· 2 min read
Why does Chatvertise show different numbers than the OpenAI Ads Manager?
You open the Ads Manager and Chatvertise side by side, and yesterday's impressions don't match. Before suspecting a bug: in almost every case one of five known causes is behind it, and none of them means either number is wrong.
1. The account's time zone
Every ad account has a time zone, and “today” starts in that time zone — not yours. Chatvertise uses the account time zone for all periods. If you compare with a tool that uses your local time, day boundaries shift by a few hours and daily values differ.
2. The cache
Chatvertise caches API responses per account so the dashboard loads fast and the API quota is spared. It fetches fresh data when you click “Sync” or when you change something yourself — a mutation clears the affected cache immediately. So if you see numbers from an hour ago, that's not a bug: one click on Sync fetches the current state.
3. Today's conversions are preliminary
OpenAI itself marks attribution values for the current day as preliminary: conversions are processed with a delay and can still change hours later. Today's conversion numbers are therefore in motion in both interfaces.
4. Attribution window and time basis
Conversions depend on the click window (7, 14 or 30 days), the view-through window and the time basis. If one interface uses 30 days and the other 7, the numbers inevitably differ. In Chatvertise the settings on the Conversions page live in the URL — check that both sides use the same window.
5. Granularity: no hourly conversions
The API returns conversions only in daily or total view. The hourly view for “today” therefore shows impressions, clicks and spend, but no conversions — that's not a gap in Chatvertise but a limit of the interface.
When to look closer
If impressions or clicks for a completed day still differ after a sync even though time zone and period are identical, that's unusual — then contact support with the account, the period and both values. For spend: Chatvertise converts the API's decimal amounts into account currency; rounding in the last digit is normal.
Frequently asked questions
- How fresh are the numbers in Chatvertise?
- As fresh as the last sync. Chatvertise caches API responses per account and reloads when you click “Sync” or change something yourself. One click on Sync fetches the current state from the API.
- Why are conversions missing in the hourly view?
- The API returns conversions only in daily or total view. The hourly view therefore shows impressions, clicks and spend, but no conversions. That's a limit of the interface, not a gap in Chatvertise.
- Which time zone applies to “today”?
- The ad account's time zone, not your local one. Chatvertise uses it for all periods. Tools using local time shift day boundaries by a few hours, which makes daily values differ.
- When should I report a discrepancy?
- If impressions or clicks for a completed day still differ after a sync even though time zone and period are identical. Contact support with the account, the period and both values.