Why Your Donation Tracking Doesn’t Always Match What Hits Your Bank

(And Why That’s Not a Bad Thing)

Let’s be honest—when you’re running digital campaigns, it can be jarring to see donation figures in your dashboard that don’t quite match what lands in your bank account.

That raises fair questions. Is the platform underreporting? Are donations falling through the cracks? Is something broken?

Here’s the good news: in most cases, your actual donation income is higher than what’s being reported in your ad dashboards.

This blog explains why that happens, how donation tracking actually works (and doesn’t), and how to build better campaigns in spite of imperfect data.

Reported Donations vs. Real-Life Bank Transfers

When someone clicks on your ad and donates, platforms like Google or Meta attempt to track that action. But tracking isn’t flawless—and here’s why:

• Many users don’t accept cookies or tracking
• iOS and Apple devices block tracking by default
• Donations often happen days (or devices) after seeing an ad
• Attribution in GA4 and Meta is based on predictive models, not guaranteed matches
• Third-party payment platforms (like PayPal) often break the loop between click and confirmation

In short, your analytics tools are giving you partial visibility. The £1,000 showing in your Google Ads dashboard might actually be £1,300 in Stripe. That “missing” £300? It likely came from donors who weren’t tracked—but still gave.

The bottom line? Underreporting is normal, and your actual income is often better than it looks on paper.

Why We Don’t Just Run One Campaign or Use One Page

You might wonder:
“Why not just push all our traffic to one page and focus the spend there?”

It’s a fair question—but it doesn’t reflect how digital platforms actually work.

Platforms like Meta and Google run on machine learning. That means they constantly test and optimise based on:

• Creative performance
• Audience behaviour
• Landing page success

If we give them just one option—and it underperforms—we risk wasting your budget. That’s why we diversify.

We run a blend of campaigns:

• Awareness ads to spark interest
• Traffic ads to bring users to site
• Conversion ads to close the loop

Flexibility allows the algorithm to self-optimise and lower your cost per donation.

TL;DR – Quick Recap

From Discrepancy to Clarity: Our Solution

It’s frustrating when the numbers don’t line up. But just because a donation isn’t tracked, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Attribution models (especially in GA4) rely on visibility—and there’s plenty they can’t see.

That’s where AdShare comes in.

We’re not just running your ads—we’re closing the visibility gap.

Our AI-powered dashboards help you:

• Reconcile data across Meta, Google, Stripe, PayPal, and more
• Understand multi-touch journeys using blended attribution insights
• Track performance even when pixels fail or donors switch devices

Faith-Based Campaigns That Go Beyond Clicks

AdShare is more than a media buying tool. It’s a purpose-built platform for Muslim and faith-based charities—designed to drive donations, not just impressions.

We’ve helped charities generate over £35M+ annually, reaching 5 million+ users every year across:

• Social, search, streaming, and display
• Interest, behaviour, location, and faith-aligned targeting
• Real-time dashboards for tracking and optimisation
• End-to-end campaign management

And most importantly, we understand the cultural nuances behind why people give.

Ready to see what smarter, values-aligned advertising can do?

Let’s build a campaign that delivers real results—not just clicks. Book a demo