Facebook’s Conversions API: What Every Advertiser Needs To Know
Conversion tracking and attribution data provide essential insights into advertising campaigns, revealing opportunities for optimization and improvement. In the past, marketers and brands relied heavily on browser cookie data to inform digital marketing campaigns, retargeting audiences, and track user engagement with ads. This data is used to identify top-performing ads, successful targeting tactics, and most efficient practices to maximize impact and budget.
As the value of personal data continues to occupy the conversation around social media advertising, browsers and softwares are opting for stricter privacy regulations and decreased sharing of personal data. Advertisers are now faced with difficulty accessing valuable data from cookies, rendering the tracking and analysis of their most high-value customer events more arduous than ever before.
Contributing to this trend is the launch of iOS 14, which enforces the clear description of all information regarding privacy practices in App Store Connect and requires users to opt-in to an app’s data sharing policy via a prompt. This launch, currently scheduled for Q2 2021, will further impede marketers’ ability to gather consumer data through apps and browsers, rendering server-to-server solutions imperative.
The Role of Facebook’s Conversion Tracking API
Facebook’s Conversions API (formerly Facebook server-to-server) allows brands and marketers to get a fuller understanding of their ad performance by providing data otherwise unavailable due to browser tracking prevention technology. Conversions API works with the Facebook Pixel to send data directly from a user’s server to Facebook’s ad platform, eliminating interference by blocked browser data. This allows for improved data collection and accuracy due to the absence of ad blockers and other information barriers present on web browsers. Conversions API leads to a more thorough understanding of ad performance and attribution, ultimately bettering opportunities to optimize creatives, targeting, and budget allocation.
The server-side API for web, designed to work on top of an existing Facebook initialization event code, allows advertisers and brands to track events across various channels. This enables a more holistic understanding of the customer purchase journey and leads to better informed strategies. Without the server-side solution, retailers are affected by limited retargeting audiences sizes, inaccurate measurement, and the inability to measure deep funnel events outside the browser.
What is a Server-Side API Solution and How Does It Work?
Facebook’s server-side API operates similarly to the browser pixel, except it eliminates interactions with the browser by passing information directly from one server to another. By omitting the web browser, server-side pixels are able to provide more accurate information regarding targeting and measurement while still obeying Facebook terms and restrictions.
This form of data sharing helps overcome challenges faced by browser pixels and enhances visualization of the omnichannel, multi-platform customer journey. The implementation of a server-side pixel allows brands to maximize their return on ad spend (ROAS) by means of increased visibility into customer events and interactions with their campaigns. In short, the ability to track user data is essential to advertisers and leads to better campaign performance.
How Can Brands and Marketers Leverage a Server-Side Solution?
Facebook’s server-side solution delivers benefits unmatched by a browser pixel, adding further layers of measurement and circumventing tracking prevention technology. Conversions API is a reliable solution for importing more customer data points directly into the Facebook Ads platform, allowing brands and marketers to optimize their ads and see bigger returns on their investment.
Brands and marketers looking to easily implement Facebook’s Conversions API should leverage Convertevent as a solution requiring minimal developer support and no maintenance.
How ConvertEvent drives results
Convertevent allows advertisers to send information through an alternative server-side route without custom development. By simplifying the implementation of Facebook’s Conversions API, brands can see more immediate results. This server-to-server API solution allows brands and marketers to grow their retargeting pools, increase event visibility, track deep funnel events, and enable better optimizations of ad campaigns.
Canadian sustainable clothing company tentree discovered an ability to maximize performance by adopting the Conversions API in addition to the Facebook pixel, resulting in a 12% increase in Facebook attribution and a 5% lower cost per action. For more details on how tentree achieved success, see its Facebook for Business case study.
For Royal Distributing, a leading powersports retailer, Convertevent results manifested as:
- 40% larger retargeting audiences
- 8.75% more purchase events from server-side pixel tracking
- 40% increase in new customer acquisition revenue
See Facebook Marketing Partners’ case study showcasing Royal Distributing and Northern Commerce’s success using Conversions API here.
Implications of iOS 14 Updates and Conversion Tracking in 2021
The Apple iOS 14 update’s main hindrance on Facebook advertising lies in the inability to track a significant amount of users and their interactions with ads. Having less data visible to marketers results in less opportunities for information-based optimization. This is due to the software update’s incorporation of strict data privacy rules, especially for apps using advertising or analytics software development kits (SDKs). The rollout of iOS 14 will disrupt Facebook’s approach to advertising, impacting advertisers’ ability to collect and analyze data previously available to them.
In response to the iOS update, Facebook has released their Aggregated Event Measurement (AEM) protocol. This protocol allows only the highest priority events to be reported in a session with multiple user actions, affecting advertisers’ visibility on event progression. These updates will undoubtedly affect the manner in which Facebook advertisers measure and analyze ad performance, and those using the platform should prepare for ramifications as soon as possible.
Discover Our Custom Server-Side Solution Today
Implementing Facebook’s Conversions API through ConvertEvent allows more accurate analysis of ad performance and attribution, enabling significant optimizations and driving results. Leverage ConvertEvent and Facebook’s Conversions API for a fuller understanding of customer events and interactions with your ads. Contact us for a consultation today.
