As privacy regulations evolve and traditional tracking methods become unreliable, marketers struggle to accurately measure conversions and confidently attribute ad performance. Taboola's Conversions API solves this challenge by enabling server-side delivery of conversion data directly to Taboola, giving you complete ownership over your data pipeline and significantly improving event deliverability. In this guide, we'll show you how to set up the Taboola Conversions API so you can send conversions directly to Taboola, optimize your native advertising and content discovery campaigns, and increase your return on ad spend.
How to set up Taboola conversion API?
1. Connect to your data source
Start by creating a Hightouch account. Once you're logged in:
- Navigate to the Integrations, then Sources.
- Select the data source that contains your event and customer data. This could be a data warehouse like Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, or a database like Postgres or MySQL.
- Enter your configuration details, such as credentials and hostnames, to authenticate your data source.
Hightouch will validate your connection and give you access to the schema for building your data model.
2. Define your data model
Next, define the event data you want to send to Taboola. You can do this in three ways:
- SQL Editor: Write custom SQL to join and transform data for precise control.
- Table Selector: Choose pre-built tables and columns directly without needing SQL.
- Visual Audience Builder: Use a no-code interface to filter and segment your data based on behavior, properties, or timestamps.
This data model is the source of truth for what gets sent to Taboola. Typical fields include user identifiers (email, phone), event names (purchase, signup), and metadata (value, currency, timestamp).
3. Create a Taboola conversion destination
Now it’s time to connect Hightouch to Taboola:
- Go to the Integrations, then Destinations.
- Click Add Destination and select Taboola.
- Enter your Taboola account details.
4. Send conversions to Taboola
Finally, you’ll configure your sync:
- Got to Activation, then Syncs.
- Click Add sync.
- Choose the model you created and your Taboola destination.
- Map the data fields in your model to Taboola expected parameters
- Run your sync.
What is the Taboola conversions API?
The Taboola Conversions API (also known as Bluks S2S Conversions) is an alternative to traditional web pixels and JavaScript tags and a more accurate way to send conversion data back to Taboola. This direct, server-side approach allows you to leverage your 1st-party data and control exactly what user-completed events and associated values you send to Taboola so you can optimize your campaigns toward the outcomes that matter most to your business and avoid the deliverability issues caused by adblockers and browser restrictions.
Benefits of using Taboola conversion API
The Taboola Conversions API offers advertisers a more resilient and precise way to send event data to Taboola, enabling better campaign performance and measurement. Unlike browser-based tracking (e.g. traditional pixels), the Conversions API operates server-side, reducing data loss and enhancing targeting, even as privacy regulations tighten.
- Lower your Cost Per Result (CPR) by up to 13%: By reducing signal loss and giving Taboola a more complete view of user behavior, the Conversions API helps improve ad delivery optimization across Taboola's native advertising network. It enables more accurate event matching and supplies better training signals to Taboola's algorithm, resulting in smarter bidding and targeting for content discovery campaigns and sponsored content placements. Altogether, this leads to lower CPRs and allows your budget to go further when reaching engaged audiences through native content experiences.
- Increase attributed purchase events by up to 19%: When tracking breaks due to ad blockers, iOS restrictions, or cookie limitations, Taboola may undercount conversions. The Conversions API solves this by sending events directly from your server, making them less likely to be blocked. You can also use deduplication to send both browser and server-side events. This ensures more conversions are accurately attributed to your Taboola campaigns and improves Taboola's optimization engine for native advertising and content recommendation strategies.
- Boost your Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): More complete and reliable conversion data enables Taboola to make better optimization decisions for your native campaigns and content discovery initiatives. This translates into sharper audience targeting and more efficient budget allocation toward high-performing content types, publisher placements, and user engagement patterns. As a result, your campaigns deliver stronger performance, especially when optimizing for key actions like purchases, lead generation, or content engagement through native advertising formats.
- Unlock better measurement and attribution: With server-side tracking, you gain more control over what data you send to Taboola and how it is structured. You can include offline events like phone conversions driven by native content engagement, enrich conversion events with custom fields such as content categories, engagement depth, or customer lifetime value (LTV), and apply deduplication logic to avoid counting the same event twice. This flexibility improves your analytics and helps align Taboola optimization with real business outcomes from native advertising and content discovery efforts.
- Future-proof campaigns against privacy changes: As browser vendors and operating systems roll out stricter privacy features like third-party cookie blocking and App Tracking Transparency, traditional pixel-based tracking becomes less reliable. The Conversions API lets you maintain robust conversion tracking using first-party data delivered from your server, which is more resilient to these restrictions. That means you can continue measuring and optimizing your Taboola native advertising campaigns even in a privacy-first digital landscape.
What's the difference between a pixel & the Taboola conversions API?
