Comparing the Top 7 Facebook CAPI Solutions

The user-agent landscape has turned hostile to advertising as a side-effect of Big Tech’s new focus on privacy – such as with the iOS14+ updates. Over the past two years, access to crucial conversion data from the Facebook Pixel has dropped by 30%. In response, Facebook created the Conversions API (CAPI), a service designed to bypass anti-tracking measures. Since then, numerous third-party services have sprung up to facilitate the use of CAPI.

After six weeks of testing, we’ve determined that the ideal CAPI solution is Cloudflare’s beta service: Zaraz. Its high performance, excellent data acquisition, and ease of deployment blows the competition away.

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Our pick

Cloudflare Zaraz

Tracks users before they even load your site.

[$0 / month]

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Our top pick comes from the tech giant Cloudflare. In addition to their famous DDOS and bot protection, Cloudflare also offers a suite of website optimizations. The latest addition to their toolbox is Zaraz. Zaraz is a CAPI solution that runs in Cloudflare’s proxy, captures page views, and tracks user interactions via client-side Javascript. Enabling it is as simple as toggling a switch in the Cloudflare dashboard.

In our six-week test, Zaraz had zero performance impact. This was because the basic page view tracking occurs on Cloudflare’s server rather than in the user’s browser. Zaraz’s accuracy was also flawless (no data loss), and we found it easy to integrate with pre-existing tracking via standard datalayer events.

Unfortunately, Zaraz has some shortcomings. As with any CAPI solution, user interaction events can be blocked (since they run in the user’s browser). Additionally, Zaraz only works on websites that run through Cloudflare’s proxy, which is frequently impractical or undesired.

Who this is for:

Administrators who are willing to use Cloudflare’s proxy.

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Runner-up

Deviate Tracking

Combines the power of GTM with Facebook CAPI.

[$19 / month]

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Created by marketing firm Deviate Labs, Deviate Tracking is a Google Tag Manager (GTM) template. In addition to sending CAPI data, Deviate Tracking also automatically sends Facebook Pixel events. If you can install GTM on your website, adding Deviate Tracking only takes a few minutes.

In our tests, Deviate Tracking was flexible and reliable. It allows the user to configure all data sent to Facebook and create custom triggers through GTM’s standard interface. Setup was straightforward for experienced GTM users, and the performance loss was minimal for sites already using GTM. Deviate Tracking also performed well with pre-existing tracking setups, thanks to its advanced firing features.

Since GTM runs in the user’s browser, it can be blocked. However, iOS14+ doesn’t block GTM, and neither do most adblockers (notable exceptions include Privacy Badger and uBlock Origin). While not as robust as Zaraz, Deviate Tracking is the best solution for marketers without access to the site’s DNS.

As a tag template, Deviate Tracking does require a good understanding of GTM. If you’ve never used GTM before, we recommend checking out some tutorials before subscribing. 

Who this is for:

Marketers or agencies that need a frictionless CAPI solution or want to supplement a partner integration.

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Also great

Facebook Channel

The first-party integration for one of the world’s top e-commerce platforms 

[$0 / month]

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Created by and for Shopify, Facebook Channel is an extension that seamlessly sends user data with minimal performance loss. We found Facebook Channel to be accurate, data-rich, and easy to deploy in our tests. The only significant limitation is that it requires a Shopify website.

In addition to PageView events, Facebook Channel tracks conversion actions such as cart adds and checkouts. Each event is sent with as much user and product data as possible, including product variations and prices. 

Unfortunately, Facebook Channel is also one of the least configurable solutions. There is no control over the data sent or what actions trigger an event. This can be very limiting when tracking lead forms, newsletter signups, or other less common conversions.

Who this is for:

Anyone using Shopify and advertising on Facebook.

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Not so great

WooCommerce + WordPress Partner Integration

Outdated, buggy, and incompatible.

 [$0 / mo] 

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Facebook’s WordPress-based partner solutions are a miss. Our six-week test revealed numerous bugs, incompatibilities, and missing features. 

Facebook’s generic WordPress plugin claims to send CAPI data. However, when we hooked up a logger to the server, we discovered that the plugin only sent data from the browser. This makes it only marginally better than a regular Facebook Pixel. The plugin has minimal development activity, wasn’t updated for the last three WordPress versions, and is incompatible with PHP 8+. Adding insult to injury are frequent theme conflicts, which broke one of our sites until we removed the plugin.

Facebook’s Woocommerce plugin works a little better – it actually sends CAPI events. Unfortunately, the good news ends there. 

While the Woocommerce plugin automatically sends product data to Facebook, it doesn’t deduplicate these events. This means that Facebook sees two or three times as many conversions as happened. Additionally, the plugin only supports Woocommerce-related pages and ignores blog articles, landing pages, and information pages. 

The plugin also doesn’t send any PageView events, which are crucial for remarketing ads. 

Who this is for:

Marketers who only need basic data and use Woocommerce.

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We also tested:

Stape.io

Does not support standard GTM installations.

[$20 / mo]

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Stape.io’s unique selling point is its automatic configuration for a server-side GTM container. In practice, we found that it wasn’t quite so simple.

Stape.io can’t migrate a standard GTM container to a server-side container. Users with pre-existing tracking will have to migrate their analytics over manually. Even worse, server-side GTM is missing a lot of triggering options, making it impossible to redo some events in the new Stape-created container. Overall, we found the high learning curve unacceptable for a service that claims to be the “easiest”. 

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We also tested:

Pixelyoursite

What WordPress’s partner integration should have been. 

[$160 / yr]

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Pixelyoursite is a WordPress plugin that automatically scans your website and sends CAPI data based on your installed plugins. 

Although surprisingly flexible, we found it buggy and difficult to use. Most of our sites weren’t fully supported and had theme or plugin conflicts. Triggers were also limited, and the setup was convoluted, with many options buried deep inside nested menus.

The best we can say about Pixelyoursite is that “it mostly works”.

What is the “Right” CAPI Solution for You?

A custom server-based CAPI solution is by far the most powerful tracking method. It’s reliable, performant, and flexible. You can choose what data gets sent to Facebook, and track arbitrary user interactions with zero risk of blocking. Unfortunately, that power comes at a cost: time.

Implementing a custom CAPI solution is time consuming because it has to be tailored to the specificities of the website. Furthermore, many businesses use locked-down managed hosting. Such hosts typically don’t allow their users to add any complex features, let alone custom CAPI.

Even if your business can, theoretically, write an in-house tracking tool, it may not be cost-effective. Software engineers are expensive, and their time is better spent creating features that bring in new users. That’s why we recommend Deviate Tracking.

Deviate Tracking strikes a balance between simplicity, flexibility, and reliability. It can run on any website that GTM is installed on, and it only costs $19/month. We created Deviate Tracking to satisfy our own needs. Let it satisfy yours too.