Event API Overview
The Event API is a flexible and robust API that can receive any type of client event (e.g., web purchase, app open, or store visit) along with any associated attributes (e.g., email address, purchase amount, ccbin). We have two main use cases for this API, which will be described below.
Conversion Attribution
Accurate measurement of marketing outcomes is critical for achieving success at Rokt, and establishing a tight conversion data integration will allow Rokt to more effectively optimize your campaigns and measure performance. Using the Event API as a standalone integration for Conversion Data provides a few key benefits:
- Coverage — Permits integration of events across all channels and devices, resulting in coverage for conversions across Website, Application, or In-Store.
- Reliability — Since the Event API is a Server to Server integration, it is not susceptible to any interference by web technologies such as browser or ad blocking. It also supports error handling, ensuring that data is never lost.
- Speed — The Event API allows for fully automated, near-real time data exchange, maximizing the potential of Rokt’s automated optimization tools.
For best performance, we recommend integrating with the Event API for conversion attribution, either as a standalone integration or in conjunction with the Web SDK. When both the Event API and Web SDK are used, you get redundancy and greater attribution accuracy through both personal and device-matching capabilities.
A broader overview of the Conversion Attribution use case can be found in our document library.
Integration Anomaly Detection
For our partners, Rokt Placements make up a key component of the e-commerce experience, providing value to customers like you and generating significant value for your bottom line. Ensuring the Rokt Placement is displayed as often as expected is key to maximizing the value Rokt can deliver.
Technical integrations like Rokt’s through the Web SDK, iOS SDK, Android SDK or other approaches can be impacted by small changes to the dozens of moving parts in the ecosystem. Rokt’s experience with over 4 billion e-commerce transactions has shown us that many things can go wrong with website updates, 3rd party integrations (eg: tag managers and optimization systems), customer installed applications (e.g., browser extensions), or even new browser versions (e.g., Internet Explorer, Safari). The severity of the impact can range significantly depending on the type of change, but even small errors affecting a tiny percentage of users can have significant impacts to customers as well as the bottom line if they linger undetected.
Rokt currently uses a range of tools, alerts, and reporting to track these types of issues. For example, all deployments are set up with automated alarming on major drops in placement impressions by default. However, small deviations from the norm may be perceived as "noise", so smaller errors (e.g., an error affecting some versions of Internet Explorer) may go unnoticed. To get the most accurate picture of performance, a secondary data source is needed that is trusted and independent of browser functionality. This secondary data source will allow Rokt to run comparisons between actual placement impressions and events where a placement should have been displayed. When this data is made available, discrepancies can be quickly identified, diagnosed, and fixed, increasing the customer value and bottom line impacts delivered by Rokt.
We strongly recommend clients use the Event API to provide a server-to-server version of the truth, which enables rapid detection and correction of discrepancies that are unaffected by things impacting the integration via the browser.
A broader overview of the anomaly detection use case can be found in our document library.