Salome Schillack (00:00):

Hello, and welcome to episode number 161 of the Shine Show. In today's episode, we are going to talk about some iOS updates. And specifically we're going to share with you tools that will help you improve the performance of your ads. Now, you know that I have been running ads for online course creators from way back in 2016. And as the agency that I've built have grown, I have added more and more incredibly smart women to my team. These women really know so much about Facebook and Instagram ads that they can put me to shame. And I am so happy that I can hand off all these techy things to them. And they understand it so well that they can implement it for our clients and help our VIP students inside the launch lounge, really understand how these things works.

Salome Schillack (01:03):

But what I wanted to do was I wanted to bring them on the show and I wanted them to share with you in their natural native language, which is geek speak, what these tools are, and how they work, and how you can use them, and what you should be doing. So without further ado, let me bring you Caroline Fenton, Amy Wyhoon, and Hana Abello. Three of this smartest Facebook and Instagram ads managers that I know, who spend all their days running ads for online course creators like you, as they discuss iOS updates and tools that will improve your performance.

Salome Schillack (01:51):

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack. And I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads. So that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in. Because you are ready to shine. And this is the Shine Show.

Salome Schillack (02:25):

I wonder if you got the email Facebook has been sending out to anyone who runs ads for their business in the last six months. Not just one email, many emails they've sent out, telling everyone about Conversion API or this brand new tool that they have developed to help you improve tracking. They really have caused quite a stir amongst our clients and our students with these emails, they keep sending out telling everyone that they have this tool that everyone should be implementing. And everyone should be getting it because it's going to work better for you for data and analytics. But then when you try to figure out how to actually implement this tool, Facebook is like, "We don't really know." And they don't really have clear instructions either. Most of the time their canned answer is, "Here's a link to a blog post where you can read more about it and send it to your developer and have them figure it out."

Salome Schillack (03:28):

This tool that Facebook is talking about is called Conversion API, or abbreviated as CAPI. And if you have had a conversation with the Facebook Ads Marketing Specialist, and they've told you need CAPI. Or you've seen those emails come out from Facebook or Meta telling you need CAPI. Then we are going to unpack that for you today. And we're going to talk about what CAPI is and how exactly it helps us get more accurate data for our Facebook and Instagram ads. We uncover a little bit more about the relationship between CAPI and the Pixel and whether or not CAPI is going to replace the Pixel. And we answer the question, should you be using CAPI right now? So here to unpack all of that for you is Caroline Fenton, Amy Wyhoon, and Hana Abello. Like I said, three of the smartest women I know. Three women I can geek out with all day long and they are going to explain CAPI to you.

Caroline Fenton (04:32):

All right. So one of the things we get asked a lot about is Conversion API or CAPI, for short. So you might have heard this thing talked about in the world of Facebook ads, and we just wanted to have a little chat today about what it is, and a few things around it. And hopefully at the end of the conversation, you guys will have a bigger understanding as to what it is and why you need to worry about it. So, yeah. What is Conversion API?

Amy Wyhoon (04:56):

Ooh, I've got this one, Caroline. Conversion API allows advertisers to send web events from their service directly to Facebook. It creates a connection between the data and Facebook. So the Pixel previously. Like we put the Pixel on the website and Facebook would be able to read what was happening off, like Facebook on your website. And now the Conversion API, the piece of code that we connect now sends traffic direct from the server. So it's like sending it the other way back to Facebook.

Caroline Fenton (05:34):

Right. Okay. So just to clarify, I guess. We've got the current Pixel, which is using browser and then next the Conversion API, which is, what would you say rather than browser, it's server. Server.

Amy Wyhoon (05:49):

Server side. Yeah.

Caroline Fenton (05:50):

Okay. So how would you sum it up if you say how they differ?

Amy Wyhoon (05:54):

So the Conversion API gives Facebook a more complete picture, especially with obviously the tracking issue that iOS has caused us. It's just giving us a bigger picture as to what is actually happening off Facebook. So that we can still manage the ads in the back end and know what's happening. It helps improve our reporting so we can keep on top of our clients ads as well.

Caroline Fenton (06:23):

All right. So in of why we need it, you say, "Yeah, it gives us a bit bigger picture of user activity. It's going to help improve reporting and conversion tracking. It gives us more complete picture of what's going on and ads for maybe a bit more data that might been lost to browser.

Amy Wyhoon (06:40):

Absolutely. And it helps us to, obviously, optimize our campaigns too. Because Facebook's got more data in the campaign to learn from. It's essentially the same data as the Pixel. But it just adds a little bit more info to it and assigns it an activity. Like it gives it an event ID so that you can track it a little bit within the back. Of course another question that's thrown around is the CAPI going to replace the Pixel?

Caroline Fenton (07:17):

Yeah, that is a good question. I guess the short answer is, no. In the short term, at least, the browser Pixel, as we know it isn't going anywhere. So no, it doesn't replace it. It actually supplements it. Like we were saying earlier, it's giving you a more complete set of data to work with. So they actually work together and together they send Facebook as much data as possible to be able to optimize your ad campaigns even better. So basically both will fire from browser and from the server for the CAPI and then Facebook matches that data and then reports them back as the same event. So it's a process obviously to get that working. And you might have heard about the de-duplication issue that some people have and the process of de-duplicating events. Did you want to talk bit more about de-duplication?

Hana Abello (08:06):

Yeah. So de-duplication means that two events have been merged into one. So earlier you mentioned that the CAPI won't be replacing the pixel. And Facebook actually recommends having the CAPI on top of the Pixel. So if we have both the Pixel on the website and the CAPI on the backend reporting data back to Facebook. If someone does something on your website, Facebook is getting the same information from two different sources and the way that Facebook can tell that it's the same activity, even though it's coming in as two events is through the event ID that it assigns to this event.

