Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is facing serious allegations of inflating the performance of its ecommerce advertising product, Shops ads.
According to a whistleblower complaint filed in a UK employment tribunal, Meta reportedly boosted return on ad spend (ROAS) by counting shipping fees and taxes as sales revenue, rigging auction bids, and using hidden discounts to make Shops ads look more effective than they really were. These moves are said to have been designed to counter the impact of Apple’s 2021 privacy changes, which severely limited Meta’s ability to track iOS users.
The whistleblower, Samujjal Purkayastha, a former product manager on Meta’s Shops ads team, claims that internal reviews in early 2024 showed the ROAS figures for Shops ads were inflated by 17% to 19%. Meta reportedly included shipping and tax fees in its sales numbers for these ads, something it didn’t do for other ad products or competitors like Google, which focus on net revenue. Without counting those extra fees, Shops ads performed no better than more traditional Meta ads, contradicting what advertisers were being told.
The complaint also says Meta rigged the auction system for Shops ads, sometimes matching bids dollar-for-dollar to ensure these ads appeared more often and delivered higher conversion rates. This made Shops ads seem far more successful, with Meta’s internal reports claiming 70% to 80% of these ads outperformed the usual campaigns, a figure well above the company’s 60% benchmark.
According to the whistleblower, Meta’s team was aware internally that these metrics were inflated but deliberately kept this from advertisers and investors. The inflated Shops ads performance helped Meta soften the financial blow from Apple's privacy rules, which had caused a drop in its advertising revenues. Meta reportedly pressured Purkayastha and others to conceal these irregularities despite ongoing concerns.
All this came after Apple introduced its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature in 2021, which dramatically cut Meta’s ability to track users across apps and websites on iPhones, a core reason for its advertising dominance. Former Meta CFO David Wehner warned that Apple’s privacy move could cost Meta roughly $10 billion in lost revenue.
To fight back, Meta pushed Shops ads, where customers buy directly within Facebook and Instagram, letting Meta gather more first-party user data instead of relying on Apple’s tracking permissions. Purkayastha also alleges that Meta used a second version of conversion tracking called Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM2) to get around Apple’s rules, using personal identifiers to track users in ways Apple had tried to block. The complaint highlights attempts to blur the line between compliant and non-compliant tracking.
Meta's internal documents describe Shops as “critical” to the company’s growth strategy, especially to make up for revenue losses linked to Apple’s privacy changes.
Despite raising these concerns repeatedly with Meta’s leadership between 2022 and early 2025, Purkayastha says the company kept these practices going. He was fired in February 2025 and has since filed the complaint asking to be reinstated.
A Meta spokesperson told Campaign they have actively defended these proceedings and note the employment tribunal's decision rejecting the claimant's application. "Allegations related to the integrity of our advertising practices are without merit, and we maintain full confidence in our performance review processes.”
Natasha Michelmore, Bread Agency and Shai Luft, Bench Media
Campaign reached out to the advertising community who expressed that these allegations, while not surprising, draw attention to a longstanding trust issue around Meta’s ad performance reporting.
"The allegations inevitably raise broader questions about trust in Meta’s reported ad performance, regardless of their origin," says Shai Luft, co-founder and COO at Bench Media. "Even if some claims prove overstated, the suggestion that Shops Ads may have been inflated and that Apple’s privacy rules were bypassed raises a persistent issue: platforms have a vested interest in how results are presented."
For advertisers, Luft adds, this moment reinforces the need to demand transparency and diversify validation beyond the platforms themselves.
"That’s why we never rely solely on media-owner reporting. Instead, we focus on independent measurement solutions, whether through third-party verification or path-to-purchase analysis, to understand the true impact across channels."
Natasha Michelmore, account director at Bread Agency, says the allegations naturally raise questions about how much advertisers can rely on Meta’s reported ad results.
"For brands, it’s a reminder to look beyond platform metrics and validate performance with independent data wherever possible. Comparing ad results with actual sales and outcomes can provide a clearer picture of campaign effectiveness."
