Web conversions
Browser based tracking loses events. Ad blockers stop the request, cookie restrictions shorten what can be remembered, and a browser that closes mid-page never fires. Web conversions sends a server side copy of the same event, so the conversion arrives whether or not the browser call succeeded.
You keep the browser pixel. The server copy runs alongside it, and deduplication stops the pair being counted twice.
Sources and destinations
Section titled “Sources and destinations”Every source below can feed every destination below. There is no Integration Type step for this use case.
Supported destinations
Setting up the subdomain
Section titled “Setting up the subdomain”Events are collected through a subdomain of your own site rather than a Datahash address. This is what makes the collection first party, so cookies survive browser restrictions and ad blockers treat the request as internal rather than external. It has to be in place before any tag will deliver.
- One subdomain per project. If the project already has one, the tag work is all that is left.
- Set it up in Studio, providing the domain and the subdomain name, for example
s2sortracking. - Studio generates the DNS records. Add them at whichever provider manages your domain, either NS records or a CNAME depending on what you are given. Any DNS provider works.
- The subdomain has to sit under the main domain, and cannot be hosted as a primary domain in its own right.
DNS changes take time to take effect, so a step that fails immediately after you add the records is usually worth retrying rather than debugging. See Subdomain setup for the record types and the per-provider steps.
How the data is collected
Section titled “How the data is collected”Website traffic reaches Signals through a tag. You have two options.
- NeoTag is one tag serving multiple platforms. Install it once and add destinations without touching the site again.
- dhPixel replaces a single platform’s base pixel. Use it when you are working platform by platform.
Both hash personal identifiers in the browser, so the raw value does not leave the page.
For Google Tag Manager, add a Custom HTML tag and paste the base code. A Migrate Now option signs in to GTM and migrates existing tags, which then move out of the Non-Migrated section. See Website tag setup for the full reference on both tags.
Fields you cannot unselect
Section titled “Fields you cannot unselect”Five fields are pre-selected on a website source because they are necessary to send, and they cannot be unselected.
- Browser Agent
- City
- Country
- IP
- Pixel Id
The selectable fields alongside them are Click Id, Email, First Name, Last Name and Mobile.
Getting the match right
Section titled “Getting the match right”A conversion that arrives but cannot be matched to a user is close to worthless. Meta states plainly that you cannot use unmatched events for attribution or delivery optimization.
Meta ranks match parameters by priority rather than by weight. Email address and the Meta click ID are the only two it ranks as high; phone, country, date of birth, external ID, browser ID and Facebook login ID are medium; names, city and postcode are low. Meta also recommends including external ID and event ID on all events.
Avoiding double counting
Section titled “Avoiding double counting”Where the same conversion is sent from both the browser and the server, both copies need the same event ID and the same event name. You set the event ID. Meta discards duplicates within 48 hours of the first event, and where a server and browser event arrive within about 5 minutes of each other Meta favors the browser copy.
See Deduplication for the per platform keys and windows.
What to check after setup
Section titled “What to check after setup”- Events appearing in the platform’s own event tool, not just in Studio.
- Purchase events carrying both value and a valid ISO 4217 currency.
event_source_urlbeginning withhttp://orhttps://and matching your verified domain.- Deduplication overlap in Meta’s Event Deduplication tab. Low overlap means the dedupe key is non-unique or is only being sent from one side.