shopify total, and never will.
The number that stays true is your own ledger revenue in Vibel. Make spend decisions on that, not on any single platform's self-reported figure.
Good to know
- Vibel keeps watching after you enable. If a platform's reported orders rise faster than your real orders, it flags that as possible failed deduplication rather than leaving you to notice it in a monthly report.
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