Have you ever wondered what is the mechanism that enables you to compare the best prices for flights or allows you to embed a map into your store’s website? Perhaps you’ve heard someone refer to it as “APIs,” but you are not quite sure why anything with such a technological acronym is of importance. In this article, I will explain what an API is and why being able to work with them is an essential skill for all data-driven Marketers. But first things first...

What is an API?

An application program interface (API) can be viewed as the bridge or link that allows two or more programs to interact. APIs allow for an application to extract information from a piece of software and use that information in their own application, or sometimes for data analysis.

APIs work in the same way as a URL does. A URL is made up of several parts which allow the client (you) to communicate what information you'd like to retrieve from a server (a website). So, just as a URL processes a request where you (the client) ask the website (the server) for a specific web resource like a blog post, an API also requests information. 

Why should you care?

Glad you asked! Many of your daily tasks can be automated which means that it saves you (or your business) time & money while reducing the likelihood of human error. Imagine how easy it would be if a record updates on your CRM when changes are made on your preferred marketing automation tool.

 APIs are exciting for Marketers since they allow us to freely choose the best software platform and data combinations without worrying about how the customer data in different systems will fit together. Although many marketing software providers create an ecosystem that houses tools for A/B testing, web analytics, mobile analytics, dash-boarding, attribution, web development etc., it always comes with a hefty price tag that only huge corporations can afford.

 The most common scenario is that your marketing stack consists of various software tools that don't reside under the same 'umbrella'. In this case, you have to invest in solutions that support integration thus connecting your marketing ecosystem by yourself, using APIs. For instance, you can integrate Marketo and Salesforce together to provide top-notch automation for your sales team or even tie Power BI, Marketo and Salesforce to report on your marketing & Sales performance. Pretty cool, right?

A few examples of APIs

 Many large platforms have launched a public API to help third parties connect to, gather information from and improve their services. This article from Moz includes an extensive list of interesting APIs that you should check out as well as links to their documentation. Below I mention briefly a few famous APIs:

Google Analytics API: It is a full-featured system to manage GA accounts and profiles, customize tracking codes and to access and export analytics data. You can save vast amounts of time by automating your most complex reporting tasks. Moreover, you can create and save custom reports by querying for dimensions and metrics with the Core Reporting API. Last but not least, you can access attribution and conversion path data for users on your website with the Multi-Channel Funnels Reporting API.

Facebook Ads API: The Facebook Ads API provides access to managing Facebook campaigns, as well as statistics about Facebook keyword searches and audience segments. Furthermore, Facebook’s Graph API allows outside developers to access objects in Facebook’s database, including users, photos, videos, statuses, places and all these objects’ interlinked relationships with each other. This can allow Marketers to create more personalized and targeted campaigns.

Google AdWords API: It is mainly for campaign management and building AdWords apps, but it also the only portal to Google keyword volume data. APIs like the Google AdWords API (Bing has a similar one as well) and SEMrush API can be used to manage campaigns and analyze paid search data.

How to get started?

If you are a Marketer, you don’t need to become a full stack developer to leverage APIs. But understanding a bit more about APIs and how they can be applied to a marketing strategy will pay you back with more actionable insights and measurable results from the data your marketing activities generate across different systems.

To begin with, I would recommend you to read Brian Cooksey's  guide which contains everything that you need to know as a non-technical person in order to feel more comfortable handling & discussing around APIs.

If you are more of a 'hands-on' person, then Postman is a great tool when trying to dissect RESTful APIs made by others or test ones you have made yourself. It offers a sleek user interface with which allows you to make HTML requests, without the hassle of writing a bunch of code just to test an API's functionality.

Bringing it all together, APIs can be used to do almost anything that a digital marketer does manually nowadays; uploading third-party excel lists to their CRM, reporting campaigns from different sources, creating new leads in their marketing automation system etc. In order to unleash the power of the APIs, you should get your hands dirty with the technical details & constantly test how to leverage these for working more efficiently. Have you worked with APIs in the past? What is your favorite? Get in touch & let me know.

Bonus: Here is an extensive list of API examples for every industry.