Northbeam Apex is a direct integration between Northbeam and our Advertising Platform Partners to enable platforms to optimize their ad algorithms using Northbeam performance data.

With Apex, our Partners can integrate first-party, multi-touch performance signals into their algorithm’s ad optimization process. For the Partner, this means you can optimize ad delivery for your advertisers using the Northbeam MTA data they use and trust. When working with Ad platforms (such as Facebook Ads), the advertiser creates campaigns with ad sets and ads focused on a specific goal.

Under the hood, the Ad platform optimizes the advertiser Ads based on all information it gets from user interactions, including both internal information and extra information captured by installing a custom Pixel from the Ad platform into the advertiser's pages (blog, landing pages, e-commerce). This information can include:

• user demographics / interests
• interaction with ads
• clicks / navigation to landing pages
• custom actions taken on those pages (such as email signups, sales transactions, among others)

The more information the Ad platform can have about the user, the more effective the ad optimization will be.

With Apex, Meta has access to Northbeam's proprietary Multi-touch attribution models (MTA), which provide extra information about the attributed revenue for each ad (you can find more details and examples about it below).
Northbeam's data enables Meta to have a more holistic view of the impact of Facebook Ads campaigns to the advertiser's results.

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Learn more about the business side of Apex

More details about Northbeam Apex and the results for our Beta testers can be found here: Northbeam Apex

Overview

Apex is built with privacy and security in mind.

For that reason, it comprises two flows:

1. WebApp Advertiser consent
2. Meta usage

This is how Apex is structured and how those two flows are implemented:

WebApp Advertiser consent

Each advertiser organization inside of Northbeam has an Account Owner. The Account Owner is the only person allowed to consent to Apex data sharing & usage. Through the consent flow in the dashboard (see image below), the Account Owner can enable a Partner to access their Northbeam data. Apex permission is disabled by default.

The Account Owner is the only person allowed to consent to the data usage.

Meta access

The Meta team gains access to a Partner Key inside Northbeam, which they use to run authorized operations, which include:

1. Get the list of authorized users - this consists of the list of all users that provided consent and the Facebook Ads account IDs connected to Northbeam
2. Call the data exports API on behalf of those users, using their Partner Keys, pointing to Meta's GCS bucket as the target for the export

Apex vs CAPI

This article will describe in ways in which Apex is architecturally different to CAPI. If you are interested in understanding general marketing usage differences, please visit our Marketing guide.

Apex implementation differs from traditional data capture methods used by Ad Platforms such as Meta, in particular with regards to Meta's Conversions API.

Conversions API (CAPI)

Meta's Conversions API (CAPI) is a tool that allows businesses to send web and offline events directly from their servers to Facebook's servers. This server-to-server integration complements traditional browser-based tracking methods, like the Meta Pixel, by ensuring more reliable data collection. CAPI helps businesses measure and optimize their advertising campaigns more accurately by providing a direct line of communication between the advertiser's server and Meta.

How is the Conversions API used?

There are two common ways in which tracked data is sent to Meta for optimization:

1. Raw events
   Here, the server tracks user events and actions and sends them to Meta to perform user & device matching, and enriching to the point where the data can be used to optimize ads.
2. Processed data (into user identity/device graphs)
   Here, the server tracks user events and actions and then utilizes a third-party solution to construct an identity graph for each user (i.e., merge all events from multiple devices owned by a single user) before sending this processed data back to Meta. While some degree of user matching has been completed already, Meta must still enrich this processed data for ad optimization.

In both situations, the process to capture raw events, match them to users, construct identity graphs, perform attribution, and enrich the user-level data enough for ad optimization occurs in multiple, concrete steps with different owners (advertiser’s server, third-party apps, Meta).

How does Apex work?

Apex uses a different approach, leveraging Northbeam’s proprietary technology and machine learning to build an end-to-end system that provides Meta with true attribution signal for ad optimization, with zero additional set-up required for the advertiser.

With Apex, Northbeam takes over all the discrete steps explained above and provides ready-to-consume performance metrics for each Ad. Advertisers use Northbeam to capture first-party user data using the Northbeam Pixel. After data is captured, Northbeam aggregates each individual user’s data using our in-house device graph, then employs ML-based attribution modeling to split purchase credit across all of a user’s touchpoints.

As opposed to CAPI to Apex:

1. Unlike CAPI, Apex only uses aggregated data, eliminating any risk of PII leakage since no user event data is shared with Meta.
2. Meta takes advantage of the accuracy of Northbeam's attributed data in their optimization, allowing Meta to make better Ad optimizations for Advertisers.
3. Using Apex, Meta can request any set of attributed metrics specific to the advertiser directly, eliminating the need to perform user matching, aggregation, and performing ad attribution on their own (which usually assigns full last-click credit to Meta channels).
   This means Apex comes as a ready to use solution with no additional implementation work required, unlike CAPI which can require significant developer costs.

Integration / Privacy details

What value is Meta taking from using Northbeam's data?

Our customers commonly use multiple channels in their Marketing efforts, including organic (social media profiles on different platforms) and paid (Ads on various platforms, influencers, etc.).

An Ad platform like Meta usually has limited information on a campaign's effectiveness in terms of conversions.

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Example

A person opens Instagram on their mobile device and clicks on an Ad, being redirected to an ecommerce page.

This same person sees a mention to this same product in an influencer campaign on Youtube using their personal computer, clicks on this and buys the product.

In the above example, Meta campaigns will probably not receive the conversion information, given the usage of different devices / touchpoints.

Through Northbeam's proprietary technology, we can identify the activities on both devices as part of the same user.
Using our custom attribution models, Meta can get more accurate results on the customer journey and those possibly hidden conversions not directly reported by the Meta Pixel.

With this extra information, Meta can better optimize the campaigns on their end.

Which type of data does Meta have access to?

Meta ccan access data that is available through Northbeam’s Data Export API for any consenting mutual advertiser. This includes attributed sales metrics, transactions and associated metadata (attribution models, breakdown labels, attribution windows, etc). Apex provides GDPR-compliant aggregated performance data at the ad level. Apex does not provide any user-level data.

Below is a full list of metrics that Partners can access through the Data Export API:

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Data Export API

For more details check the Data Export API documentation

• Metrics: Transactions, Spend, Revenue, Subscriptions, etc. (including custom metrics created by the customer)
• Attribution window (in days): 1, 3, 7, 14, 30, 60, 90 days
• Accounting mode: Cash or Accrual
• Attribution Model: Linear, First Touch, Last Touch, besides some of Northbeam's proprietary attribution models (Click and Clicks and Views)
• Breakdowns: Campaign, Adset, Ad, Platform, Targeting, etc. (including each customer's custom breakdowns)

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No PII is accessible through the data exports

Data through the Data Export API is aggregated at the ad level (or less granular) and cannot be traced to specific customers.

Can Meta access be audited? If so, how?

Yes. For safety and privacy concerns, we log all Partner access requests to Apex for auditing purposes. Northbeam has the necessary log information to diagnose issues in the case of any incidents.

What happens in the case of a Partner Key leak?

Northbeam will audit all API calls made and understand the scope of data access that was attempted.Northbeam will promptly deactivate or revoke any Partner Key that is leaked or suspected of misusage.

What's the impact of turning Apex on for my other platforms?

Attribution data requests made through the Data Export data do incorporate user touchpoints from other media channels. This data is aggregated at the ad level.