Article: Meta Business Suite Tools: Facebook Conversions API

A conversions API is an interface that allows you to directly pass web, app, and offline events.

• By Mensah Alkebu-Lan
• 10 October 2022

Table of Contents

• Overview of API-Based Conversion Tracking
• What is Meta Business Suite?
• Facebook Conversions API
• References

Overview of API-Based Conversion Tracking

What generally keeps our social media apps free is the app’s ability to earn revenue from organizations wanting to advertise to its users. Naturally, the organizations that are doing the advertising want to be able to measure how their ad campaigns are performing. Apps having more mature technology infrastructure will have their own version of a conversions API.

For example, Snap’s Conversions API is an interface that allows you to directly pass web, app, and offline events to Snap. Marketing data can be sent via direct and partner integration.

What is Meta Business Suite?

Meta Business Suite (formerly Facebook Business Manager) is a tool to manage ad accounts, pages, and the people who work on them all in one place. It allows you to manage multiple business accounts.

Once your Meta Business Suite account is created and set up, In the lower-left corner of the Home dashboard you’ll see a clickable settings icon. When you click on it, a screen will open up that gives you a number of tabs. On many of these tabs, there will be a clickable “Go to Business settings” button. You can also click on the “Business Assets” tab where you can manage the business suite’s many asset types listed below:

• Social: Facebook page, Instagram account, Whatsapp account
• Advertising: Ad account, Custom conversion, Pixel, Offline event set
• Commerce: Commerce account, Catalog
• Other: App, Business creative folder, Property

On the left-hand side of the screen, you will also see a clickable “Ads” button, If you click on it it will bring up a panel with two clickable “Create Ad” buttons. This is different from the Ads Manager even though some of the functionality is similar.

Useful Links

Meta Business Suite Login

Facebook Conversions API

In addition to using a Meta (formerly Facebook) Pixel, you can also measure ad performance using the Facebook Conversions API (CAPI). This API is designed to help you push event and conversion data to Facebook Ads Manager while maintaining user privacy. Formerly known as the Server-Side API, this is a helpful alternative since the iOS 14 update restricted the use of cookies on Apple mobile devices.

One advantage the Facebook CAPI has over the Meta Pixel is it is less impacted by browser loading errors, connectivity issues, and ad blockers. Another is it enables better optimization of Facebook ads for actions occurring later in the customer journey.

The best practice is to use Facebook CAPI with the Mega Pixel. It gives you conversion tracking on the client side and the server side. Together, they are a good way to track conversion rates and measure the success of your Facebook ad campaigns.

In the case of direct integrations, the connection it creates establishes a connection between the advertiser’s server and Meta. Server events are linked to a Meta Pixel ID and are processed like Web events sent via pixel. Web server events are used in measurement, reporting, and optimization in a similar way as browser Pixel events. Depending on the level of support the marketing data destination has for this API, the level of difficulty for implementation can vary widely.

One of the easier integrations is an E-Commerce platform like SamCart. With SamCart, the Facebook Conversion API can be integrated with four steps:

1. Copy Meta Pixel ID
2. Copy a Facebook Conversions API Access Token
3. Integrate with Facebook
4. Set up the Integration trigger in SamCart

The Meta pixel ID can be found in the Facebook Events Manager. To generate a Conversions API Access Token, you’ll just need to go into the pixel settings and click “Generate access token.”

In the above example, the “Integrate with Facebook” step takes place within SamCart. Facebook’s network of certified integration partners limits the amount of resource development

If you’re setting up the Facebook Conversions API manually, instead of just copying the Meta Pixel ID and generating a Facebook Conversions API access token, you will click “Add Events” and “Using the Conversions API” within the selected pixel. And so the “Integrate with Facebook” step in this case would instead begin with clicking “Install code manually”, reading the overview, and clicking continues.

References

1. Danielle W. “Facebook Conversion API.” SamCart Knowledge Base, 20 May 2022. Accessed 18 October 2022.

2. “Conversions API.” Meta for Developers. Accessed 18 October 2022.

3. “About Conversions API and how it can help you improve your ads on Facebook and Instagram - Meta Business Help Center.” Facebook. Accessed 18 October 2022.

4. “What is the Conversions API (CAPI)?” Snapchat’s Business Help Center. Accessed 18 October 2022.

5. Newberry, Christina. “Facebook Conversions API: Everything Marketers Need to Know.” Hootsuite Blog, 22 June 2021. Accessed 18 October 2022.