Online consumers have become more concerned with their privacy especially over the last decade. With these changes in consumer desires, companies are slowly shifting away from cookies to collect data and choosing to implement new forms of conversion tracking. Many companies are limited by old forms of conversion tracking, the rise of adblockers, new privacy laws, and web browser restrictions. To overcome this obstacle, companies are turning to Reverse Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) as a reliable form of data integration, which when synched with a Conversion Application Programming Interface (API) can help companies collect data more efficiently. For many companies, finding a way to accomplish this task can be confusing on paper, but we’ll be showing you how to use reverse ETL to integrate your conversion API.
What Is Reverse ETL?
Reverse ETL is the process of moving your customer data from a data warehouse or data lake to an operational system of record, most commonly being a Software as a Service (SaaS). Core metrics reside in a data warehouse such as pages viewed, items in cart, types of subscriptions, and lifetime revenue. When this data stack is properly synched with software systems such as Google’s Bigquery, Snowflake or Salesforce, the loop between data activation and data analysis is accomplished. Data activation is essential to companies looking to unlock the knowledge within their data warehouse and gain actionable insights.
What Is A Conversion API?
Conversion API is a conversion tracking method that allows companies to create a connection between marketing data and meta pixels such as Facebook. This enables server-side conversion tracking, which allows companies to receive offline conversions, event data, and there’s no network issues such as web browser restrictions and/or ad blockers. Most of the major social media platforms have conversion APIs such as TikTok Events, Google Enhanced Conversions, Snapchat Conversion API, and Facebook Conversion API. When implemented properly, conversion APIs give companies a 360-degree view of their data, deeper insight into the customer’s journey, and funnel visibility.
Getting Started
The downside of conversion tracking is how much time it takes to adopt the model and that’s why a lot of companies prefer web pixels over Conversion APIs, which are much faster. However, if your team develops the right data architecture with the right implementation choices, this timeframe can be reduced drastically. Your data warehouse should serve as your source of conversion data and ETL is the easiest way to synch conversion data with conversion APIs.
Next Steps
Many companies already have a team of data analysts and data engineers in place who are most likely consolidating data into your data warehouse. If this isn’t the case, utilize ELT to accomplish this task in a streamlined fashion. Automated data pipelines such as Fivetran or Redhat streamline the flow of data between systems and eliminates the need to manually code data. Once you move your data into a data warehouse, you’re ready to synch your conversion data with a conversion API. However, every conversion API is unique so your data engineering team will have to create several custom data pipelines and/or custom integration for your marketing stack. This method is time-consuming, but doable.
Data Activation Solution
An alternative solution for synching your conversion data with a conversion API is by downloading and uploading your Comma Separated Values (CSV files). This is a somewhat inefficient option, so many companies turn to data activation solutions such as Salesforce, Oracle, Snowflake or Hightouch. It’s a simple process where you first provide access to your data warehouse, then you match up your columns and identifiers in your platform. After you map your columns to the appropriate fields, you can schedule your data synch. After you create your synch, you can schedule it to run manually or on a set interval.
Conclusion
Over the last decade, online consumers have become savvier, and are finding several ways to protect their privacy. With this change in consumers, ad blocker implementation, and web browser restrictions, companies have had to evolve and learn how to better connect with customers without overstepping their boundaries. Many companies are moving away from cookies and turning towards Conversion APIs for effective conversion tracking practices. When combining the power of Reversal ETL with Conversion APIs, companies are able to leverage this knowledge into actionable insights.
The process of synching data from data warehouses and Reversal ETL with Conversion APIs can be stressful especially if you don’t know how to go about this. You can manually code and synch the data with a data engineering team, but this can be time-consuming. Many companies turn to data activation solutions such as Highpoint, which automates the process, saving both time and money. Follow the steps above, and you’ll be on your way to having gained a deeper understanding of your customers, their path to purchasing a product or service, and create more effective advertising in the future.
