The Benefits of Conversion APIs

One of the most valuable currencies in the current economy is consumer data. This alone should indicate just how powerful data is. Organizations have been utilizing consumer data in a number of ways for some time now. However, in recent years, there have been trends on both the organizational side and the consumer side of things that have contributed to the rise of conversion APIs. On the organizational side of things, personalized advertising and marketing has become one of the most powerful and popular strategies in the marketplace. Think about the recommendations you get when you’re shopping on Amazon Prime, or the ads that pop up when you’re scrolling through Facebook, Instagram, and other social media. These personalized ad campaigns are driven by data. The utilization of data in the modern digital landscape is largely driven by conversion APIs.

Pixels used to be the dominant data-tracking tool when it came to online marketing and advertising. The first iteration of these pixels were known as Facebook Pixels. However, as other advertising and marketing agencies created variations on the pixel, it became more widely known as the Meta Pixel. This is a little snippet of code that essentially lives on top of a company’s pre-existing platform. This little bit of code was designed to capture event-based data executed by consumers and inform advertising and marketing downstream. However, the popularization of ad-blockers and web-browsers implementing cookie-blocking features, Meta Pixels have become less effective.

Navigating Ad-Blockers and Browser Settings

Conversion APIs differ from Meta Pixels in a variety of ways. Notably, though, conversion APIs are considered to be server-side tracking whereas Meta Pixels are considered to be a client-side tracking strategy. This is important because it means that the organization utilizing a conversion API directly owns and manages the data. Additionally, there are almost no web-browser protocols to block server-side tracking and in the same vein, ad-blockers are less effective here as well.

The benefits of conversion APIs extend far beyond the data-flow that is opened up around ad-blockers and web-browsers that block 3rd party cookies.

More Powerful Data

Because conversion APIs make use of server-side tracking they are not limited to event data that stems from consumer interactions via the website. Rather, conversion APIs are able to receive and track data from offline conversations, and really any single point across a customer journey. This is significant because it enables an organization to pinpoint the data they want to track and utilize in marketing and advertising efforts. Tracking data with this level of precision also enables users to create custom audience groups of which companies might otherwise be entirely unaware. This is, of course, in concert with tracking online interactions and customer events.

A customer event can be any number of interactions that a consumer takes with a company. This can be a sales action, like finalizing a purchase or adding something to cart; or this could be a subscription action like registering an email, or subscribing to a newsletter. Having insight into any number of customer metrics can help marketing professionals create the perfect online campaign.

More Comprehensive Consumer Profiles

By implementing a conversion API, a company can effectively centralize consumer data in order to create a single, unified view of a consumer. This is amplified if used in combination with a behavioral tracking software, which can give a marketing professional a complete and comprehensive view of a consumer, all in one place.

This caliber of consumer-profiling isn’t possible with other data tracking solutions like Meta Pixels, though they still have their role in a comprehensive marketing and advertising strategy.

The Emergence of Server-Side Tracking

There are a lot of reasons that server-side tracking and the implementation of conversion APIs is becoming a best practice in the world of digital marketing. For starters, conversion APIs offer deeper insight into consumers and target audiences, which enables the creation of more powerful and more personalized marketing campaigns.

The only real downfall to implementing conversion APIs is the time it takes to develop them. However, Facebook, Snapchat, and Google already have conversion APIs and Amazon and Twitter are supposed to release theirs before the end of 2022. Conversion APIs seem to be an integral aspect in the future of digital marketing.

Some Final Words

There is no doubt that technology has evolved to incredible heights, and that it will continue to evolve. So too will its place in our society. Each and every year, the role of technology in our everyday lives seems to grow. We spend more and more of our time online in various capacities, and as a result there is more consumer data available online.

Companies can make use of this data with conversion APIs to create individualized marketing campaigns and in an array of other advertising tactics as well.