Because of new privacy-focused features to browsers, the Facebook pixel has become less reliable. 

What to do about that is rapidly becoming a hot topic amongst marketers. 

The Facebook pixel is a short javascript code that carries its own unique ID. It registers important information, such as which pages a device visited, the frequency of visits, and how long those visits lasted, among other things. 

With Safari’s changes to Intelligent Tracking Prevention and worldwide laws and guidelines limiting businesses’ capabilities to track website activity without permission, the Facebook pixel is not as useful to marketers and advertisers as it once was.

In short, the feedback loop between Facebook Ads and the behavior of your customers has broken down and will never be the same. Other negative impacts include: 

• Lower data quality for ads evaluation and optimization
• Budgeting paralysis due to dramatic changes in revenue data
• Uncertainty in planning future marketing budgets

All things any good marketer wants to avoid at all costs.  

The solution? The Facebook Conversions API (FB CAPI) integration offered by Exponea. Facebook Conversions API gives companies more control over the data they send to Facebook. The API allows events to be sent directly to Facebook Ads’ platform without having to rely on browser pixel tracking. 

This gives businesses 100% control over data they choose to share with Facebook, which has famously had past issues with security. FB CAPI helps to ease the minds of marketers and customers alike by creating a secure and law-abiding connection from a business to Facebook without relying on third party cookies.

Sofology opts in for FB CAPI

Sofology is the UK’s fastest growing omnichannel sofa retailer whose mission is to help their customers feel at home on a sofa that they love. It sells a variety of sofas, chairs, recliners, and other accessories through a network of over 45 stores in the U.K. and online.

Sofology has been an Exponea customer since summer 2019. It became aware of changes to the Facebook pixel and FB CAPI because of Bloomreach, Facebook, and Exponea’s “Cookie Control, Consumers, and Commerce” webinar that took place in late January.

When presented with the opportunity to be an early adopter of Conversions API, Sofology didn’t hesitate.

Conversations had already been taking place internally about how the changes related to the Facebook pixel might affect Facebook Ad performance. The logical next step was to move forward with implementation.   

Implementing Facebook Conversions API

It took just one hour for Conversions API to be set up for Sofology.

Yes, only 60 minutes.

“We were ready to go live with Conversions API in one hour,” said Janet Duckworth, Head of Marketing for Sofology. “As always, the Exponea team made sure we understood the future impact on our data and reporting. We’re looking forward to finding new use cases and increasing the ROI of our Facebook Ad budget.”

The technical integration was simple because Sofology had already mapped the key events it desired to send to Facebook through Conversions API. With this information, and a couple of tokens from Facebook Business Manager, the integration was a seamless one.

Now, whenever a purchase happens, the data gets automatically sent from Exponea through Conversions API to Facebook. Every conversion is now used to optimize Sofology’s Facebook Ads campaign.

As the data begins to roll in, the process of monitoring what impact this will have on Sofology’s data and campaign performance begins as well. After an evaluation of the first results, ways to expand the use of the integration will be better known and implemented.

The future with Conversions API

The future’s looking bright for Sofology and other companies that have implemented Conversions API.

Why? Because they no longer have to worry about the death of cookies negatively impacting their Facebook campaign performances.

They’ve protected the strength of conversion signal, i.e. the ability to reliably tie conversions to ad campaigns. The chart below illustrates the potential impact of this change on the signal strength.

You can think of the conversion signal in the same way you would think about the strength of your Wifi connection. When the signal is strong, Facebook is getting a clear picture of the behavior that results from ad clicks.

It uses the information to optimize the campaigns by targeting people who are similar to those who’ve converted and limiting the impressions for people who didn’t. Thus giving you a good return on your ad spend.

When the signal gets weak, the image starts to break up. Facebook can’t see what the people who’ve clicked on the ads are doing on your page. It then does a much worse job optimizing campaigns.

Strong signal means better ROI. Without the signal, your cost per action increases by 150% on average.

And there’s an added bonus. The capability of using any customer data point as a conversion (which can now be done through FB CAPI) also opens up new possibilities. For example, you can run campaigns optimized on generating store purchases.

In roughly a year from now, companies that make no changes to their Facebook Ads campaigns are expected to see revenue greatly decrease because of the decreased reliability of the Facebook pixel. The time to make the change is now. Protect the signal.

One interesting thing to watch out for is the impact implementing FB CAPI will have on your data. Since you’re adding a new way of measurement, your data will inevitably be impacted. Seeing increases of 30% in revenue attributed to Facebook is not unheard of after implementing Conversions API.

“It’s crucial to recognize that while the data will change, the underlying customer behavior will stay the same,” said Juraj Frank, a Business Consultant for Exponea. 

Exponea’s CDXP helps businesses grow

Exponea’s Customer Data and Experience Platform collects, analyzes, and activates customer data in real time.

This allows Exponea users to create personalized experiences across Facebook, email, website, and other channels that drive higher revenue and increased customer loyalty. Our experienced team will help you identify and deploy use cases that will increase advertising ROI.

If you are worried about your Facebook Ads campaigns suffering, the Facebook Conversions API integration is what you need to put these concerns to rest. FB CAPI will offer you more control over the data you are sharing with Facebook and ensure that the money you’re spending on Facebook Ads campaigns is money well spent.

Don’t wait to get started. Watch our short demo video to better understand how your business can turn customer data into marketing magic. If you’re interested in learning more about data privacy and security, Exponea Academy’s Privacy Fundamentals course is the deep dive you need to master the topic and become an expert. 

If you are interested in learning more about our new soon-to-be cookieless world, watch our “Future of Cookie Control, Consumers, and Commerce” webinar on-demand.