Google Ads Conversions API (CAPI)
Rockerbox's CAPI for Google Ads allows advertisers to send conversion data directly from Rockerbox to Google, removing dependency on third-party pixels and giving advertisers more flexibility to optimize toward their most relevant conversion outcomes. This enhanced signal improves the ability of Google Ads to attribute conversions and to optimize toward future conversions.
Why Implement Rockerbox's Conversions API for Google Ads?
Advertisers choosing to implement Rockerbox's CAPI for Google find value beyond their existing Google tracking in the following ways:
- Granular Segmentation and Targeting: some advertisers may goal and optimize against conversion actions that are difficult or impossible to track in-platform from an implementation standpoint. For example, an advertiser may goal their PMAX campaigns against new customer purchases (vs. repeat). Setting your campaign objective to a new customer purchase conversion action can help optimize campaigns toward relevant outcomes.
- Improved Signal: Rockerbox's first-party, user-level conversion tracking and sophisticated identity resolution allows Rockerbox to track all conversions (web, app, offline (retail, subscription renewal) and attribute them back to any Google Ads click-based touchpoint. Hashed user identifiers are also sent to Google to match against their logged in user base for modeling purposes, resulting in improve platform signal and a trusted data foundation.
- Future-Proofing Against Privacy Changes: the confusing privacy landscape leaves advertisers unsure of how either external changes (user, device, or browser restrictions) or internal changes (cookie consent policy changes) impact platform attribution. A server side implementation reduces this uncertainty by filling in the gaps of what cannot be captured with third-party tracking.
How Does It Work?
1. Complete the Prerequisites
To get started, advertisers will need to complete the below pre-requisities
- A quick onboarding form sharing context on the conversion action and settings the new conversion action should follow.
- Advertisers who have not already done so will need to follow the instructions here to enable enhanced conversions for leads and accept Google's customer data terms.
- Advertisers should confirm that account-wide conversion objectives are NOT enabled for their account. Instead, campaign objective should be specific to a conversion action. Account-wide conversions risk impact to Google's bidding by duplicating conversion counts using the new conversion action. As a further safeguard, all new conversion actions created by Rockerbox will be set as a secondary objective.
2. Rockerbox creates a new Google conversion action
Rockerbox will create a new conversion action in your Google Ads account using existing authorization access granted through the Google Ads <> Rockerbox API authentication. All settings provided by the advertiser in the onboarding form will be applied. Once the conversion action is created, it will appear in Google Ads alongside all other conversion actions.
Google vs Rockerbox Attribution Models
During setup, advertisers will be asked to specify the Google attribution model that will be used by Google to assign credit to Google touchpoints if more than one is tracked on a path to conversion. See Google's attribution model offerings HERE. Rockerbox's attribution concepts and credit allocation across channels are not currently supported by Google.
3. Conversions uploaded to Google Ads
Conversion data will uploaded from an existing Rockerbox conversion segment specified during feature onboarding. To create a custom event in Google that does not currently exist in your Rockerbox account (ex a segment of an existing event), contact your Rockerbox CSM.
Conversion data is uploaded on a daily basis and cannot be deleted or modified after upload.
The below data types will be uploaded from Rockerbox to Google when you opt-in to the feature
- Conversion Data: order_id, conversion_timestamp
- Google-Specific Attribution Data: gclid, gbraid, wbraid
* Conversions with > 1 gclids, gbraids, or wbraids will have all relevant identifiers uploaded. Google will credit individual ads based on the Google attribution model configured for the conversion action.
- Hashed User Identifiers: sha256 hashed emails and phone numbers
* Rockerbox performs basic normalization to the email and phone values passed on your Rockerbox data to align with Google’s normalization process. After normalization, sha256 hashing is applied.
* If you pass pre-hashed email or phone number values to Rockerbox, no further hashing will be applied. Make sure the values you pass align to Google’s normalization requirements.
