This disjointed digital ecosystem results in the user accessing the same content or product across one device, channel, and session and then converting across another. Mobile apps and web apps, voice applications, and kiosks are all means by which users can engage often through a nonlinear customer journey that’s nearly impossible to track. Furthermore, companies operating under a headless CMS experience such scattering of content and experiences delivered through APIs across different frontends that are managed independently. Thus, assessing cross-device conversions in a headless world requires the transparency of multiple portals to bridge the gap between different datasets to understand where users engaged with what content and ultimately converted to assess effectiveness.
User Journeys Become Fragmented in a Headless World
By removing the coupling between front end and back end in a headless structure, access to render content in different places is facilitated via APIs. Although this allows for opportunities for unmatched flexibility and scalability, it also complicates understanding user interactions across environments. Someone can stumble upon an item on the mobile site, search for it later on the desktop, and then convert on the mobile app. Each step occurs on a different front end within a different time frame, potentially with different stacks if a session isn’t tied together or one analytics software doesn’t process across environments. Without a concerted effort to attribute these experiences, fragmented journeys are treated as disconnected events with conversions and non-conversions misattributed. To bridge this gap, teams can prototype content solutions that align content architecture with multi-touch attribution models, enabling a clearer picture of user journeys across all digital touchpoints.
Nontraditional Connections for Attribution and Tracking Conversions Across Touchpoints
In order to facilitate precise conversion tracking across all channels, opportunities for connected identity need to be established. This is easiest with some sort of authenticated identifier. A user who logs into an account, a customer ID tied to their journey, or someone who uses a subscription token with time-sensitive sessions are all opportunities for connected activities across devices. First-party identifiers act as glue to bring together actions rendered in disparate environments. For anonymous users or journeys lacking any ties across experiences, probability can reign. Browser fingerprinting, device fingerprinting or caching help connect experiences but with lower likelihood. An effective identity resolution strategy allows for all touchpoints to contribute to one unified action.
Conversions Happen Based on API Activities Rendered vs Page Views
Since front end and back end are decoupled, activities are rendered through APIs instead of traditional page loads. As a result, conversion tracking does not need to rely on page views but instead new event creation that enables API call registrations, button clicks, form submissions and endpoint feedback. For example, when someone converts, regardless of the transaction taking place on a checkout page, it should be acknowledged that the payment API call was triggered. This should be the opportunity to track the conversion. Event parameters established throughout touchpoints help create clarity around dashboards which may report similar or dissimilar data.
Attribution via First-Party Analytics
As privacy changes and third-party cookies fade away, more and more solutions that allow for tracking conversions are found through first-party analytics. Addressed on your end as they’re hosted and processed on your end they also provide compliance and control over data with the added benefit of tracking visibility across platforms. Segment, Snowplow, or an entirely proprietary analytics solution, allow an organization to define a conversion funnel that works across devices and platforms. When it’s integrated with CMS metadata and API traffic measurements, first-party analytics creates an honest assessment of what’s converting across content, across the board.
Attribution via CMS Metadata.
One of the best opportunities to use conversion attribution in a headless CMS stems from the ability to use structured content metadata campaign IDs, content types, tag structures, etc. in the conversion attribution models. This metadata can be applied against analytics events, letting the organization know not only where a conversion happens but what content type causes it. For example, customer story engagements lead to higher conversions than feature pages. This information allows you to make small changes to content, test new ideas, and adjust editorial direction based on what’s been proven to work.
Attributing More than Just Conversions into the Mix.
Not every action that leads to conversion is counted as conversion in the first place. Micro-conversions, email signups, product shares, demo requests, content downloads, etc. may signal intent but not necessarily actual next steps at that moment. For example, if someone signs up for a newsletter, they may not be ready to buy your product; They may be just trying to learn more. In a headless setup, these micro-conversions may exist as actions through various APIs or microservices. By combining them with your analytics alongside the macro goals you can present a more holistic view of intent and encourage marketing teams or UX builders to remove friction further down the funnel while nurturing leads that are easier to convert.
Custom Dashboards for Real-Time Visibility Into Conversion
Oftentimes, your content and commerce operate in different locations. For improved business decision making, getting access to conversion events in real time via custom dashboards or application integrations is a start. Looker, Power BI and Google Data Studio are all ways to pull in information from your analytics platform reporting, CMS (headless or otherwise) metadata and e-commerce backend data for real-time access to conversion activity. This conversion performance data can be segmented by channel, loyalty tier, geo location, device or user segment so interested parties can more quickly see emerging trends, give credit where credit is due and respond to challenges and opportunities sooner than ever.
Real-Time Attribution via API Event Streams
Attribution can happen in real time thanks to event streams made possible with the latest data architecture. Data streaming technologies such as Kafka, AWS Kinesis, Google Pub/Sub consume conversion activity across APIs to sync up in a brand new data lake or data warehouse. Event streams allow for real-time attribution modeling through rules-based and machine learning methods to determine how different interactions contribute to conversion. With headless CMS events, 3rd party events and transactions occurring in the same streams, attribution is holistic rather than last click.
