If your Facebook campaigns look like they’re performing well, but your sales are not adding up, there’s a good chance you’re giving too much credit to ads that didn’t actually drive conversions. That’s where incremental attribution comes in.
This feature in Facebook Ads Manager helps you identify which campaigns truly influenced customer actions, instead of just tagging along for the credit. Most advertisers stick to default reporting, but understanding and enabling incremental attribution gives you a clearer view of what’s really working.
Let’s break down what incremental attribution is, why it matters, and how to activate it inside your ad account with just a few clicks.
Incremental attribution shows the added value your ads bring — conversions that happened because of your ad, not just conversions that occurred after someone saw or clicked an ad.
For example, say someone sees your ad on Facebook, ignores it, then comes back later to buy through a Google search. Traditional attribution might still credit Facebook for that sale. Incremental attribution, on the other hand, tries to answer the question: Would this customer have converted without the Facebook ad?
That’s the difference between claiming credit and proving value.
Standard attribution models often overstate performance. Incremental attribution helps you avoid making decisions based on inflated numbers.
Some campaigns look great on paper but do nothing to change customer behavior. Incremental metrics reveal which ads are driving conversions that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
When you can clearly see which campaigns are making an actual impact, you can shift budget toward what’s truly effective — and stop funding ads that just piggyback off organic behavior.
You don’t need a complicated experiment to access incremental attribution. It’s already available right inside Ads Manager — you just have to turn it on.
Here’s how to find it:
Open your campaign, ad set, or ad view in Facebook Ads Manager.
At the top right of the performance table, click on Columns.
From the dropdown menu, choose Compare Attribution Settings. This opens a customizable view where you can compare metrics across different attribution windows.
Scroll to the bottom and click Advanced Options. There you’ll find a checkbox labeled Incremental Attribution. Enable it.
Once enabled, your columns will update with additional data points, including:
Incremental Conversions
Incremental ROAS
Incremental Purchase Value
These metrics estimate how much additional value your ads are driving, beyond what would have happened organically.
Here’s what to look for once you’ve enabled the feature:
High standard ROAS + low incremental ROAS
This means your campaign is likely taking credit for conversions that were going to happen anyway.
Moderate standard ROAS + high incremental ROAS
This means your ad is doing real work and driving behavior change. It might not look flashy, but it’s worth investing in.
Zero or negative incremental metrics
Your campaign isn’t influencing decisions. You’re probably wasting money.
Focus on campaigns with the largest budgets or campaigns that seem too good to be true. You don’t need to track incrementality on everything.
Use incremental attribution alongside other metrics like click-through rate and cost per result to get the full picture. It’s especially useful for identifying overvalued campaigns.
If you see one campaign delivering strong incremental conversions and another delivering none, move your spend accordingly.
If you want to go beyond directional data and get statistically verified results, consider setting up a Conversion Lift Test using Facebook’s Experiments tool. This approach splits your audience into test and control groups and measures actual lift caused by the ad exposure. But for most advertisers, the incremental attribution setting in Ads Manager is a faster, easier way to get started.
Incremental attribution helps you move past surface-level metrics and get a clearer view of which ads are truly making a difference. Instead of guessing or relying on inflated conversion numbers, you can see how many sales your ads are actually driving.
If you’ve ever looked at your ad results and thought, “This looks too good to be true,” enabling incremental attribution is your reality check. It’s quick to set up, easy to understand, and one of the most underused features in Ads Manager.
Start using it, and you’ll make smarter decisions with your ad budget — plain and simple.