One cannot begin a discussion of the eminent Facebook Conversion API without addressing the true nature of the Conversion API more generally. What is a Conversion API, and how might it differ from other types of APIs? Similar to a web pixel, a Conversion API is a powerful way of ensuring that all data is shared server-side and all data is managed directly by you, the ultimate user. This method of conversion tracking is more potent because it is not limited to the mere interactions a customer might have with your website, which are the primary items a web pixel might capture.
Receiving data from items as obscure as offline conversions and events, Conversion APIs allow for more dependable server-side conversion tracking. There is no encumbrance from connection inconsistencies like ad blockers or network throttling, no matter customers’ web browsers. One reality that makes the Facebook Conversion API so useful is that with it, you can discern the exact activity a user will perform and the exact way in which the user will otherwise behave across Facebook in general. This optimizes ad-spending in a way that reduces costs just as well as it optimizes profits at the most fundamental level.
What Is The Facebook Conversion API?
Without outlining what the Facebook Conversion API is, there is no way to discern its primary benefits. Essentially, it counters the web pixel’s shortcomings in such a way as to offer better data collection and management. The web pixel is a browser-wide tool, unable to do anything apart from tracking customers’ data. In any browser, a user can install extensions and ad blockers that further disrupt the web pixel’s ability to present valuable data to an end user. Browsers crash. Caches are cleared. By itself, the web pixel is too fickle to be of any commercial use, especially in the digital age.
In contrast, Facebook’s actual Conversion API works server-side, and this brings about a lot of key benefits. With it, you can track conversions through the server of your website without depending on inconsistent web pixels. Instead, this API tracks “server events,” much more dependable units of data. There is no reliance on cookies or other browser-wide information. The items your customers have installed in their browsers will have no effect on your ability to gather data about them.
This extra tool integrates with the web pixel to render the latter’s problems obsolete, improving accuracy and capturing data that might be lost if web pixels were to be used exclusively. In essence, browser events do not do enough work by themselves, and that is precisely where the Facebook Conversion API comes in handy. Web pixels allow one to share web events from a browser, while the API allows one to share those same events directly from a server. Now that we have outlined Conversion APIs as well as Facebook’s Conversion API, let us discuss some of the ways in which the Facebook Conversion API is particularly beneficial for obtaining and maintaining relationships with customers.
1. It Allows For Greater Attribution
Because the web pixel cannot extract specific units of data as well as it used to, the Facebook Conversion API fills those data gaps with information that generates better attribution among conversion leads. Making the switch from web pixels to the Conversion API can bring about a tenth of an increase in attribution of new customers, allowing for data teams to make better business decisions. The Conversion API also brings about this attribution increase while reducing the cost per advertisement by as much as five percent. Primarily, it reduces costs by placing advertisements in front of users who are more amenable to whatever product a business is trying to sell.
2. It Improves Facebook’s Ability to Target With Appropriate Ads
The initial targeting of customers is not the singular factor at play. Retargeting, the process of attracting old customers back to a business, only works when your tracking modules work. Without a Conversion API, there is no way to convert some of your best prospects: the customers who have already interacted with your business. In general, Conversion APIs allow for a more effective representation of a potential customer’s journey through your web presence. This representation makes the most significant difference among those who visited your site without reaching checkout. To target returning or stale customers explicitly is to bring about a 15% increase in subscriptions as well as purchases.
3. It Lowers The Very Cost of Ads
If ads are not being put to good use, then you are going to buy more of them. The Conversion API accomplishes cost-effectiveness by sending the most accurate data to the Facebook algorithm. This ensures that the right ads are in front of people who are most likely to buy the advertised product.
