Conversion events

Every event we report to Meta and TikTok, what it's called, when it fires, and how to build a custom conversion on it.

Indie and above

Why the names matter#

When you optimise an ad campaign you pick an event to optimise toward, and to do that you need the exact name of the event we send. These are the names as they appear in Meta Events Manager and TikTok Events Manager.

Everything below fires on smart links, bio pages and gates, as long as a pixel is set up for that artist and the visitor accepted marketing cookies.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram)#

EventFires when
PageView Someone opens a smart link, bio page or gate.
ViewContent Someone taps through to a music service, or taps a bio-page button. The service name travels with the event.
Lead Someone pre-saves a release, or gives you their email.
CompleteRegistration Someone finishes every step of a gate and the reward is released.

TikTok#

EventFires when
ViewContent Someone opens a smart link, bio page or gate.
ClickButton Someone taps through to a music service, or taps a bio-page button.
Subscribe Someone gives you their email.
CompleteRegistration Someone pre-saves, or unlocks a gate.

Telling similar events apart#

Some actions share an event name because we use the platforms' standard events, which is what lets you optimise toward them without setting anything up first. To separate them, every event also carries a category:

CategoryMeaning
smartlink_view A page was opened.
smartlink_clickthrough A fan tapped through to a service.
smartlink_presave A fan pre-saved.
smartlink_signup A fan gave their email.
gate_unlock A fan completed a gate.

In Meta, build a Custom Conversion filtered on the category you care about. You then have a conversion that counts only that action, kept apart from the rest of your tracking.

Browser and server, counted once#

Most events are sent twice: once from the fan's browser and once from our servers. The server copy is what keeps working when an ad blocker stops the browser one. Both carry the same event id, so Meta and TikTok recognise them as the same event and merge them rather than counting two.

Server-side sending needs an access token as well as a pixel id. Without a token you still get browser events; with one you get both.

One deliberate gap#

When a fan pre-saves, we do not attach their email address to the conversion, even though we have it. That address comes from Spotify, and Spotify's developer terms forbid passing data obtained from Spotify to an advertising network. The event still sends and still matches on other signals, it just carries no email.

Emails typed into one of our own forms, on a smart link, bio page or gate, are not restricted this way and are included (hashed) to improve matching.

Checking it works#

On the Ad pixels page, Test pixels opens one of your real pages in a browser on our servers and watches each pixel fire, then reports what it saw. There is also a server-side test that sends a one-off event and shows the platform's response.

For a live check, open Meta Events Manager, go to Test Events, and load your page. Events appear within seconds, and once a token is saved each one shows a Server source alongside Browser.

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