Event Match Quality, explained
Event Match Quality (EMQ) is a score out of 10 that Facebook gives each of your events, showing how well it can match that event to a real person’s account. A higher score means Facebook can attribute and optimise on that event more confidently, which lowers your ad costs. A low score means Facebook is partly guessing, and guessing is expensive.
This guide covers what EMQ actually measures, what counts as a good score, and the practical steps to raise yours, including why server-side tracking through the Conversions API is the single biggest lever. It is the deeper companion to our Meta Conversions API guide.
Emmett Cooke
Founder, PixelFlow.so
Last updated 22 July 2026
8 min read
What EMQ actually measures
When your site sends an event to Facebook (a Purchase, a Lead, a ViewContent), it can attach identifying details about the person: email, phone, name, location, and a handful of technical identifiers. Facebook hashes these, compares them against its own records, and tries to match the event to an account.
EMQ scores how successful that matching is likely to be, based on how many strong identifiers you send and how usable they are. Send just an IP address and a browser cookie, and Facebook has little to match on, so the score is low. Send a hashed email, phone, name, and location, and the match is far more reliable, so the score climbs.
The identifiers Facebook can use include: email, phone, first and last name, city, state, zip, country, date of birth, gender, an external ID, the fbp and fbc cookies, IP address, and user agent. Email and phone are the strongest. For the full breakdown of how Facebook weights each one, see our deep dive on how Facebook generates Event Match Quality scores.
Event Match Quality
8.6 / 10
Purchase event
identifiers attached
Hashed email
Strong
Phone number
Strong
Name + location
Medium
fbp + fbc cookies
Helps
IP + user agent
Helps
Matched to a real account
Match found
Event Match Quality score
8.6 / 10
Facebook ads delivery
Optimising
Matched conversion
Trains delivery
Unmatched conversion
Barely counts
Finds more people like your buyers
Sharper picture
Cost per result
18% cheaper
Why it matters more than it looks
EMQ feels like a vanity metric. It is not. It sits upstream of everything Facebook does with your data.
Facebook’s ad system learns from confirmed conversions, then finds more people like the ones who converted. If it cannot match an event to an account, that conversion barely teaches the system anything. So a low EMQ is not just a scoring problem. It means a share of your conversions are landing softly, training the algorithm poorly, and Facebook is optimising on a blurrier picture than it should be. Raising EMQ sharpens that picture, and a sharper picture means cheaper results.
Why the pixel alone scores low
Here is the part most people miss. The browser pixel is structurally limited in what it can send.
A pixel firing in the visitor’s browser often has access to little more than the fbp cookie, the IP, and the user agent. It usually cannot see the customer’s email or phone, because those live in your checkout or your database, not in the browser at the moment the pixel fires. That ceiling is why pixel-only setups tend to sit at low EMQ scores no matter what you do.
The Conversions API removes that ceiling. Because CAPI sends from your server, it can attach the customer data you already hold: the email and name from the checkout, the phone from the form, the order details. Richer identifiers sent server-side are the reason CAPI setups routinely reach high EMQ where the pixel alone stalls. This is covered in how the Conversions API works, and the browser-versus-server split is the whole point of Facebook Pixel vs Conversions API.
What counts as a good score
Treat these as rough bands, not official thresholds:
Score
Rating
What it means
Below 5
Needs attention
You are likely sending only technical identifiers and no customer data.
5 to 6.5
Acceptable
Solid, but leaving performance on the table.
6.5 to 8
Good
Most well-configured setups land here.
8 to 10
Excellent
You are sending rich, well-matched customer data.
Scores also vary by event. Purchase and Lead usually score highest because you have the most customer data at that point. Top-of-funnel events like ViewContent often score lowest, because an anonymous browser has little to offer. Check each event separately and fix the lowest ones first.
How to improve your Event Match Quality
In rough order of impact:
Send email and phone. These are the two strongest identifiers by a wide margin. Capture them at your form or checkout and pass them with the event. This one change moves the score more than anything else.
Add name and location. First name, last name, city, state, zip, and country all add matchable signal. Send whatever you legitimately hold.
Send events server-side through CAPI. This is what makes the above possible, because the server can access customer data the browser cannot. Without CAPI you hit a low ceiling.
Include the fbp and fbc cookies. They help Facebook tie the event to a browser session and a specific ad click, which supports both matching and attribution.
Send a stable external ID. A consistent anonymous identifier for each user gives Facebook another matching anchor.
Hash correctly. Customer data must be normalised (lowercased, trimmed) and SHA-256 hashed before sending. Get this wrong and the match silently fails. Any decent tool handles this for you.
Fix your lowest-scoring events first. A 9 on Purchase and a 3 on ViewContent averages out to something misleading. Work event by event.
The honest EMQ warning
Some tools quietly inflate EMQ by padding events with weak or fabricated signals so the number looks good. Resist this.
A high EMQ built on fake data does not actually improve matching, because Facebook cannot match against details that do not correspond to a real person. You get a prettier score and no real benefit, plus you risk sending data that breaches Facebook’s terms. The score is a proxy for real matchable data. Game the proxy and you have gained nothing. Send real, complete customer data and the score takes care of itself.
Where PixelFlow fits
Reaching high EMQ used to mean writing server code to collect customer data and send it through CAPI, out of reach for anyone on a no-code platform without a developer.
PixelFlow does that for you. It sends every event through both the pixel and the Conversions API, attaches the match data that lifts EMQ (fbp, fbc, IP, user agent, hashed email, phone, name, and location where you hold them), and hashes everything correctly. It sends real data only and never fabricates signals to inflate the number. On Webflow, Framer, Squarespace, and WordPress, that typically takes a pixel-only score in the 4 to 5 range up into the 8 to 9 range, with no code.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good Event Match Quality score?
As a rough guide, below 5 needs work, 6.5 to 8 is good, and 8 to 10 is excellent. Purchase and Lead events usually score higher than top-of-funnel events like ViewContent, so judge each event on its own rather than by an average.
Why is my Event Match Quality so low?
Almost always because you are sending only technical identifiers (IP, cookies, user agent) and no customer data like email or phone. That happens when you rely on the browser pixel alone, which usually cannot access those details. Sending events server-side through the Conversions API is the fix.
Does the Conversions API improve Event Match Quality?
Yes, significantly. Because CAPI sends from your server, it can attach customer data the browser pixel cannot see, such as the email and name from your checkout. Richer identifiers are exactly what EMQ scores, so CAPI setups reach much higher scores than pixel-only ones.
Which identifiers matter most for EMQ?
Email and phone are the strongest by a clear margin. Name and location add meaningful signal on top. Technical identifiers like fbp, fbc, IP, and user agent help but are not enough on their own to reach a high score.
Can I fake data to raise my EMQ score?
You should not. Fabricated data cannot match a real account, so it lifts the number without improving results, and it may breach Facebook's terms. EMQ is a proxy for real matchable data. Send genuine, complete customer data instead.
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