Cross-Platform Ability to Track Conversions Legally
With the emerging legislation around data privacy and consumer concern even across different states that have different regulations wherever possible access should be granted. But at the same time, protections need to be in place. A consent management platform (CMP) can be located at every frontend so the user has opted into tracking; consent signals must be obeyed across the systems and transferred with any event to maintain legal compliance. This is where headless CMS can assist as it would render the content/scripts for compliance since it dynamically renders based on consent while providing a personalized experience.
Ability to Measure Conversions Related to Business Goals
Without measurable goals, multichannel conversion tracking would likely be ineffective. Every established business implements different strategies to generate revenue, whether direct purchases, leads, subscriptions, or applications; thus, measuring conversions should relate to a business’s key performance indicators (KPI). To create headless architectures, some platforms offer the ability to use content in various places across channels and for varying purposes; however, measuring efforts for the sake of understanding something arbitrary doesn’t provide actionable information for better business decisions. Therefore, setting primary and secondary conversions from the beginning ensures that the goals set are in the proper direction, and engagement in the measurement and analysis is worthwhile.
Personalization Opportunities from Conversions Across Channels
Many headless CMS environments offer content delivery opportunities that apply to segmentation, engagement, or interests. Thus, with additional access across channels and conversion tracking opportunities, there is an opportunity for a constant feedback loop: opportunities for personalization efforts can be tested and modified based on conversion tracking assessment. For example, showing one kind of message to a unique set of site visitors versus what the repeat customers see can inspire new conversion patterns. Tracking that response across channels, however, allows content teams to understand what works best for whom so personalizations can be modified immediately.
Attribution for Campaign Conversions Across Channels
Marketers are frequently held responsible for campaigns across email, paid search, social and organic creations. Thus, content developed via a headless approach could be used across channels and for multiple reasons. However, without a central repository through which to track such content, attribution can be easily missed as things fall into silos. With campaign tracking integrated through URL parameters assigned in the CMS that provides attribution to creators or conversions, it’s easier to assess how an email effort fared across the board and the value of that effort against someone else on another channel. It helps give the content team and marketing team transparency to better understand what messaging, formatting or promotion was received best.
Scaling and Integrating for the Future
The digital landscape only becomes more complex over time, meaning that conversion tracking must be constructed from the beginning with a focus on scalability. This includes selecting certain analytic software and CMS platforms over others that boast structured metadata, expansive APIs, and integration opportunities with future downstream systems like CRMs and CDPs. The more scalable the conversion tracking opportunities are, the easier it will be to onboard new channels, empower global teams, and rely on attribution logic for additional perspectives without rebuilding the primary systems. An internal tracking infrastructure that supports stabilized cross-device expansion allows your company to expand over time without worry when new platforms and user interactions come into play.
Conclusion: The Value of a Cohesive Picture of What’s Converted and What’s Successful
Tracking what’s converted is more complicated than expected in a headless, multi-platform world but the right tools positioned together in an intentional conversion data architecture that focuses on identity, longevity of engagement, and situational relevance keeps options open. Users are more likely to engage with one brand across various engagement opportunities from mobile applications to responsive web experiences, IoT, or even in-person kiosks/smart speakers and as the conversion path becomes non-linear for each opportunity, so does the ability to detect success. What was one touchpoint with related analytics and CMS can now be spread across multiple front-end applications, analytical considerations, and content delivery principals. Without a generalized approach to gathering this information, it slips through attempts at attribution failure, attribution inconsistency, or worse, never to be seen again rendering your content or enterprise efforts useless and waving goodbye to campaign efficacy.
But with the correct mindset to connect all these separate efforts companies can do just that and find a common link between what users are consuming, how they convert their intent, and what it means for business results. A headless CMS could be a crucial part of this solution, providing relevant content through any channel via API and, more importantly, doing so in a metadata-driven way. Marketers can tag attributes as relevant to specific content blocks/campaigns/experiences that’s their destiny and then connect it back to the individual engagement no matter where that particular engagement existed. By adding that metadata to your analytics system to associate it with any user identifier, campaign tagging, or conversion event, businesses can rely on much more significant and meaningful conversion tracking.
Ultimately, when companies develop a flexible, compliant approach to conversion tracking that acknowledges cross-devices and cross-Delivery platforms, the meaning of what’s behind the user journey is revealed for continuous improvement from content-based customized micro-experiences to budget reallocations across high-impact pathways down to experimentative UX improvements championed by successful micro-engagements. In 2023 and beyond, the increasingly complex digital landscape of vast data fragmentation and expanding user experiences/expectations requires treated conversion tracking to create predictable insight for effective performance and expansion. It makes analytics proactive instead of reactive and the ability to use conversion findings for differentiation.