A traditional pixel runs on the user's browser or web application and sends conversion events back to Taboola automatically. Unlike a traditional pixel, the Taboola Conversions API allows you to send conversion data directly from your server to Taboola. Pixels are easy to implement but less reliable; conversion APIs are slightly harder to implement but much more reliable because they give you full control over the conversion signals you send back to Taboola.
Here's a quick table highlighting the difference between a traditional web pixel and the Taboola Conversions API:
| Feature | Traditional Pixel | Taboola Conversions API |
|---|---|---|
| Tracking Method | Track events using web script or mobile SDK | Track and store events in your data warehouse or another internal system (e.g., CRM or CDP) |
| Delivery Method | Events sent client-side via web script or mobile SDK | Events sent server-side via API from your server to Taboola |
| Reliability | Frequently blocked by ad blockers, cookie restrictions, & network interruptions | No interference from ad blockers, browsers, or operating systems |
| Supported Properties | Typically only supports website conversions | Supports both online & offline conversions |
| Privacy & Compliance | Limited control over what data you share with Taboola | Maintain complete control over exactly what data you share with Taboola to manage opt-out compliance |
| Benefits | Easy to implement | Better spend efficacy, more accurate attribution, & better consent management |
Why are companies switching to conversion APIs?
Ad blockers, browser restrictions, and operating system policies, such as Intelligent Tracking Prevention (ITP) and App Tracking Transparency (ATT) from Apple, are making client-side tracking through traditional pixels increasingly unreliable. To combat this, nearly every major ad network is introducing new conversion APIs to support server-side events so advertisers can more reliably send their data to Taboola to optimize their campaigns.
- Offline conversion tracking: Track and upload offline conversions not captured through client-side tracking, such as phone calls generated from native content campaigns, in-person consultations driven by sponsored content, or subscription renewals influenced by content discovery experiences. This is especially valuable for businesses using Taboola's native advertising platform to drive awareness and convert users through longer consideration journeys, enabling you to connect content engagement to real-world business outcomes across the entire customer funnel.
- Advanced matching: Increase your event-match quality by enriching your conversion events with first-party customer attributes and additional third-party identifiers. Improve Taboola's ability to match conversion events to users by including data like email, phone number, and content engagement history, as well as system identifiers like IP address or user-agent. This boosts your match rates and ensures more conversions are correctly attributed to your Taboola campaigns, particularly important for native advertising where content engagement and attribution across multiple touchpoints are critical for campaign success.
- Value-based bidding: Send conversion values to Taboola to unlock value-based bidding so the algorithm can bid more on high-value conversions and less on low-value ones. By including monetary values tied to each conversion, Taboola can optimize not just for quantity but also for value, improving your return on ad spend by bidding more aggressively for high-value audiences and premium content placements within their native advertising network.
Taboola conversion API use cases
With the Taboola Conversions API, you can tailor your setup and bidding strategy to align with your native advertising and content marketing objectives. Whether you're focused on driving more qualified leads, increasing revenue from content discovery campaigns, or maximizing profit from your Taboola presence, the Taboola Conversions API gives you the flexibility to send the data Taboola needs to optimize campaigns across their native advertising network.
Optimize for conversion volume
To optimize for conversion volume, configure your setup to send conversion events without attaching revenue or monetary values. These events represent actions like purchases, subscriptions, or content interactions, which aim to increase quantity through native content experiences and sponsored content placements. Use Taboola's volume-based bidding strategies to drive the highest conversions at the lowest cost per action among engaged native advertising audiences.
| Industry | Optimization Goal |
|---|---|
| Retail & E-commerce | Maximize the volume of purchase events on the website, in-app, and in-store |
| Media & Entertainment | Maximize the volume of subscription sign-ups |
| Financial Services | Maximize the volume of loan applications submitted |
| B2B SaaS | Maximize the volume of demo requests or product signups |
| Travel | Maximize the number of flights or rooms booked |
| Healthcare | Maximize the volume of health service signups |
| Education | Maximize the volume of enrollments for a course or event |
Optimize for conversion value
To optimize for conversion value, send the gross revenue associated with each conversion event, such as the order value or subscription fee. Taboola's value-based optimization will then aim to increase total revenue from your native advertising campaigns rather than just the number of actions.
| Industry | Optimization Goal |
|---|---|
| Retail & E-commerce | Maximize the gross revenue value of each purchase |
| Media & Entertainment | Maximize the gross revenue from the first subscription payment (e.g., bid more for premium subscription signups) |
| Financial Services | Maximize the potential value of loan applications submitted (e.g., bid more on users with a higher likelihood of applying for large loan value) |
| B2B SaaS | Maximize the volume of qualified demo requests or product signups |
| Travel | Maximize the gross revenue value of flights or rooms booked |
| Healthcare | Maximize the gross revenue value of health service signups |
| Education | Maximize the gross revenue value of enrollments for a course or event signup (e.g., bid more for premium courses or packages to increase LTV) |
Optimize for financial outcome
To optimize for financial outcomes like profit or customer lifetime value, calculate and send the predicted financial value of each conversion. This could be estimated profit margins, post-cost revenue, or LTV from customers acquired through native content engagement. Then use Taboola's optimization algorithms to align ad spend with real business performance from native advertising efforts.
