If you're advertising your event on Facebook or Instagram, you've probably noticed that ad tracking doesn't work the way it used to. This article explains why tracking changed, the two tools Facebook offers to track ad performance, and how to use them with your TicketSpice event.
Jump To...
Why Ad Tracking Changed
Apple's iOS 14 update reshaped how advertisers track ad performance across apps, making Facebook's reporting far less reliable than it used to be. Here's the background before we get into the tools available to you.
Apps like Facebook used to share your activity and identity with other apps, including your mobile browser, without your knowledge
This cross app sharing is what let advertisers track a sale back to a specific ad, and what made an ad for a product follow you around the web after you clicked it
Facebook sued Apple to stop the iOS 14 restriction and lost
iOS 14 now blocks this data sharing unless you specifically consent to tracking, and most people decline
Note: Over 56% of all US internet traffic comes from mobile phones, so this change had a major impact on how accurately Facebook can report ad performance.
Facebook's Tracking Tools
To work around these restrictions, Facebook offers two tracking tools. TicketSpice supports both.
The Facebook Pixel
The Facebook pixel is a piece of code you add to your event page to track visitor activity.
The pixel tracks actions like page views, add to carts, initiate checkout, and purchases
Facebook uses this data to show targeted ads to people who've interacted with your page
Any business can create a pixel through a Facebook page
TicketSpice supports the Facebook pixel in the Tracking menu when editing a page. Enter your Pixel ID there to start reporting views, clicks, add to carts, initiate checkout, and purchases back to Facebook
Note: The Facebook pixel can't reliably attribute a sale back to an ad when the purchase happens on a mobile phone, which is where most conversions come from. That's where the Conversion API comes in.
Facebook Conversion API (Server Side Conversion)
The Conversion API tracks conversions without relying on pixels or cookies, which iOS 14 blocks.
Instead of sending data from a visitor's browser, TicketSpice sends conversion data directly from its servers to Facebook's servers
TicketSpice supports the Facebook conversion API method to send purchase data over to Facebook so that events can track the effectiveness of their advertising efforts
Facebook matches this information against its own data to determine which ad led to the purchase
Pro Tip: Setting up a pixel and the Conversion API is more technical. Follow Facebook's setup guide for step-by-step instructions.
What This Means for Your Event
If you're spending any money advertising your event on Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp, use the Facebook pixel at minimum to track clicks, views, and page interactions
To accurately track which purchases came from your ads, set up the Facebook Conversion API between your TicketSpice page and your Facebook account
Even with the Conversion API enabled, tracking won't be perfect, but it's noticeably more accurate than using the pixel alone