Big difference in number of visitors comparing Facebook, Matomo and local database

Hi,

We have a system setup using Facebook ads which redirect to our landing page, where we use Matomo PHP API to register a visit. We also record these visits in the local database as a backup and control check. The thing is, all three instances show very different amount of visits. E.g., for one campaign, Facebook shows 2 visits, Matomo shows 17 visits (registered by our PHP API script), but in our local database I can see 53 visits (expected to be identical to Matomo). Can anyone explain this difference? Do Facebook and Matomo have ways to filter visits from bots and such?

Grateful for any help!

Regards
Olle

Hi,

I can’t tell much about facebook, but Matomo by default excludes visitors their User Agent are known Bots.
https://developer.matomo.org/api-reference/tracking-api#tracking-bots

Thanks. We’re still not sure about everything, but this explains some of the diff.