Conversion event taxonomy

Apex speaks one event vocabulary on the way in and on the way out. When you enable a conversion event for an ad network, you name it once in Apex Spec terms — purchase, lead, signup — and Apex translates it to each network's native name automatically. You never maintain a per-network mapping matrix by hand.

How it works

Your snippet or SDK fires a canonical event (for example purchase). When outbound conversion forwarding is enabled for a network, Apex maps the canonical name to that network's native event and delivers it via the network's conversions API. A dash (—) means the network has no equivalent for that event, so Apex skips it for that network rather than inventing a mapping.

The mapping

Apex Spec event	Meta	Google	LinkedIn	Microsoft	TikTok	Snap
`purchase`	`Purchase`	`purchase`	`Purchase`	`Conversion`	`CompletePayment`	`PURCHASE`
`add_to_cart`	`AddToCart`	`add_to_cart`	`AddToCart`	—	`AddToCart`	`ADD_CART`
`lead`	`Lead`	`lead`	`Lead Gen Form`	`Lead`	`Form`	`SIGN_UP`
`signup`	`CompleteRegistration`	`sign_up`	`SignUp`	`SignUp`	`CompleteRegistration`	`SIGN_UP`
`subscribe`	`Subscribe`	`subscribe`	`Purchase`	`Subscribe`	`Subscribe`	—
`app_install`	`MobileAppInstall`	`app_install`	—	—	`InstallApp`	`APP_INSTALL`
`app_open`	`Activate App`	`app_open`	—	—	—	`APP_OPEN`
`in_app_purchase`	`Purchase`	`in_app_purchase`	—	—	`Purchase`	`PURCHASE`
`key_event_1…4`	customer-defined	customer-defined	customer-defined	customer-defined	customer-defined	customer-defined

Custom events & overrides

Need a mapping we don't ship out of the box? Two options:

Custom event names pass through unchanged — make sure a matching conversion exists on the network side.
Per-event overrides let you remap any Apex Spec event to a different native name for a specific network, configured per workspace in the Ad measurement settings.

Why one vocabulary matters

The same canonical events power ingest, experiments, journey triggers, audience targeting, and outbound conversion forwarding. Because purchase means the same thing everywhere, your measurement, your automations, and your ad-network feedback loops all stay consistent — and Apex's cross-account learning models can reason over a standardized event graph rather than a tangle of per-customer naming.

These ad-network mappings are the platform-link side of a Conversion. A Conversion can carry both an owned-event source (what your snippet/SDK observes) and platform links (what each network attributes). The two counts are kept separate by design — platform-attributed numbers power ad-ROAS reporting and are never blended into the owned-event total or used as an experiment or journey objective.