Pinterest is releasing a new ad product, a conversion API, making it the latest mobile app to launch new tech for tracking ad performance after Apple’s privacy changes last year made it harder to measure ad campaigns.
Pinterest made the announcement today about its conversion API to coincide with Advertising Week in New York City. The API for Conversions, as Pinterest called the application programming interface, is similar to ones already in operation at rivals such as Meta, Twitter and Snapchat.
“Pinterest's new API for Conversions provides advertisers a comprehensive view of campaign performance to measure the actions those audiences took on an advertiser’s site,” Pinterest said in its announcement. “The Pinterest API will also integrate conversions features globally in the coming weeks with commerce partner Shopify and tag management partner Google Tag Manager.”
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Shopify is the mobile commerce platform that helps merchants coordinate marketing across apps including Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snap and TikTok. All the apps have been affected by privacy changes on iPhones, which diminished their access to data about consumers’ activity. Last year, Apple’s iOS update made it so the apps could not track consumers without express permission under Apple’s App Tracking Transparency rules. Google is following Apple's privacy changes on Android and it plans to phase out third-party cookies on Chrome in 2024, which is set to hit online marketing tracking, too. Now, apps are developing tools like conversion APIs, which brands and ad agencies activate to keep measuring ad performance.
In its Advertising Week announcement, Pinterest said that the conversion API was a “way for advertisers to connect their data to Pinterest, allowing for better targeting and measurement.”
“This is especially important as the industry evolves,” Pinterest said.