How to enable the Facebook Conversions API

The Conversions API is designed to create a direct connection between your marketing data and the systems that help optimize ad targeting, decrease cost per result and measure outcomes across Meta technologies.

How Conversions API works

The Conversions API is designed to create a direct and more reliable connection between marketing data (from your server, website platform, app or CRM) and Facebook. Examples of marketing data include website events, app events, offline conversions and messaging events. This marketing data helps enable ad personalization, optimization and measurement across Meta technologies so that your ads are shown to people who are more likely to find them relevant.

Conversions API Setup

Create a Business Account

In order to use the Facebook Pixel and the Conversions API, you will need to create a Business Account.

To create a Business Account in Business Manager:

• Go to https://business.facebook.com/overview.
• Click "Create an account".
• Enter a name for your business, your name and work email address and click "Submit".
• Once the business account has been created, click "Done".

See also the Facebook page for further help about creating a Business Account - https://www.facebook.com/business/help/1710077379203657

Create a Facebook Pixel

The Facebook interface and documentation can sometimes be confusing and contradictory. It can be challenging to produce definitive instructions on the various Facebook processes as they seem to change and vary from time to time.

Also remember that the Facebook interface can be very buggy and that updates may fail to complete. If necessary, you may need to retry an operation if it fails.

These instructions will refer to the existing Facebook documentation, rather than trying to reproduce a separate version of the process which may be incorrect as the Facebook interfaces change or vary from time to time.

The overall process is documented here -

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/232481544843294

The first step in the process is to create your Facebook pixel, and that can be done by accessing the Events Manager from the "All tools" menu item.

You will need to go to "Connect Data Sources" to create a new Web connection to create the pixel and this is documented here -

https://www.facebook.com/business/help/952192354843755

You should choose to connect the pixel manually. All you need to copy is the Pixel ID (or Dataset ID) and this will need to be saved in your Spiffy Store preferences at "Preferences -> General Settings" in the "Analytics" section. Here you should enable Facebook Pixel Tracking and save the Pixel ID of the newly created pixel. Click on "Apply Settings" once you're done.

Generate the Access Token

In order to use the Conversions API, you'll also need to generate an access token for the Pixel. You can do this by selecting "Manage Integrations" from the Overview tab of the pixel. If the Conversions API integration is not active, then add a New Integration, and select Conversions API as the option you want to create.

The first part of setting up the Conversions API is to configure the types of events you want to collect.

You'll be taken through a step-by-step process to define and configure all the events for this pixel. We recommend selecting the following events -

• Initiate Checkout
• Contact
• Purchase
• View Content
• Add to Cart
• Search

Once selected, you need to configure the parameters for each event. This means selecting each event from the list that's presented, and choosing the appropriate parameters for each event.

We'd recommend that you select the following parameters for each event -

• Event ID (Event Detail)
• Client IP Address (Customer Information)
• Client User Agent (Customer Information)
• Click ID (fbc) Cookie (Customer Information)
• Browser ID (fbp) Cookie (Customer Information)

In addition, additional parameters can be selected for specific events.

Add to Cart

• Content Type
• Content Name
• Contents
• Value
• Currency

Initiate Checkout

• Num Items
• Value
• Currency

Purchase

• Order ID
• Content Type
• Contents
• Value
• Currency

Search

• Search String

View Content

• Content Type
• Content Name
• Value
• Currency

You will need to select these options for each event, and once all events have been configured, click "Continue" to proceed. You can then review all the settings and click "Confirm Setup" when you're happy. Again, click "Confirm" when everything is correct.

Once the events have been configured, you need to select "Start Sending Event from Server" from the "Manage" option of the Conversions API. This will also lead you through a series of steps with documentation that is used in the implementation of the Conversions API. Part way through these steps, you will be given the opportunity to "Generate an Access Token". This is the last piece of information that is needed to connect your store to the Conversions API. Click on the button to generate the access token, and then copy it to the clipboard and paste it into the "Facebook Access Token" field on the "Preferences -> General Settings" page, just under the Facebook Pixel ID field. Apply the settings, and you're done.

Now, access to your store are logged using Facebook Pixel tracking through the browser and tracking using the Conversions API from the store server.

Getting Help

Quite understandably, you may find navigating your way through the maze of Facebook interfaces is a challenge for almost everyone, and you'll probably find that the Facebook documentation doesn't even match their own software.

If you need help, please contact us by email and provide your Facebook login details so that we can complete the Conversions API setup for you.