4. Google Ads performs attribution
Once conversion data is uploaded by Rockerbox, Google performs its own attribution using matches against
- Click Ids: gclids, gbraids, and wbraids provided by Rockerbox for all tracked Google Ads touchpoints will matched against known gclids by Google for attribution
- hashed email and phone: Google will perform matching between the hashed first party user identifiers uploaded by Rockerbox for each conversion to their logged-in user base of users exposed to ads on Google owned and operated properties.
There may be some latency (12-72 hours) between the time the conversion is uploaded and when it appears in Google's reporting as Google processes the uploaded data.
5. Operationalizing the new conversion events
Within a few days of setup, you will begin to see conversions reported in Google Ads for the new conversion action. It will be set as a secondary conversion action by default, so will not be used for optimizations. Rockerbox recommends waiting a few weeks for the new conversion action to populate so that Google has enough data to optimize and scale against to ensure successful bidding.
Once you’re ready to migrate a campaign objective to the new conversion action, you will need to
- Ensure that you do not have account-wide objectives configured in your account. If this is enabled, Google's understanding of conversions may be duplicated and impact bidding in your Google Ads account. Instead, set campaign-specific goals or set the duplicated event to secondary.
- Set the conversion action to a primary conversion action
- Set specific campaigns to optimize against the new conversion action
FAQs
Will conversions in the new Rockerbox-created conversion action impact any existing conversion actions?
No. Rockerbox creates a new conversion action that is populated exclusively with Rockerbox-tracked conversions. This ensures no impact to other conversion actions - even those that may have a similar definition but different data source (ex Google pixel).
Will conversions reported for the Rockerbox-created conversion action align to Google-attributed conversions in Rockerbox?
No. The events uploaded by Rockerbox will align to the total number of conversions reported in the selected Rockerbox conversion segment. Once uploaded, Google will check for matches against gclids and hashed user identifiers to perform their own attribution. This means that conversions attributed to Google in Rockerbox -- regardless of attribution model (ex full credit, modeled multi-touch) will not match Google's conversion reporting for the Rockerbox segment.
Why do conversion counts differ between the Rockerbox-created conversion actions and my other conversion actions (pixel, non-RB CAPI) for the same event?
There are a variety of reasons why even for a similar conversion event, Google's reporting may differ across conversions actions:
- Tracking mechanism: other conversion actions may rely on third-party pixels which have inherent user, browser, and device limitations. Alternatively, non-Rockerbox server-side conversions may use different tracking mechanisms or implementations that can be discrepant from data tracked in Rockerbox.
* Viewthrough attribution for PMAX, Display, Discovery, and Youtube campaigns is only supported with pixel-based tracking, as it relies on Google's cookie for attribution. Server-side only uploads like Rockerbox's CAPI with Google are not eligible for viewthrough attribution.
- Implementation: other conversion actions may have different definitions (ex Purchase - Web, Purchase - Retail) or implementations (ex 1 order = 1 conversion vs each item = 1 conversion).
- Attribution Windows and Models: each conversion action has an attribution window and attribution model set at the time of creation. This tells Google whether to credit or discard a conversion based on the time of the marketing event, and how to distribute the credit across ads. Differences in these settings will cause different results.
Will Rockerbox’s fractional credit / cross-channel attribution context be provided to or used by Google?
No. Google does not currently support a method for uploading this data or way to leverage it in their optimizations. Rockerbox will keep customers updated of any changes here, as we recognize this is the holy grail for advertisers with high Google spend!
Can historical data be uploaded from Rockerbox to Google?
Google can only attribute conversions for which the upload date and the marketing touchpoint date fall within the attribution window set on the conversion action. This means that historical data uploaded by Rockerbox may be rejected by Google and become incomplete.
Custom requests for upload historical data within the attribution window may be supported on a per-advertiser basis. Contact your CSM who will help understand if your request is feasible.
Is GA4 or GA360 conversion or event tracking impacted?
No. The conversion action exists in Google Ads only and will not appear in your GA4, GA360 properties.
From tests with alpha customers, Rockerbox's CAPI attributes more conversions than GA4 due to identity resolution and collection of hashed identifiers.