IAB Tech Lab Opens Event and Conversion API (ECAPI) for Industry Feedback

IAB Tech Lab, which is the global leader for technical standards within digital advertising, introduced the Event and Conversion API (ECAPI) specification to provide a standardized method for marketing events and conversions to be shared between advertisers and advertising platforms or afterward between the advertising platform and the partners.

“ECAPI is about reducing friction and creating a shared foundation the industry can actually build on,” said Anthony Katsur, CEO, IAB Tech Lab. “Advertisers and platforms are already doing this work in parallel today. This specification brings consistency to how full-funnel events are defined and shared, so teams can spend less time managing integrations and more time focusing on measurable results and testing agentic optimization of outcomes. We want the industry to pressure test it, challenge it, and help us make it stronger during the public comment period.”

Fundamentally, the Event and Conversion API creates a common language for upper-funnel engagement events through to lower-funnel conversion actions. It thus helps more accurately optimize campaigns for defined business objectives by allowing publishers to communicate these types of events in a compliant manner. This standardization improves measurement, attribution, and analytics across the entire upper and lower marketing funnel, including AI-driven usage scenarios.

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This is happening while many advertising platforms remain to be operating their own Conversion APIs. Even if these were useful, having them be for different platforms rather than open standards could make it difficult for companies to deal with them. Since this is becoming more common, this can make a big difference in cost, mainly because methods for different platforms can be different.

ECAPI is intended to respond to these challenges with a flexible yet stable approach that works to reduce implementation burdens while being adaptable and accommodating for different use scenarios. Instead of having wholly different implementation tasks for different partners, for instance, this specification facilitates a way for having extensibility and specializations with a common foundation. This works better for advertisers, platforms, and tech companies to be able to scale easily and enhance the quality and accuracy of data for driving performance and return on investments. ECAPI is also going to be incorporated into the overall agentic roadmap of IAB Tech Lab as it tries to facilitate outcomes-driven purchase and sale practices for measurable goals and intelligent agents.

“Open standards for Conversion API support innovation and interoperability across the digital advertising ecosystem. Working with industry to provide a consistent framework to understand marketing outcomes helps marketers gain deeper insights and enhance campaign effectiveness, while supporting privacy and transparency for people,” said Steven Ware Jones, Business Engineer, Meta.

“ECAPI creates a shared language that can reduce integration overhead while still supporting innovation,” said Barbara Kalicki, Associate Director, Publicis Sapient. “It allows retailers and platforms to focus on improving the value of the data being exchanged rather than rebuilding similar solutions again and again.”

By opening ECAPI for public comment, IAB Tech Lab is signaling its intent to build the specification collaboratively, ensuring it reflects real-world requirements from advertisers, platforms, agencies, and technology providers alike. Industry stakeholders are encouraged to review the draft, provide feedback, and participate in shaping a standard that could play a pivotal role in the future of interoperable, outcomes-driven digital advertising.