Insights · Measurement
When none of the numbers agree
Four systems, four answers, same month. None of them is simply wrong — that is the hard part.
Short answer
Platform, analytics and CRM numbers disagree because each system counts a different event, over a different window, under a different attribution rule. The job is not to force them to match. It is to pick one source that decisions are made on, and to know which direction each of the others leans.
What makes Vietnam different
The disagreement exists everywhere. Three things make it wider here.
Cash on delivery is still common
An order confirmed online is not revenue until the parcel is accepted. The gap between the two is a real number, it varies by category, and no advertising platform can see it.
Marketplaces are a closed room
Shopee, Lazada and TikTok Shop report inside their own dashboards. What reaches your analytics is partial, and the definitions are theirs.
Buying happens in chat
A large share of purchases are agreed in Zalo or Messenger rather than on a website. That conversation is invisible to standard tracking unless someone deliberately connects it.
Three questions that separate the causes
Same period?
Platforms report by the day the ad was seen. Finance reports by the day the invoice was issued. At month end these never line up.
Same definition?
One system's "order" is a button press. Another's is money received. The distance between them is your cancellation rate.
Same attribution?
Last click, first click, or evenly split — three pictures of the same month, all defensible, all different.
Pick the number you will be held to
Choose one source as the decision source and tell every party which one it is. For most mid-sized companies that is the system recording actual revenue, not the advertising interface.
The other three do not get thrown away. Operators need them daily. But a budget decision taken from a table with four different totals is a decision nobody will sign.
Once the decision source is fixed, the question changes shape. It stops being "which number is right" and becomes "if we put one more dollar into this channel, how much recorded revenue comes back".
Common questions
How much discrepancy is normal?
There is no universal threshold. What matters is not the size of the gap but whether it is stable. A steady 20% gap every month is a correction you can apply. A gap that moves from 5% to 40% to 15% means something in how you measure is changing without anyone announcing it.
Will the Conversions API make the numbers match?
No. Sending conversions from your server reduces dependence on the browser and usually increases what the platform records. That raises the platform's number — it does not make it equal your CRM's. The two are still counting different events.
Can we require our agency to report on our numbers?
Yes, and it belongs in the contract from the start. An agency improves at whatever metric it is measured on. If that metric is not the one your business decides on, both sides can do their jobs correctly and still end up pointing in different directions.
Does MWY rebuild the measurement setup?
MWY identifies what is broken, writes the technical requirement, and signs off when your team or your agency has built it. MWY does not implement, and takes no commission from any platform or agency — that is the condition that keeps the assessment worth reading.
Want to know which of your numbers is drifting?
The Audit examines how you measure before anyone discusses raising budget. The first thirty minutes are free.