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When analyzing your Meta Ads campaigns, it is quite normal to see a difference between the number of clicks on the campaign and the number of landing page views. Don't be alarmed if you see more clicks than landing page views, it is virtually impossible to match them. However, this difference often raises questions and can lead to incorrect conclusions about the effectiveness of your campaigns. Let's dissect this difference and see how you can better interpret and optimize this data.
What is the problem?
The number of clicks in your Meta Ads campaigns is (almost) always higher than the number of landing page views. This difference arises because of how Meta records clicks and views. This can be confusing, especially when trying to evaluate your campaign's performance and understand your target audience's behavior.
How are clicks on Meta Ads campaigns measured?
Meta Ads measures every type of interaction with your ad. This includes:
- Click on a video to pause it.
- Scrolling through slideshows from a carousel campaign.
- Click to go to the destination URL in your ad.
Even if someone just clicks on an image without going to your landing page, this is recorded as a click. This broad definition can artificially increase the total number of clicks. Hence, it is always more convenient to compare the number of unique clicks on your Meta Ads campaign with landing page views.
What are unique clicks on Meta Ads campaigns?
Unique clicks filter out duplicate interactions from Meta users and count only one click per user per session to your destination URL. This gives a better idea of how many different people actually tried to visit your landing page. Still, this number will not match your landing page views.
When is a landing page view measured?
A landing page view is only recorded when your tracking setup creates a page_view event. This varies by site when this occurs. But as of 2024, this will be for every site after a visitor accepts the marketing cookies in the cookie banner. If a user quits after clicking on the campaign before the page_view event can be created, the view will not be counted.
What are the causes of the difference?
- The marketing cookies are refused. Some users refuse all cookies or specifically the tracking cookies for marketing purposes. Without this explicit consent, your tracking setup (if AVG-proof set up) will not forward events to your Meta Pixel.
- High bounce rate. When users leave (bounce) your landing page before they have interacted with your site and your cookie banner, Meta can record the click but will never receive a page_view event from that visitor. A high bounce rate is mainly due to three reasons:
- The landing page does not match the expectation created by the ad.
- The page loads too slowly.
- There are too many misclicks on your Meta Ads ad.
- Technical issues such as faulty scripts or missing marketing data can cause page_view events not to be created at all or these events not to be populated with the fbc and fbp parameters so Meta cannot figure out if the received page_view event came from one of your campaigns.
- Erroneous tracking setup in Google Tag Manager. It is always useful to test whether the page_view events are still created as expected. In fact, you may find that due to a Google Tag Manager update or a site update, you are no longer measuring those page_view events correctly.
Difference in measurements between GA4, Meta Ads and Google Ads
How do you solve this?
Fortunately, there are ways to narrow the gap between clicks and landing page views and better analyze your campaigns. By acting on the causes, you can ensure that more visitors actually land on your website and stay there. This will give you a better picture of the success of your campaigns. Moreover, this helps you reach your marketing goals faster and increase confidence in your approach.
Optimize your cookie banner
Most visitors don't care whether they accept or reject cookies, they mainly prefer the process to be quick and easy. If you give a visitor the options "accept all" and "reject all," you give them the ability to reject all cookies in one click. If you give them the options 'accept all' and 'set preferences,' they already have to perform several clicks to reject cookies. For many visitors, this is too big a barrier and will accept cookies by default.
Furthermore, you will also need to make your cookie banner un-negotiable. If visitors can use a site without interacting with the cookie banner, chances are you will never be able to create and send a page_view event to Meta Ads.
An optimally set cookie banner can drastically reduce the percentage of visitors who reject cookies. This will ensure that you can record as many landing page views as possible.
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Ensure consistency between ad and landing page
Visitors click through based on expectations. If the landing page does not match the style, message or offer in your ad, users are more likely to drop out. You need the acceptance of (marketing) cookies to measure a landing page view. Make sure the landing page has the same look-and-feel and matches the promise of your ad.
Improve your page load time
A slow website discourages visitors. If visitors drop out between clicking on the campaign and the website fully loading, you will never be able to measure landing page performance. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to optimize your website performance.
Conclusion
The difference between unique clicks and landing page views is a valuable indicator of areas for improvement in your ad and website performance. By optimizing your cookie banner, load times and consistency, you can not only reduce the difference but also get more value out of your campaigns. By doing so, you will ensure that your Meta Ads not only attract clicks, but also generate real engagement and conversions.