| Industry | Optimization Goal |
|---|---|
| Retail & E-commerce | Maximize the estimated profit of purchases by subtracting the estimated cost of goods sold, taxes, and fees (e.g., shipping) |
| Media & Entertainment | Maximize the estimated lifetime value of subscription purchases (e.g., bid more to convert users with a higher likelihood of retaining) |
| Financial Services | Maximize the predicted value of loan applications submitted (e.g., bid based on likelihood of loan approval and estimated interest value) |
| B2B SaaS | Maximize the predicted revenue value of demo requests or product signups (e.g., bid using intent data, lead scoring, and predicted ACV) |
| Travel | Maximize the estimated profit from flights or rooms booked by subtracting the cost of goods sold, taxes, and fees |
| Healthcare | Maximize the gross profit value or estimated lifetime value of health service signups |
| Education | Maximize the gross profit value or estimated lifetime value (if recurring) of a course or event signup (e.g., bid based on estimated profit margins from offering or likelihood to retain subscriber) |
What events does the Taboola conversions API support?
Taboola supports two types of events: standard events and custom events.
Standard events are predefined actions that Taboola provides by default for basic use cases across industries.
Custom events are not predefined by Taboola but can be configured to track user-completed events that are not covered underneath the standard events. Not every ad platform will support the same events or have the same naming convention. Additionally, it's always best to map your events back to standard events because the AI algorithms are trained on standard events and not custom ones.
Here's a table breakdown of the most common standard events and custom events that Taboola supports:
| Category | Event Type | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase Events | Purchase, Complete Registration, Donate, Place an Order | Track & optimize toward purchases |
| Checkout Flow Events | Add to Cart, Initiate Checkout, Add Payment Info | Track and optimize toward steps that lead to purchases |
| Engagement Events | Customize Product, Add to Wishlist, View Content, Search, Find Location, Click Button | Track and optimize engagement with key actions on your site or in your app |
| Lead Capture Events | Subscribe, Submit Application, Start Trial, Contact Captured, Lead Captured, Scheduled, Download, Submit Form | Track and optimize toward lead capture |
| Custom Events | Business- or industry-specific actions (e.g., Content Read, Native Ad Clicked, Article Shared) | Track and optimize toward custom conversion events |
FAQS
Where can I access the Taboola Conversions API?
You can read more about Taboola Conversions API in Taboola's documentation. Depending on your use case and implementation, you may need to reach out to Taboola directly.
How do I check if the Taboola Conversions API is working?
Check for successful API responses and verify that Taboola has successfully received your events. Then, run a campaign to see if your ads are being attributed to conversions. (Note: If you don't see any attributed conversions, there's a chance that the ad just isn't converting.)
What match rate should I expect from the Taboola Conversions API?
Your match rates can vary widely depending on the quality and coverage of unmatchable attributes that you collect and/or enrich for each event and send to Taboola. Sending additional identifiers like system attributes (e.g., IP address and user-agent), customer attributes (e.g., email and phone), and pseudonymous attributes (e.g., Click ID and Mobile Ad ID) can improve your match rates.
How often should I upload conversions?
Every ad platform has different recommendations, but the best practice is to upload your conversion events to Taboola daily to ensure you're providing the targeting algorithms with immediate feedback.
What data should I include when uploading conversion events?
Each conversion event you send should include consented attributes about your users to achieve the highest match rates and accuracy for maximum campaign effectiveness, attribution, and measurement. Here's a quick list of the most important data to upload with your conversion events:
- System Event Parameters: Required attributes that tell the system what happened (e.g., event name and ID) and when it happened (e.g., event date and time).
- Consent Parameters: Attributes that tell Taboola how to use the data and how the data should be processed to comply with regional requirements and customer data-sharing preferences.
- Customer Information Parameters: Additional customer attributes used to help the system match a conversion event back to their users and devices (e.g., email, phone, mobile ad IDs, and click IDs).
- Conversion Value Parameters: Monetary values (e.g., revenue, profit, LTV, etc.) assigned to conversion events that help Taboola bid more on high-value conversions and less on low-value ones.
How long does it take your conversion data to be available in Taboola?
The Taboola Conversions API will receive data instantly, but it may take at least 24 hours to be processed and made available in campaign performance reports.
Does the Taboola Conversions API have rate limits?
Rate limits always vary by ad platform, so you'll need to look through Taboola's documentation to understand the platform's intricacies.
