Discrepancies between data sources can be frustrating, especially when analyzing marketing performance. This guide will help you troubleshoot common discrepancies in Facebook Ads and Instagram Insights, providing practical solutions and best practices.

Reach discrepancies in Facebook Ads

Sometimes, when you look at your Supermetrics report, you may notice discrepancies in your Reach or User metrics compared to the data source user interface. You may also encounter the following error messages:

• Can’t be calculated, would require summing deduplicated values
• Null
• No data

Why this happens

Reach is a metric that measures the number of unique individuals who have seen your content. While you can break down reach by dimensions like posts, campaigns, or time ranges, summing up these values can lead to inaccuracies.

Here’s an example: If Monica saw your ad on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday, she generated three impressions, but you only reached one person. Summing up reach would incorrectly imply that you reached three people.

Please note: Adding further breakdowns to your query can exacerbate this issue. For instance, if Monica saw ads for two different campaigns on the same day, summing up reach by date and campaign would result in a Reach of 2, even though you only reached one person.

How to work around this

The best approach is to query for the total number of Reach directly, rather than breaking it down by date or campaign and summing the results.

Golden Rule: Avoid summing up Reach and other non-aggregatable metrics. This will prevent incorrect results that don't align with the data source's platform.