It's very common to see a difference in ad performance within Northbeam. In fact, this is 100% expected and happens more often than not. Read this article to learn why.

This guide should answer the following question:

“Why is my [platform] [metric] in Northbeam is much lower/higher than in-platform?”

Examples:
“My Facebook ROAS in Northbeam is 0.8 but Facebook Ads Manager is reporting a 2.1"
“My Google CAC in Northbeam is $60 but Google Ads Manager is reporting $25"
“My Pinterest ROAS in Northbeam is 0.5 but Pinterest Ads Manager is reporting a 1.7"

Ad performance discrepancies are expected. This boils down to 3 core principles:

Key Takeways

Northbeam’s attribution model and attribution window are different from legacy models that platforms use. This creates a difference in credit allocation and performance across your campaigns.
Northbeam recognizes touchpoints from all channels within the customer journey, whereas in-platform do not. That said, even if you're using the same attribution model and window, a difference in credit allocation and performance is expected.

If there are discrepancies between in-platform and Northbeam in regards to a specific campaign or channel, this is expected.

For example, Facebook is reporting a 2.4 ROAS, but Northbeam is reporting a 0.8 ROAS.

Our approach to weighting credit is different from how in-platform metrics traditionally weigh. In short, this boils down to difference(s) between our Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA) model and in-platforms’ traditional models – where MTA divides credit between touchpoints; whereas, in-platform models give full credit to a single touchpoint (usually on a last touch basis).

Example:

Let's say somebody placed an order for $100.

And below is their customer journey:

User clicks on FB Campaign called "Prospecting"
User clicks on FB Campaign called "Retargeting"
User clicks on Klaviyo Email
User clicks on Branded Search ad and purchases

See the credit allocation for each touchpoint across a few different attribution models.

	Clicks-Only (Northbeam's model)	Last Touch (Northbeam's model)	Last Touch (Facebook's model)
FB "Prospecting"	$50	$0	$0
FB "Retargeting"	$50	$0	$100
Klaviyo Email	$0	$0	$0
Branded Search	$0	$100	$0

Here are the biggest differences:

Our MTA models (Clicks-Only and Clicks + Views) divide credit among all touchpoints
The Northbeam Pixel recognizes touchpoints across the full journey (from all channels) -- hence the difference in Last Touch

Other differences that aren't depicted above are:

Attribution Windows
Accounting Modes

All of these create differences in performance when comparing Northbeam to legacy reporting. We believe this is a more accurate way to make media buying decisions.

See the article below for more information and more scenarios. It directly speaks to Facebook, but the concept can be applied to all platforms.

“What are the differences between Facebook & Northbeam’s reporting”