Segment Recipe: Create Facebook lookalike audiences of your top-spending customers

Meta is pushing all ecommerce brands to implement the Facebook Conversions API. But what is it exactly? And what is the benefit of using an ecommerce data platform to push data back to Facebook? If you're running a Shopify store and you're not using Meta's Conversions API via Littledata, you're missing out on a lot of benefits that can help you drive more sales, grow your business and most importantly run higher converting Facebook Ad Campaigns. As Meta explains, the Conversions API can get you “closer to your customers” and help you “take advantage of first part data” from your Shopify store. But what does that all mean? Can’t you just add some extra code and be done with it? In fact, it’s not so simple. As with GA4 implementations, there are a lot of soft apps and integrations for Facebook Ads that work ok for very small merchants (less than $500k GMV). But serious brands need complete data in Meta — whether you’re focused on retargeting the checkout funnel, building better audiences, or just improving your overall top-line ad spend. Littledata has worked with several of the top DTC brands on Shopify and BigCommerce. Here are the top 4 reasons why you should reconsider your tech stack for advertising on Meta. These are the top benefits our most successful brands have seen after installing our Facebook Conversions API connection. 1. Better targeting of potential customers Meta's machine learning algorithm uses conversion signals to understand what type of people on their platform are likely to purchase products from your shop. By sending conversion event data to Meta, you're helping them understand your audience better and allowing them to target the right people with your ads. This can result in cheaper impressions and conversions for you. Think of this like training the platform to understand your ideal customer profile (ICP). Because Littledata tracks both one-off and repeat purchases (including subscriptions from apps like Recharge, Smarter and Stay Ai), you get complete data for both targeting and audience building (lookalike audiences with a higher LTV). 2. Improved ad performance Meta uses conversion signals to optimize your ads and find the highest quality potential customers within their user base. By sending Meta conversion complete event data and using it as the optimization event for your ads, Meta can show your ad to the right people at the right time, increasing the chances of them becoming your customer. This will cut down on wasted ad spend and increase overall conversions. 3. Better marketing attribution Meta's Conversions API allows you to send conversion event data to Meta from your backend systems instead of directly from the browser. This means that even if the user leaves the page quickly or has an ad blocker, the data is still being sent to Meta’s event manager. Using the Conversions API can improve the attribution of your conversions to your ads, which can result in better ad spend performance and audience building in the future. 4. More data to work with When you use the Conversions API, you can send personally identifiable information (PII) like email address, phone numbers back to Meta/Facebook. This allows Meta to match the user with their internal database and get a better understanding of who is converting on your site. It means that shoppers get better, personalized ads that fit their interests. You can also send Meta pseudo-anonymous data like IP address and user agent, as well as Meta's own cookies from the frontend. This gives Meta more data to work with and can help improve their targeting and optimization algorithms. How it works Littledata is the most advanced solution for Conversions API, but we didn’t get there by accident. Our Google Analytics integration has been the industry leader since 2017 and we used a similar framework to support CAPI so that brands can get complete, accurate data in Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads. In addition to the server-side tracking that’s automatically added by Littledata to capture everything that happens in your online store’s “lower conversion funnel”, such as checkout funnel activity and purchases, Littledata's integration with the Conversion API is superior to other solutions because of the way it sends the fbp and fbc cookies, which are crucial parameters for the event match quality score. Littledata ensures that an fbp is always available and automatically generates one in the event that the fbp parameter cannot be retrieved due to ad blockers. Additionally, the fbp and fbc parameters are passed with server-side events to ensure the highest event match quality. Why are the fbc and fbp parameters crucial for Meta CAPI? The event match quality score is an algorithm used by Meta to price impressions, choosing the right users within their user-base to target and provide you with the cheapest impressions and conversions. If the fbp and fbc parameters are not sent, the event match quality score will be negatively impacted, and Meta will not be able to optimize your ads to target the right users effectively. To overcome this, Littledata's integration with Meta Conversion API ensures that the fbp parameter is always available, even if it cannot be retrieved due to ad blockers. The fbp is automatically generated, and the user is attributed to it to ensure that the event match quality is not negatively affected. When using Littledata's integration with Meta's Conversion API, Shopfiy and BigCommerce brands can expect to see a boost in the number of conversions that Meta is able to attribute to their ads, resulting in significant ad spend performance and improvements to the overall ad campaign.  Still wondering how these four reasons work out in action? Check out how Flux Footwear used Littledata to support multiple data destinations. A shoe brand that embraced data when they kicked off their business, Flux saw amazing six-figure growth by making data-driven decisions with data they could trust.  On Shopify Plus? Book a Littledata Plus demo today. We’re happy to audit your Facebook data for free in advance of the call.

