Reconciling ad platform conversions with CRM wins
Meta and Google often claim more leads than your sales team closed. A reconciliation habit keeps campaign analysis honest without dismissing platform data entirely.
Platform conversion pixels fire early—form submits, add-to-cart events, or even page views if someone misconfigured the tag. CRM stages fire late. Comparing the two without a lag window invites arguments that waste a leadership meeting.
Pick a lag that matches your sales cycle. For local lead-gen in Hong Kong, seven to fourteen days often works. For longer B2B cycles, compare cohorts by opportunity create date, not by the day the ad claimed a conversion.
Build a simple weekly table: platform-reported conversions, site thank-you events, CRM opportunities, and closed revenue. Annotate known causes of gaps—duplicate leads, offline deals, or agency test clicks.
Use platform numbers for pacing and creative iteration. Use CRM-reconciled numbers for budget decisions. Saying that aloud in the room lowers tension and keeps campaign analysis focused on money, not ego.
If gaps stay above an agreed threshold for three weeks, pause new spend experiments until tracking is repaired. Attribution modelling on broken data only polishes the confusion.