Caroline Fenton (08:55):

Thanks Hana. Yeah. I think it's really important to talk about de-duplication because a lot of people they might have installed the CAPI. They might see it working. But there's this de-duplication error and things going on. So I don't think it's foolproof at the moment, is it? In terms of-

Hana Abello (09:11):

Yeah, no. So a lot of the native integrations that websites and platforms have with Facebook, in terms of implementing CAPI on those platforms, it hasn't really perfected de-duplication yet. So we'll have to just wait and see how they improve and develop their tracking, so that we can implement CAPI better. At the moment, I won't recommend jumping into it right now. Especially with the issue of de-duplication. Because the problem is it will over report the number of activities on ads manager. So even if you're only getting one opt-in, if de-duplication is not foolproof, then that means you'll be seeing two leads or two opt-ins on your CAPI.

Caroline Fenton (10:07):

Yeah. 100 percent. I think it's really important that's flagged as well. 'Cause as much as it might be easy to set up or easy enough to integrate CAPI, it's the de-duplication that really becomes the issue. And I guess another element of this is, this CAPI really got brought around at the time of iOS, when iOS 14 came into play, there was a lot of conversation around Conversion API. And I'm not sure how much confusion there is around CAPI replacing that data or basically solving the problems of iOS 14. But do you want to just talk a bit more about what's happened since iOS 14 and why it, maybe, is more important since then?

Hana Abello (10:51):

Yeah. So we know that the Pixel is getting less reliable. And with iOS 14, with the update, it meant that Facebook lost visibility on the activity of iOS users who have opted out of tracking. And so CAPI really helps send back more data and that just improves the optimization of the algorithm and the tracking side of it. So even though Conversion API, isn't an actual solution to the problems that iOS 14 gave us and more of justifying the additional feature, anything we can do to send can help with our campaign.

Caroline Fenton (11:40):

Yeah. That's great. I guess it's important to talk about the data and the data is still lost. It's not like CAPI actually solves this for us or does it? Does it solve the lost data?

Hana Abello (11:54):

I don't believe it does. So the API still has to follow the same rules as the Pixel. If someone has opted out of iOS tracking, then the API won't be able to report any data on that. Because they've completely opted out of it.

Caroline Fenton (12:15):

Yeah. Like it has no more visibility. It doesn't. Yeah. They can't see anything else that browser Pixel can't see. Apart from maybe when you're talking about cookie or ad blockers, has it got some benefit, in that case, if someone has an ad blocker turned on?

Hana Abello (12:30):

Yeah, for sure. I think that's where server side tracking or CAPI really helps is being able to track the data that is lost when someone has ad blockers on. Which is a lot of the browsers nowadays have add blockers on by default, right?

Caroline Fenton (12:50):

Yeah. Yeah, definitely do. I think it's really that privacy first world, isn't it? That we're heading in. It's trying to future proof everything. So it's just setting these things up now to future proof yourself against what might happen. And you may have heard chatting in the browser Pixel is disappearing. I don't think that's true. I think it's here to say for a little bit. But if it does, then CAPI is going to be what takes over.

Caroline Fenton (13:17):

So hopefully that was pretty helpful. We've covered what it is, how it differs from the current browser Pixel, and why you need it. We talked about if it replaces the Pixel, as we know it. And de-duplication of those events as they come in a little bit around how it's important since iOS 14. And just really it's a decision to make as to whether you try to go ahead and install it or not. And as Hana mentioned, it's not really necessarily that simple. Well, simple enough to install and set up. It's the de-duplication that can be an issue. Anything else to add ladies? All right. Thanks. Good to chat to you all.

Hana Abello (13:56):

Thanks.

Salome Schillack (14:00):

Well, I don't know if your brain is hurting, but my brain hurts a little bit after all that. I guess what I want you to take away from this episode is that whenever Facebook contacts you about Conversion API, at least you have some reference point or a podcast episode where you can go, "Hang on. What is that again?" And you can come back to it, reference it, listen to it again, try to understand exactly what Facebook is trying to achieve with Conversion API. And if you want to speak to your developer about CAPI to have that integrated into your account, put on your account, activated on your account, I guess is the right way to say it. Then by all means, do that do understand also that you do not have to have any fear of missing out. There's no FOMO. There's no scarcity. There's no urgency for you to use CAPI.

Salome Schillack (15:00):

And if you are just using what you've got and it's working for you now, just keep doing that. So then please just ignore the emails. Facebook is sending you to say, you need CAPI. You will need it eventually. But right now it's in very early stages of development and even Facebook themselves, aren't super clear on how to help people integrate CAPI into their accounts. Okay. Well, I hope that was a really useful episode to you.

Salome Schillack (15:29):

I trust that this will appeal to all of my super geeky listeners out there. And if today wasn't exactly your cup of tea, because it's a bit too technical. Let me know because I want to know if we should do more technical Facebook ad stuff or if you prefer other broader marketing things instead. Have a wonderful week and I'll talk to you next week. Bye. If you love this episode and you're a committed online course launcher who wants to learn how to grow your profits in your next course launch, and you want to know how to successfully scale your online courses business to seven figures and beyond. Then I'd love to see you inside the Launch Lounge.

Salome Schillack (16:12):

The Launch Lounge is the only community online that is dedicated solely to helping you develop every aspect of your online courses business. So you can build a business that scales. There's no one size fits all solutions here, just the right education you need when you need it. Coaching from our team of experts in different areas of launching and scaling and the best community on the internet. The Launch Lounge is your online course, building home. If you want profitable launches that scale your business to seven figures and beyond. To get on the wait list for our next enrollment season, go to shineandsucceed.com/launch. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss the thing.