Whether you are a small or a big business, getting customers is crucial. You can have a great product or service, but if nobody knows about it, it is like it does not exist. Once you have a product or a service, you need to tell people about it. In today’s world, you do this by creating an online presence. The first step is a website or an online store. Having a website or online store helps, but you also need to create profiles on popular social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and others. Again, having social network profiles for your business does not mean you have followers. To get followers, visitors, and customers, you need to advertise your business, product, and/or service.

Creating an online presence is a wide subject and deserves more than several articles to even scratch the surface. In this article, we will be discussing the technical aspect of advertising on social networks. We will assume you already have an online store and you want to advertise on social networks.

How it works?

From a technical standpoint, all social network advertising works the same way. It does not matter if it is Facebook or TikTok or something else. We will be using jargon from Facebook, as it is the most popular, but it is the same for other social networks; they just name things differently.

To successfully advertise on social networks, you need two things.

1. Catalog (Special list of your products you want to advertise.)
2. Events (Tracking data of your site visitors and customers.)

Catalog

All popular social networks use the same specification for product catalogs.

Facebook and Instagram are under the Meta umbrella and call it Meta Catalog (formerly Facebook Catalog).

Pinterest calls it Pinterest Catalog.

TikTok calls it TikTok Catalog.

X (formerly Twitter) calls it X Catalog.

In recent years, they refer to catalogs in a general way as “Product Catalog” or “Catalog”. They all do the same thing, and they all borrowed the specification from Google.

The catalog itself is a .csv or .xml file based on the above specification. This file is uploaded to Facebook’s “Commerce Manager” (other networks have the equivalent). Although it is possible to manually create a .csv file and upload it, this approach is time-consuming and prone to errors. Instead, the software is used to generate the file as a product feed that is regularly regenerated. The URL to the feed is submitted to Facebook’s “Commerce Manager” and set to regularly consume the feed so the catalog is always up to date with the online store.

If you are on a predefined system like Magento 1, OpenMage, Magento 2 Open Source, or Adobe Commerce, there is an automated solution that lets you set it once and forget about it.

For Magento 2 or Adobe Commerce, check Catalog Product Feed for Magento Adobe Commerce.

For Magento 1 or OpenMage, check Catalog Product Feed for Magento 1 OpenMage.

Events

The tracking data is very important. Without it, you will be burning money on ads because ad effectiveness and campaign performance will be minimal. To provide tracking data to social networks, two different technologies are used.

• Pixel / Tag (browser-side events)
• Conversions API / Events API (server-side events)

These two technologies are essentially the same across all social networks, with small differences (those differences are mostly there to annoy developers who implement these technologies rather than to provide any functional benefit over the competition). Just look at the names below:

Meta Pixel and Meta Conversions API (formerly Facebook Pixel and Facebook Conversions API)

Pinterest Tag and Pinterest API for Conversions

TikTok Pixel and TikTok Events API

X Pixel and X Conversion API (formerly Twitter Pixel and Twitter Conversion API)

Pixel / Tag (browser-side events)

The Pixel or Tag is a piece of JavaScript code for your website that enables you to send events like “product page was viewed (ViewContent)”, “product was added to the cart (AddToCart)”, “customer purchased these products (Purchase)”. Most events include a product identifier, price, currency, quantity, etc. Based on these events, you can measure, optimize, and build audiences for your ad campaigns.

Important to note: The Pixel or Tag sends events from visitors’ or customers’ web browsers to social network servers. This means iOS updates, web browser privacy features, third-party privacy plugins, and cookie blockers can block Pixel events. That is why the second technology was created.

Conversions API / Events API (server-side events)

Due to the weakness of Pixel / Tag technology noted above, the Conversions API / Events API technology was developed. It does the same thing as Pixel / Tag (sends events), but the way it sends events is different.

Important to note: The Conversions API / Events API sends events from your web server to social network servers. These events cannot be blocked by iOS updates, web browser privacy features, third-party privacy plugins, cookie blockers, or anything else on a visitor’s/customer’s side.

Implementation Overview

We will list all implementation types from worst to best.

• Paste initialization code into the head tag. [Useless]
• Paste initialization code into the head tag and use automatic event firing, aka “Track Events Automatically Without Code”. [Useless] (It scrapes the web page and, based on content, form elements, cookies, etc., tries to guess the event and event data.)
• Properly implemented Pixel with dedicated code to send events with proper event data. [Not Good] (This was good several years ago, but not anymore due to the blocking.)
• Using a third-party service to send events for you. [Varies from Bad to Not Recommended] (Most of them use the same Pixel approach that is not yet blocked. They will have all of your tracking data, including your customers’ data. They can charge you anything they want monthly. The quality of tracking data is questionable.)
• Properly implemented Pixel with dedicated code to send events with proper event data while using Conversions API Gateway (CAPIG). [Not recommended] (Pixel is used, then events are intercepted and rerouted to the gateway. The gateway is self-hosted on the cloud (AWS), is difficult to set up, and costs additional money. Essentially, you are still using Pixel, not the real, native Conversions API. Not every social network supports this setup.)
• No Pixel, only properly implemented Conversions API with dedicated code to send events with proper event data. [Not Recommended] (Social networks do not recommend this setup despite being technically correct. There is no straight answer why.)
• Properly implemented Pixel and Conversions API with dedicated code to send events with proper event data, where events are sent simultaneously and share the same event ID. [Recommended] (This is the best way. Also called redundancy setup.)

Check the video below to see how properly implemented Pixel and Conversions API work. (The left side of the screen is the Pixel, and the right side is the Conversions API.)

Unfortunately, the best way is also the most difficult, the most time-consuming, and the most expensive. However, if you are on a predefined system like Magento 1, OpenMage, Magento 2 Open Source, or Adobe Commerce, there is a ready and very affordable solution. All the coding and development are already done. You can be up and running in a matter of minutes. Just install the extension and paste your Pixel ID and Access Token.

Meta Pixel and Conversions API

For Magento 2 or Adobe Commerce, check Meta Pixel and Conversions API for Magento Adobe Commerce.

For Magento 1 or OpenMage, check Meta Pixel and Conversions API for Magento 1 OpenMage.

Pinterest Tag and Conversions API

For Magento 2 or Adobe Commerce, check Pinterest Tag and Conversions API for Magento Adobe Commerce.

For Magento 1 or OpenMage, check Pinterest Tag and Conversions API for Magento 1 OpenMage.

TikTok Pixel and Events API

For Magento 2 or Adobe Commerce, check TikTok Pixel and Events API for Magento Adobe Commerce.

For Magento 1 or OpenMage, check TikTok Pixel and Events API for Magento 1 OpenMage.

X Pixel and Conversion API

For Magento 2 or Adobe Commerce, check X Pixel and Conversion API for Magento Adobe Commerce.

Hope this article was helpful. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to send a message.