Looking for ways to improve the performance of your Facebook and Instagram campaigns to boost your eCommerce sales? Noticed that Facebook and Instagram ads aren’t performing like they used to? If so, part of the solution may be activating the Conversions API. This tool can help you reach your marketing goals and optimize your campaigns for better results. In this article, we’ll look in detail at what the Conversions API is and how you can use it to power your marketing efforts on Facebook and Instagram (now Meta). Let’s get started.
What is the Facebook Conversions API and what is it used for?
The Conversions API is Facebook’s new tool for collecting marketing data directly from the server. Unlike the Facebook pixel, which collects data based on third-party cookies, the Conversions API pulls marketing data from the server.
This server-side marketing data makes it possible to optimize, personalize and measure ads on Facebook and Instagram. If the people reached are more likely to be interested in our products or services, it makes sense that campaign performance improves. Add the ability to measure results better, and your campaigns’ success is within closer reach.
Why will the Facebook pixel take a back seat to the Facebook Conversions API?
The cookieless era began some time ago and, although it looks like a post-apocalyptic scenario for the marketing industry, there are solutions and the tech giants are already on it. Google has started boosting first-party cookies with enhanced conversions and consent mode. Meta, or Facebook as we all know it, couldn’t be left behind and launched the Conversions API a few months ago.
And now, the million-dollar question: will the Facebook pixel disappear? The answer is… no, but it will be more limited. In fact, the Facebook pixel is required for the Conversions API to work properly.
You’re probably also wondering whether, since both send the same parameters for their respective events, the data will be duplicated. Facebook has thought of everything and created an automatic deduplication process so that doesn’t happen.
Benefits of implementing the Facebook Conversions API
The Facebook Conversions API can help you reach the goals you’ve set for your campaigns. Here are some of the benefits you’ll get just by starting to send data through the server with the Conversions API:
You’ll reduce cost per action: you’ll pay less for each goal
This will largely be thanks to connectivity improvements.
Conversions API data is less affected by possible browser loading errors, user connectivity issues and/or ad blockers. By improving the delivery system, cost per action automatically goes down.
You’ll improve measurement and campaign attribution across the customer journey
The Conversions API will help you better measure ad performance and attribution across the entire customer journey, from discovery to conversion. This way, you’ll better understand the impact each ad has on results and can allocate more or less budget to each ad set accordingly.
Does the Conversions API get around iOS 14 restrictions on your Facebook ads?
Apple’s iOS 14 update has hit advertisers hard. If you haven’t taken action, you’re surely one of the many affected by this restriction. Simply put, you may have stopped recording conversions from people browsing on devices running iOS 14.5 or later.
If you want to start collecting data again, installing the Conversions API isn’t enough; you also need to follow these steps:
- Verify your online store’s domain. More information here.
- Set up and prioritize on your domain the eight events you consider most important. More information here.
- Install the Facebook Conversions API.
How to install the Facebook Conversions API
There are two ways to implement the Facebook Conversions API: partner integrations and manual setup. But before installing it, there are two essential requirements: an active, properly working Facebook pixel and a Business Manager account.
Although there’s a technical side that may require a specialized technical team, more and more plugins and CMSs make integration quick and easy. This is the case with LogiCommerce, which has the ‘Facebook Conversions API’ module; PrestaShop, with its ‘PrestaShop Facebook module’; and VTEX, with ‘Facebook Business Extension’. Others offer direct partner integrations, such as Shopify, WordPress/WooCommerce and Adobe Commerce (formerly Magento Commerce), among many others.
Now that you have all the information, don’t fall behind: activate the Conversions API in your Meta account today to improve your Facebook Ads for eCommerce campaigns. If you haven’t done it yet, you’re wasting a lot of time and money without tapping into a tool that will help you improve results and grow your eCommerce sales. Facebook and Instagram ads work, but this is the first step you need to take if you don’t want new data protection policies to hurt you more and more.
