Full Answer

Tracking APIs break because they sit on top of products that are themselves in constant motion. Meta's Conversions API, Google's Enhanced Conversions, and TikTok's Events API are all actively developed: parameters get added, authentication methods change, fields become required, and older endpoints are deprecated on the platform's schedule, not yours. Your integration is effectively a contract with a counterparty who rewrites the terms regularly without asking.

This means a tracking pipeline is never truly finished. Each platform change is a small maintenance task, and across several integrations those tasks arrive continuously. Miss one and events fail silently, so the first sign of trouble is often a gap in data you only notice weeks later. It is why surveys of data professionals consistently find the majority of their time, often cited in the range of 50 to 80%, goes to preparing and maintaining data rather than analysing it.

The practical implication is about who absorbs that churn. In a DIY setup, every platform update lands on your team as unplanned work. In a maintained or packaged setup, the provider absorbs the changes and ships updates, so the breakage is handled before it reaches your data. Either way the APIs will keep changing; the only real choice is whether keeping up is your job or someone else's.