Best Practices
Mar 28, 2025
TLDR
Syncing first-party data with Conversions APIs enhances data accuracy, improves attribution, and optimizes marketing performance by reducing reliance on third-party cookies. By implementing server-side tracking and integrating Conversions APIs with platforms like Google Ads and Meta, businesses can bypass browser restrictions, minimize data loss from ad blockers, and maintain compliance with evolving privacy regulations. This approach ensures better audience targeting, higher ROAS, and a future-proof data strategy in an increasingly privacy-conscious digital landscape.
It is hard to imagine what develops faster than the IT and digital sphere. At least, nothing comes to mind immediately. However, the reality is that IT is implemented in almost all aspects of our life and business and directly influences our abilities, work, and profits. When it comes to marketing, tracking the success of campaigns and measuring ROIs are the key elements of almost any specialist’s work. Nowadays, these are largely influenced by ad blockers and privacy restrictions, which affects the quality of data sent to analytics and, as a result, the profits of the whole business.
A solution that makes the whole online business landscape more attractive and profitable nowadays is synchronizing first-party data with Conversions APIs. This will improve tracking accuracy and help to make more effective data-driven decisions that will improve the overall results. Now, let’s take a closer look at how this synchronization works and what it consists of.
Understanding first-party data
Third-party data is something that most of the services have been using for years, but its age is coming to an end. This type of information often gets blocked or cut, so it is not reliable enough to build business strategies and budget on it anymore. First-party data, in turn, is much more reliable and compliant with privacy regulations, as well as reflects real-time interactions with the website. It usually includes:
information about the user: name, e-mail, location, etc., which are collected through sign-ups and logins;
information on the users’ activity: time spent on the website, page opened, clicks, product interactions, etc.;
transaction data: goods added to the cart, purchases, subscriptions;
feedback: reviews, responses, other types of direct communication.
Analyzing first-party data allows you to create a customer-specific profile for more personalized marketing. Moreover, it does not play the last role when it comes to accurate attribution and measurement when synched with Conversion APIs.
Dissecting Conversions APIs
The most interesting thing begins when we move to Conversions APIs. In essence, they are tools that make transferring data from a server to an analytical or marketing platform possible. For instance, if you need to send a data package from your server to Meta Ads - you need a Meta Conversions API. Using such tools provides you with a number of advantages:
more accurate data due to lesser influence from browser restrictions;
better compliance with privacy regulations due to better control over the received data;
smaller disruption from the ad blockers.
Although it is still not, soon, it will become a must for all successful businesses to start using first-party data and process it through Conversions APIs simply because otherwise, they won't be able to withstand competition.
Synching first-party data with Conversions API
To unlock the full potential of first-party data and start getting everything possible from it is advised to synchronize it with a Conversions API and ensure accuracy and privacy. The whole process consists of several steps, each of which may have several solutions. We will provide you with a general idea of how it works, giving you the flexibility to choose how to implement them.
Obviously, you cannot synchronize any type of data with the API before you collect it. Thus, your first step would be to ensure that you get clean and relevant first-party data with minimal disruptions and losses from ad blockers and browser restrictions.
When the question with first-party data is solved, you must implement server-side tracking for your business. Although it may sound scary and complicated, there is no need to worry. There are specialists who can help you to manage everything and get the best results from it. Stape, for instance, can host a server-based GTM container with minimal interference from your side. It will allow you to manage the tags and data flow more efficiently, decreasing the need to process anything on the client’s side.
Once done with server-side tracking, you need to integrate the chosen Conversions API into your system. This means that the first-party data you receive should be mapped to specific conversion events on the advertising platform of your choice. For instance, you can share purchases and product access data with Google Ads to improve remarketing efforts and send sign-ups with other interactions to increase your ROAS to Meta Ads.
Now, it is time to ensure you do not break any privacy regulations. Data privacy is paramount nowadays, which means you must follow all the rules to operate legally. Conversions APIs allow you to hash and/or anonymize sensitive information before it is sent to the analytical platforms.
Generally, you are all set. From now on, your task is to monitor the performance of the campaigns and optimize them.
Although the whole process looks overwhelming at first, the result is 100% worth the fuss, and considering all the professional help and online consultations you may get, things will be much easier than they seem.
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How do you understand that you need it?
Everything we described above is great, but how to understand that it is time to synchronize the first-party data with Conversions API to refresh the business and improve the results? If you have nothing to compare with, you may think that everything is fine and there is no need to bother, right? Well, we will help you to understand the signals that it is time.
If you notice that the statistics about the website are weird and incorrect (for instance, the number of visitors is far from the truth), the reason may be ad blockers and browser restrictions. As we have already mentioned, this issue can be solved by implementing a Conversions API and synchronizing it with first-party data.
If you notice that when a user switches between devices, their activity is recorded as a new session, you might need to switch to server-side tracking and synchronize the things we are discussing here. In such a way, you will ensure that your attribution model is not hurt by incorrect information.
If you operate in a region where data privacy laws are strict and accurately followed, you may be affected by the blockage of third-party cookies and will not have any other choice but to switch to first-party ones. Conversions API, in its turn, will give you better control over the data flow.
Conclusion
Syncing first-party data with Conversions APIs is a powerful way to improve data accuracy, boost campaign performance, and comply with privacy regulations. By integrating first-party data into your server-side tracking setup and sending it directly to platforms like Google Ads and Meta, you gain a better view of your customer’s activity and make your budgeting and campaign planning more effective.
As privacy policies continue to evolve and tracking becomes more challenging, businesses that embrace first-party data and Conversions APIs will be ahead of the curve, delivering smarter, more efficient, and more compliant marketing campaigns.