SUMMARY As a company that values both data and creativity, Flux Footwear leveraged Littledata’s plug-and-play connections to Google Analytics (UA and GA4) and Facebook Ads to capture complete first-party data across the customer journey. Littledata’s automatic tracking solution not only saved them valuable time, but primed Flux for success with highly-targeted ads and in-depth customer insights as they scaled from launch to major DTC footwear brand. THE CHALLENGE Goal: Send complete Shopify data to Google Analytics (UA and GA4) and Facebook Ads The founders of Flux Footwear launched their Shopify store in July 2021, offering a minimalist shoe that works in harmony with the natural strength of bare feet. By embracing research on the positive effects of barefoot shoes and the value of sustainability, they created designs that feel just as good as they look. But after launching their Shopify store and installing Shopify’s native browser-side pixel, Flux’s team struggled with duplicate data, inaccurate attribution insights, and large data discrepancies between Shopify Analytics and Google Analytics. Unable to get an accurate understanding of their store’s performance, they needed to implement a data layer that tracks the entire customer journey across tools and platforms. The rollout of iOS14 made matters worse, inhibiting their Facebook Ad performance and limiting Flux’s reach to their target market. Their need for first-party data to maintain deep, accurate customer insights grew stronger than before. THE SOLUTION Fixing the data Within minutes of installing Littledata’s server-side tracking, accurate data was flowing seamlessly from Shopify to GA, capturing complete first-party data at every touchpoint and stitching together multiple sessions. In addition to connecting their Universal Analytics property, Flux started sending data in parallel to GA4. By building up historical data in GA4 now, Flux will be able to conduct year-on-year analysis to understand their business’s seasonality in years to come. Flux worked hand-in-hand with Littledata’s team of analytics experts, creating filters and views in GA to better interpret their data and build custom reports in GA4 based on their unique business goals. https://www.youtube.com/embed/plg4YWdJ97o Hear from Flux's co-founder, Benjamin Loschen on how Facebook Conversions API from Littledata improved their Meta Ad Campaigns. Integrating the tools Beyond the initial setup, Littledata made it easy for Flux to integrate their existing tech stack, see crucial insights in Google Analytics, and establish a single source of truth for customer data. [tip]Don't reinvent the wheel. See the top 5 data tracking mistakes made by DTC brands[/tip] With an accurate view of their Facebook Ad performance and marketing attribution, Flux is able to spend more on channels and campaigns that are converting at higher rates, and less on those that are falling short. Utilizing Littledata’s Facebook Ads integration, Flux built lookalike audiences based on their highest-spending customers, leading to a boost in both conversion rate and monthly revenue. There were three parts to this: Making Facebook Ads data match Shopify for actual conversions (real purchases instead of just clicks) Tracking checkout funnel events Getting the right LTV data to build high-value lookalike audiences in Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads All three were accomplished using Littledata's Conversions API connection. Conversion API (or "CAPI" for short) is a powerful way to get complete, accurate data about purchases and repeat buying behavior (shoppers who come back to buy again). Lots of brands don't even know about CAPI at all, but those that do often end up hiring agencies to do expensive manual implementations. Flux Footwear took the smart route and used an automated CAPI connection instead of trying to reinvent the wheel. The results were big and fast! RESULTS Flux Footwear cites Littledata’s seamless technology for helping them launch their brand with an accurate data layer. One of the most significant results, in their experience, is having “a team of people managing the data flow—a total no-brainer.” This helped to free up their most valuable resource—time—and allowed them to focus on their product. Since Flux relies predominantly on Facebook and Instagram ads to reach new customers, Littledata’s Facebook Conversions API integration plays a key role in Flux’s growth strategy. Seamlessly sending Shopify data to Facebook Ads and building powerful lookalike audiences for targeting and retargeting campaigns has fueled their recent growth—scaling their monthly revenue by 500% in under a year. They have also estimated over 30 hours of work were saved if they were to attempt to learn and set up tracking manually. With accurate data and a reinforced tech stack in place, Flux Footwear now has a complete picture of attribution, repeat orders, and conversions from customers and their affiliates.