How to Choose an Attribution Tool
The five questions that separate the tools.
I have demoed, trialled or been pitched most of the tools on our comparisons page. The demos are all impressive. Every dashboard is beautiful. The differences that mattered afterwards were never on the demo: they were in whether the numbers reconciled, whether anything went back to the platforms, and what the invoice looked like in month four.
The one-sentence version
Choose the tool whose numbers add up to your Shopify revenue and that sends verified orders back to Meta and Google. Everything else is a dashboard preference.
The setup
Score it
Try it: score any tool
Five questions. Ten points.
Does every reported conversion map to a real order in your store (no modeled purchases)? (3 pts)
Does it send verified conversions back to both Meta and Google, de-duplicated? (2 pts)
Does it include a post-purchase survey and use it in the attribution of each order? (2 pts)
Is the price public, with a free tier or trial you can start today? (1 pt)
Do channel totals add up to Shopify revenue on its main screen? (2 pts)
Do not watch the demo. Ask it the five questions.
The landscape
Four kinds of tool
| Kind | Examples | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pixel forwarders | Trackify, WeltPixel, TrackBee | Cheap sendback | No attribution; sends whatever the pixel claims |
| Attribution dashboards | Triple Whale, WeTracked, Kendall, Origin | Seeing all channels in one place | Which ones verify against orders; which send back to both platforms |
| Warehouse and BI | Polar, Funnel, OWOX | Analyst teams | Price, setup time, you build the attribution yourself |
| MMM and incrementality | Prescient, Haus, Recast, Northbeam | $100k+/month, offline channels | Annual contracts, no daily campaign view, needs history |
Why it matters
The invoice in month four
Half the complaints in the app-store reviews of this category are about billing: overages on orders or revenue, surprise tier jumps, cancellation friction. A public price you can calculate from your own revenue is a feature. So is a free tier that stays free.
I built TrueROAS partly because the tool I liked most charged four times more once we grew. Ask what the price is at twice your current size before you sign.
The TrueROAS answer
Where we land, honestly
Yes on all five questions; that is the design. Free under $10k a month, Pro from $39, price scales with revenue and is on the pricing page. What we do not do: warehouse-level BI, and MMM on the base plan. If you need those first, the comparisons page will point you elsewhere without hard feelings.
Honest footnote
When you do not need a tool at all
One channel, no email, mostly first-time buyers, under $5k a month: Ads Manager plus Shopify is roughly honest. Add a second channel and come back.
Questions people actually ask
Straight answers
How does TrueROAS score?
Yes on all five, which is why the questions look the way they do. Bias declared. The comparisons page lists where each competitor lands on the same questions so you can check the claim.
What about MMM and incrementality?
Add-ons for larger budgets, not the base. A tool that leads with MMM for a $30k-a-month store is selling you the wrong product first. See the MMM page.
Do I need a data warehouse?
Not to attribute orders. Warehouse-first tools (Polar, Funnel, OWOX) are excellent if you have an analyst. If you do not, you are paying for infrastructure you will not use.
Should I run two tools in parallel?
Yes, for 14 days. It is the only honest way to compare. Both should reconcile to the same Shopify orders; the one that does not is the one to drop.
See your own numbers, verified against your orders.
Free under $10k/month in revenue. 14-day trial above that. Nothing changes in your ad accounts. You will know within a week which platform has been telling stories.
"I built this because I was making $50k-a-month decisions on numbers I knew were wrong. If TrueROAS does not show you something Meta or Google got wrong in the first two weeks, tell me and I will help you cancel."
Rasmus Arvidsson
Founder, TrueROAS. Answers support himself.
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