The Conversion API is designed to connect the marketing data from an advertiser’s server, website platform, mobile application, or CRM (such as website events, app events, business messaging events, and offline conversions) with Meta’s system. This connection can optimize ad targeting, reduce the cost per action, and measure ad performance. Today, let’s talk about how to optimize Conversion API settings.
Improve Marketing Performance
From reaching audiences who are already interested in your products or services to more effectively reaching both new and returning customers who need what you offer, and having more precise conversion attribution data to prove it.
By installing the Conversion API and Meta Pixel code, you have taken a crucial first step in significantly enhancing performance and achieving more meaningful performance measurement.
However, the quality of your Conversion API setup directly affects Meta’s ability to use your data to optimize ads and measure performance. Meta is committed to ensuring you are fully prepared to elevate the quality of your Conversion API setup.
To maximize the effectiveness of your Meta ads, advertisers are recommended to follow four best practices to create a high-quality Conversion API setup.
Maximize Return on Investment with a High-Quality Conversion API Setup
- Increase Ad Conversion Rates Advertisers who integrated their CRM saw an average increase of over 20% in conversion rates from leads to sales when using the “high potential customers” optimization goal compared to using existing optimization goals.
- Utilize Marketing Spend More Efficiently Advertisers who installed the Meta Pixel code observed an average reduction of 13% in cost per action after setting up the Conversion API.
- Make More Effective Marketing Decisions Large advertisers worldwide who installed the Meta Pixel code and set up the Conversion API saw an average increase of 19% in attributed shopping events.Advertisers who installed the Meta Pixel code and set up the Conversion API to capture website events observed an average increase of 13% in reported conversions. In other words, the higher the setup quality, the more comprehensively you can understand which ads are driving your operations.
Note:
- Improving lead quality is based on optimizing events occurring between lead creation in the advertiser’s CRM system and the final sale. Thus, an increase in conversion rate does not necessarily mean an increase in final sales.
- Meta’s case study is based on an analysis conducted from January 1, 2022, to March 31, 2022, of over 1,000 large advertisers globally who adopted direct integration, Conversion API Gateway integration, or partner integration. The analysis included conditions such as at least 50 server and browser events occurring, an event match quality score greater than 5, and server event coverage over 90%.
Best Practices for Maximizing Marketing Performance with the Conversion API
- Event Match Quality Aim to achieve an event match quality score of “Good” or “Great.”
- Redundant Setup Use both browser and server connections and share the same events.
- Deduplication Add effective deduplication keys for each event.
- Data Freshness Share events as close to real-time as possible.
What is Event Match Quality? Event match quality indicates the effectiveness of customer information parameters sent with server events in matching events to Meta users.
Best Practice: Send additional customer information parameters to aim for an event match quality score of “Good” or “Great.” The Conversion API provides value when it can establish matches between your website events and Meta accounts. This is called event matching.
When Meta evaluates this information, it compares the information sent by other advertisers in the same region sharing similar types of events, helping you understand which events you can improve to increase match rates. Meta then determines whether the advertiser’s server event score is “Poor,” “Okay,” “Good,” or “Great.”
The first best practice is to aim for an event match quality score of “Good” or “Great.” These are ideal scores because they indicate that Meta is receiving sufficient information to better match events to Meta accounts and accurately attribute actions to the advertiser’s marketing activities.

1. Check Event Match Quality
- Go to the Events Manager tool.
- Select the Pixel ID you want to associate with the Conversion API.
- Click on the Event you want to view in detail.
- Select the Event Matching tab to view the event match quality score.
2. Required Event Parameters
- Event Name: Standard event or custom event name; used for event deduplication.
- Event Time: Unix timestamp in seconds, representing the actual time the event occurred.
- Action Source: Indicates where the conversion took place.
- Client User Agent: The user agent of the browser corresponding to the event.
3. How to Improve Event Match Quality
Customer Information Parameters
Customer information parameters are a set of user identifiers that merchants can collect through website interactions, app interactions, or offline interactions (such as in-store or phone). Contact information, considered personally identifiable information (PII), includes items like email addresses or phone numbers.
All contact information must be hashed before being shared with Meta. The more customer information parameters an event has, the more likely it is to successfully match to a user, thus optimizing marketing activities and improving attribution analysis results.
Using Meta Pixel and the Conversion API requires compliance with Meta’s Business Tools Terms, which stipulate that advertisers must have all necessary rights, permissions, and legal bases to disclose and use the data shared with Meta. This sharing must also comply with all applicable laws, regulations, and industry guidelines.
What is Redundant Setup?
To establish the most reliable data connection, Meta recommends using the Conversion API in conjunction with Meta Pixel. This is what Meta refers to as a redundant setup.
For example, if an advertiser uses the Pixel to share events like purchases, initiations of checkout, or additions to cart, they should also use the Conversion API to share the same website events from the advertiser’s server.
A redundant setup is highly useful because the Conversion API can share website events that the Pixel might miss due to network connectivity issues or page load errors. When using both connection methods to share the same events, ensure that the number of events shared via the Conversion API is equal to or greater than the number of events shared via the Pixel.
Associating more Pixel IDs with the Conversion API also helps ensure that the advertiser has more data to optimize ads.
Best Practices:
- Use redundant setup for all events.
- Share the same number or more events using the Conversion API as with the Pixel.
Check Redundant Setup:
- Go to Events Manager.
- Select the Overview tab.
- Confirm that you see Browser · Server in the Connection Methods section.
- If only one connection method is displayed, you can test your events by going to Events Manager > Data Sources > Your Pixel ID > Test Events tab and generating a test code.
- Find the event you want to view in detail and click to see more information.
- The Event Overview tab shows the number of events received from Meta Pixel (Browser) and Conversion API (Server).


If you are sharing more events via Pixel than through the Conversion API, update your Conversion API settings to share the same events as those shared using the Pixel.
What is Deduplication?
Deduplication ensures that for the same event sent by both Pixel and the Conversion API, Meta retains only one event. The best practice is to use a redundant setup for as many events as possible, so Meta needs to deduplicate these redundant events.
For example, if you sent the same purchase event from both the browser and server, this helps capture events that the Meta Pixel might have missed. Without deduplicating redundant browser and server events, two purchase events (one from the browser and one from the server) would appear in the report, even though the purchase event occurred only once. In this case, deduplication is necessary to prevent the same purchase event from appearing twice in the report.
Check Deduplication:
- Go to Events Manager > Data Sources > Your Pixel ID > View Details > Event Deduplication tab > Deduplication Keys.
- Deduplication keys (divided by connection method): The higher the percentage, the better. Meta recommends sending deduplication keys for all events (ideally 100%).
- Overlap Rate: Indicates the percentage of deduplication keys received simultaneously via both Pixel and the Conversion API.

What is Data Freshness?
Data freshness refers to the recency of the data, where “fresh” means there is little to no delay between when the event occurs and when you share it with Meta. Latency is the time elapsed from when the event happens to when it is sent to Meta.
Check Data Freshness:
- Go to Events Manager.
- Select Overview.
- Choose an event.
- Click or tap to view details.
- Select Data Freshness.

The above are the four best practices that our advertisers should follow when optimizing Conversion API settings. These best practices ensure a high-quality Conversion API integration, helping us significantly enhance marketing performance and improve performance measurement in the next round of marketing activities.