The "How did you hear about us?" survey: what customers see and platforms miss

.comparison-cards { display: flex; flex-direction: column; gap: 1.5rem; } .comparison-card { background: #fff; border-radius: 16px; padding: 20px; border: 2px solid #efefef; } .comparison-header { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 12px; } .comparison-row { display: flex; justify-content: space-between; padding: 8px 0; border-top: 1px solid #efefef; font-size: 14px; color: #1f2937; } .comparison-label { font-size: 14px; width: 30%; } .comparison-value { width: 65%; text-align: right; } @media (max-width: 600px) { .comparison-row { flex-direction: column; align-items: flex-start; } .comparison-value { text-align: left; margin-top: 4px; } } You look at the reports at the end of the month and the numbers don't add up. Meta says it drove 140 orders, Google Ads says 160, GA4 gives most orders to direct traffic, and the shop had 250 in total. Each platform counts by its own rules and none of them sees everything. That's why, at almost every store I work with, I add a single question after the order: "Where did you first hear about us?". Below I explain why it's worth it, how to word the question and the answer options, where to place it and how to read the results. At the end there's a generator that writes the survey for you, ready to copy. 1. Why the platforms don't agree Meta, Google Ads and GA4 measure different things. Ad platforms claim orders based on their own attribution settings and time windows, so the same order can show up in both Meta and Google Ads. GA4 splits credit between channels with the data-driven model or last click. According to Google's documentation, the first click, linear, time decay and position-based models have not been available in GA4 since November 2023. If you run WooCommerce, the order attribution feature saves the source, UTM parameters and device type on every order. The WooCommerce documentation states plainly that it uses a last-click model and doesn't track visitors across sessions.…