Conversion API

What is the Conversion API?

The Conversion API (CAPI) is a server-to-server interface offered by ad platforms — Facebook, Google, TikTok, Snapchat, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Reddit, Microsoft, Outbrain, Taboola and others — that lets advertisers send conversion events directly from their own server to the ad platform's server, without depending on a browser pixel.

It exists because browser-based tracking has become unreliable. Ad blockers, iOS privacy controls, Safari's Intelligent Tracking Prevention, third-party cookie deprecation and consent banners all silently drop pixel events. The Conversion API bypasses the browser entirely, so the ad platform receives every conversion you choose to send — including the ones the pixel never saw.

Each platform has its own name for the same idea:

The mechanics differ between platforms, but the goal is identical: deliver a structured server-side event with hashed user identifiers, an event name, a value, and the parameters needed for attribution and modeling.

Why the Conversion API Matters

The browser pixel was designed for a tracking environment that no longer exists. Today, depending on niche, between 20% and 60% of conversions never reach the ad platform if you only use the pixel. The platform's machine learning then optimizes against an incomplete signal, and your campaigns underperform — not because the audience is wrong, but because the feedback loop is broken.

The Conversion API restores that feedback loop. Server-side events:

• Are not blocked by ad blockers, browser extensions, or privacy-focused browsers.
• Are not affected by cookie lifetime caps (ITP, ETP) because they don't rely on cookies in the user's browser.
• Carry richer customer data — email, phone, name, address, IP, user agent — which improves Event Match Quality and attribution.
• Can be sent for events that happen off the browser entirely: refunds, subscription renewals, CRM lead status changes, offline sales.

For most accounts, switching from "pixel only" to "pixel + Conversion API" recovers between 10% and 30% of attributed conversions, and the recovered events tend to be the highest-quality ones (logged-in customers, mobile app users, subscribers).

How AnyTrack Works With the Conversion API

AnyTrack sits between your funnel and your ad platforms. Every connected platform's Conversion API is wired up automatically when you connect the integration — there is no per-event mapping to maintain.

The flow looks like this:

1. Collect — The AnyTrack Tracking Tag collects first-party data on your website (click ID, event attributes, customer data, page context). Server-side sources like Shopify webhooks, affiliate network postbacks and CRM webhooks are collected directly into AnyTrack without a browser hop.
2. Attribute — AnyTrack stitches every event to the original click ID so the conversion can be tied back to the ad campaign that drove the visit, regardless of how many sessions, devices or domains are involved.
3. Enrich — AnyTrack normalises and hashes customer data (email, phone, name) per each platform's Conversion API spec, attaches the platform-specific click ID (fbp/fbc, gclid, ttclid, _scclick, epik, etc.), and adds the event metadata required for Event Match Quality (event ID, event source URL, action source, IP, user agent).
4. Deduplicate — When the same conversion arrives from multiple sources (e.g. Tracking Tag + Shopify webhook), AnyTrack deduplicates before sending so the ad platform counts it once.
5. Distribute — The same enriched event is fanned out in real time to every connected ad platform's Conversion API, so platforms you haven't actively scaled yet still build audiences and learn from your conversions. See Multi-Channel Audience Building.

This means you can keep using the browser pixel for diagnostics and AnyTrack handles the server-side delivery in parallel — with deduplication preventing double-counting.

Pixel vs Conversion API: What Each Does Best

Bottom line: the browser pixel is no longer enough on its own. The Conversion API is the primary signal; the pixel becomes a redundancy used mainly for client-side context and event match enrichment.

What Gets Sent Through the Conversion API

For every tracked conversion, AnyTrack assembles a payload built from three layers:

• Standard event: a standard event name (Purchase, Lead, AddToCart, InitiateCheckout, etc.) or a custom conversion name, normalised to each platform's expected vocabulary.
• Event attributes: the structured business data on the event — value, currency, transaction_id, content_ids, content_name, quantity, etc. See Event Attributes.
• User and session signals: hashed email/phone/first name/last name/city/country, IP, user agent, click ID, the platform's own browser cookies (fbp/fbc, _ttp, _scclick, etc.), event ID for deduplication, and event source URL.

Because AnyTrack collects this data once and re-shapes it per platform, you don't have to maintain separate event payloads for Facebook, Google, TikTok and the rest — the same source event becomes a CAPI-compliant payload on every connected platform.

Event Match Quality and Attribution

Ad platforms score how well each server event can be matched to a real user — Facebook calls this Event Match Quality (EMQ), Google has a similar score for Enhanced Conversions, TikTok publishes Match Quality for Events API. Higher match quality means the platform's algorithm can attribute the conversion confidently and optimize against it.

AnyTrack maximises match quality by:

• Forwarding hashed email and phone wherever they're collected on the funnel.
• Persisting click IDs across sessions and domains so attribution survives multi-step funnels.
• Sending the platform's first-party browser cookies alongside hashed PII.
• Including the event source URL and user agent so the platform can match the event to a recent ad click.

When match quality drops on any connected platform, the Event Log and platform-side dashboards will show which fields are missing — usually a sign that the Tracking Tag isn't installed on every step of the funnel, or that customer data isn't reaching AnyTrack from your CRM or checkout.

Common Use Cases

• eCommerce: send Purchase, AddToCart, InitiateCheckout and ViewContent events with full cart data from Shopify, WooCommerce, ClickFunnels or any custom checkout, even when the buyer uses Safari or an ad blocker.
• Affiliate marketing: receive merchant postbacks from networks like Digistore24, ClickBank, ShareASale or Awin, attribute them to the original ad click, and forward them to your ad platforms.
• Lead generation: send Lead events from form submissions, then update the same conversion with a value once the lead becomes a customer in your CRM. See Tracking Customer Lifecycle.
• Subscriptions / SaaS: track trials, activations, renewals and churn as separate events, with each one routed through CAPI so the ad platforms see the full lifecycle.
• Offline conversions: feed phone sales, in-store purchases or webinar attendance back to the ad platform via the Conversion API. See Offline Conversion Tracking.

Setup at a Glance

You don't configure the Conversion API per event in AnyTrack. Setup is per platform:

1. Install the Tracking Tag on every step of your funnel.
2. Connect each ad platform from the AnyTrack Integration Catalog — AnyTrack obtains the access token and pixel/dataset/asset IDs needed to call that platform's Conversion API.
3. Connect your conversion sources (eCommerce platform, affiliate network, CRM, custom integration). AnyTrack starts capturing events immediately.
4. Validate in the Event Log that conversions arrive with the correct attributes and that each connected platform reports the event as received.

From that point on, every conversion AnyTrack sees is delivered to every connected platform's Conversion API automatically.