Why Are Conversion APIs So Important?

The digital world has brought its fair share of challenges. One of those challenges that have been catching headlines over recent years has been a growing concern and focus on consumer privacy. One of the biggest problems with the digital space is the fact that it’s so easy to create data. Data is something that businesses need in order to operate and be successful in the modern world, at the same time, data is something that is hard to steward and protect.

Every online interaction creates some kind of data, and it’s very common for personal data to be something that people use. Everything from setting up an Amazon account, to entering a seating queue online at a restaurant could involve a person putting personal information out on the internet. With issues of identity theft and hacking becoming more prominent, privacy concerns have become a matter of great public concern.

Identity theft is something that has affected approximately 33% of Americans, but it’s not just identity theft that is concerning the modern consumer. Certain aspects of privacy such as your browser history, and what you are spending your time looking at has become of concern to consumers. This is why increases in browser related security has become something that has changed the way that businesses interact with potential customers.

While legitimate concerns over sensitive information have lead to popular web browsers tightening their security and making event tracking nearly impossible, there are still needs that businesses have when it comes to using ad platforms. While new restrictions have limited, the way that companies utilize event tracking for ad platforms, the rise of Conversion APIs have given businesses a great option to pursue.

If you have been curious about how to track important user data in a way that is compliant with the new demands of security, here is everything you need to know.

 What Is Browser Based Tracking?

To best understand what a conversion API is or why it’s so important, it’s worth looking at the methods that it seeks to replace. In the past, companies could could track user information that would be fed into data platforms via things like pixels or cookies. In fact, the Facebook Pixel is the most well known pixel, and represented a powerful method of client-side (browser based) tracking.

This pixel, would be a piece of code that would live on a browser and track certain specific events and feed them to ad platforms. This represented a powerful tool for marketing and advertising and a way to connect with potential and existing customers.

There were 17 events that the Facebook pixel was programmed to recognize when it came tracking customer experience. Those events were:

  • Add Payment Info
  • Add to Car
  • Add to Wishlist
  • Complete registration
  • Contact
  • Customize
  • Product
  • Donate
  • Find Location
  • Initiate Checkout
  • Lead
  • Purchase
  • Schedule
  • Search
  • Start Trial
  • Submit Application
  • Subscribe
  • View Content

On top of this, Facebook pixel also allowed you to create custom events to take tracking even further. With the rise in concerns over data protection, modern web browsers like Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and more have all shifted to not allowing this kind of tracking. Because this kind of tracking existed on the browser side, cookie and ad blockers have made client-side tracking almost entirely a thing of the past.

Why Are Conversion APIs a Good Solution?

This is where the conversion API has come into the picture and offers businesses a powerful way around these new security features. While client-side (web browser based) tracking is not completely irradiated, it has been dropping in efficiency. The added security features offered by major browser are options that more and more people are taking which is making event tracking much more difficult.

The conversion API offers a unique way of providing necessary data for marketing and advertising platforms, by tracking data from the server side instead of the client side. This means a couple of things, not only will it not violate any kind of security measure that is set in place by the major web browsers, but it also gives a more powerful method of tracking.

Because conversion APIs live server side, the data that they collect is shared and managed directly by you. This also allows for the powerful implementation of offline event tracking. The reason for tracking this information is to better understand the customer journey. The more that a company can understand the customer journey, the better they can improve it.

Not only that, but server-side tracking with a conversion API allows for a greater variety and dynamic of tracking. You can be exact with what information is important to your company and track very specific things.

Conclusion

The main difference between conversion API and pixels, is that the data collected through a pixel can be protected because it’s third party and doesn’t belong to you. Conversion API runs off of your servers that use your website, which makes this data your property. Legally compliant, and with better, more accurate tracking methods, conversion APIs are a no brainer for helping track a customer journey.