5 Signs Your Pixels Are Broken (And What To Do About It)

You’re spending thousands on paid ads, but your data feels… off. Maybe your ROAS looks inflated. Or Shopify shows 20 sales, but Meta reports only 5. Sound familiar?

Broken pixels are one of the most common and most costly problems e-commerce brands face. The worst part? Most stores don’t even realize it’s happening.

In this post, we’ll walk through five telltale signs that your tracking setup might be broken, misconfigured, or quietly sabotaging your ad performance, as well as what you can do to fix it.

1. Conversions Aren’t Matching Reality

When your ad platform reports three purchases, but your Shopify dashboard shows fifteen, something’s clearly off.

This is usually a sign that your purchase event isn’t firing correctly — or at all. Sometimes the event is missing from certain devices or blocked by browser settings. Other times, duplicate or misconfigured tags are sending bad data.

What to do:

• Use Google Tag Manager Preview or your platform’s event debugger
• Check your Purchase event for proper triggers, parameters, and frequency
• Validate event counts inside GA4 or Meta Events Manager

2. ROAS Looks Too Good to Be True (Or Way Too Low)

If your return on ad spend looks suspiciously amazing or painfully underwhelming, the issue could be your pixel.

Inflated ROAS often happens when events are firing multiple times for a single action. Underreported ROAS usually means events are being blocked, missed, or never sent.

What to do:

• Look for abnormal revenue values in Meta Events Manager or GA4
• Check for duplicate event triggers in GTM or theme code
• Make sure purchase events fire only once, after a real transaction

3. Events Aren’t Firing in the Right Order

Your event funnel should follow a logical sequence: ViewContent → AddToCart → InitiateCheckout → Purchase.

If you’re seeing Purchase events with no ViewContent or AddToCart before them, that’s a red flag. It often means the pixel is installed improperly or events are hardcoded in the wrong place.

What to do:

• Run a test session with GTM Preview or GA4 DebugView
• Watch the sequence of events across the full funnel
• Reorganize tag triggers and firing rules so events follow the correct order

4. Pixel Tools Show Warnings or Errors

Free tools like Meta Pixel Helper, GA4 DebugView, and Tag Assistant exist for a reason — and they’re often the first place problems show up.

If you see errors like “Event not received,” “Missing required parameters,” or “Duplicate event detected,” don’t ignore them.

What to do:

• Install and run platform-specific tools during test sessions
• Click through your funnel and watch for any warnings
• Fix any broken parameters, triggers, or script conflicts right away

5. You’re Getting Hit with “Unmatched Parameters” in Ad Platforms

Ad platforms rely on certain parameters to match conversions to campaigns. If you’re missing values like content_ids, value, or currency, your ads may still run — but they’ll perform worse and report less.

Meta and Google will sometimes flag these missing pieces in Events Manager or Tag Diagnostics, but many marketers overlook them.

What to do:

• Inspect the full payload of each event, especially Purchase and AddToCart
• Ensure every required parameter is being passed cleanly
• Avoid dynamic values that can break based on user behavior or theme change

Conclusion

Even a single broken tag can throw off your ad data, your optimization, and your confidence in what’s working. The good news is, these problems are fixable — once you know what to look for.

Need help verifying your pixels and tags?
At TagTuners, we specialize in e-commerce tracking audits, pixel repairs, and proper GA4 setups. Use the form below or click here to contact us now for a free tag audit.