The world of Facebooks’ hidden tools is so fascinating. If you aren’t using Facebook Pixel or are slowly getting used to its capabilities – this guide is just right for you. We’ll walk you through the mysterious forest of optimized Facebook ads and show you how to use Facebook Pixel so that you can achieve great conversion rates for each dollar you pay.
What is Facebook Pixel?
Technically speaking Facebook Pixel is a code that you place on your website. The concept is very similar to the google analytics code. Pixel gathers data to optimize Facebook Ads, improve conversion rates, create lookalike audiences, and most importantly to retarget people who have performed specific actions on your website.
You absolutely don’t need to be a developer to be able to successfully use it. Moreover, you don’t even need to understand what those digits and symbols inside the code mean.
Related article: Step by step guide: The ultimate guideline for Facebook Business Manager
What are the benefits of Facebook Pixel?
To sum up Facebook Pixel benefits in a shortlist:
- Optimize ads delivery to people who are more likely to take action
- Create Custom Audiences from website visitors
- Learn about your website traffic
Every business owner and social media marketer wants to improve ROI. Facebook Pixel ensures that your ads are seen by people who are more likely to convert. It helps you to accomplish better results due to the data it gathers from your website to create better audiences and target them more efficiently.
Without Facebook Pixel you can see that your ad, for example, received 200 clicks. However, how do you know if these 200 clicks to your website were actually successful? Facebook Pixel helps you to optimize your ads based on the information you see on conversation rates.
When someone visits your website and takes the desired action Facebook Pixel captures this information and reports it. This way you learn when a customer took action after seeing your Facebook Ad.
Also, you can create more targeted audiences based on your website pages. Each visitor, who left the basket without finishing the order can be further retargeted via Custom Audiences.
What kind of data Facebook Pixel actually collects?
Facebook Pixel has two kinds of events (which is a specified action that a visitor takes on your website):
- Standard events aka predefined 17 events
- Custom events you can create yourself
| Website action | Description | Standard event code |
|---|---|---|
| Add payment info | The addition of customer payment information during checkout process (for example, a person clicks on a save billing information button). | fbq(‘track’, ‘AddPaymentInfo’); |
| Add to cart | The addition of an item to a shopping cart or basket (for example, clicking an Add to Cart button on a website). | fbq(‘track’, ‘AddToCart’); |
| Add to wishlist | The addition of items to a wishlist (for example, clicking an Add to Wishlist button on a website). | fbq(‘track’, ‘AddToWishlist’); |
| Complete registration | A submission of information by a customer in exchange for a service provided by your business (for example, sign up for email subscription). | fbq(‘track’, ‘CompleteRegistration’); |
| Contact | A telephone/SMS, email, chat or other type of contact between a customer and your business. | fbq(‘track’, ‘Contact’); |
| Customize Product | The customization of products through a configuration tool or other application your business owns. | fbq(‘track’, ‘CustomizeProduct’); |
| Donate | The donation of funds to your organization or cause. | fbq(‘track’, ‘Donate’); |
| Find Location | When a person finds one of your locations via web, with an intention to visit (for example, searching for a product and finding it at one of your local stores). | fbq(‘track’, ‘FindLocation’); |
| Initiate checkout | The start of a checkout process (for example, clicking a Checkout button). | fbq(‘track’, ‘InitiateCheckout’); |
| Lead | A submission of information by a customer with the understanding that they may be contacted at a later date by your business (for example, submitting a form or signing up for a trial). | fbq(‘track’, ‘Lead’); |
| Purchase | The completion of a purchase, usually signified by receiving order or purchase confirmation, or a transaction receipt (for example, landing on a “Thank You” or confirmation page). | fbq(‘track’, ‘Purchase’, {value: 0.00, currency: ‘USD’}); |
| Schedule | The booking of an appointment to visit one of your locations. | fbq(‘track’, ‘Schedule’); |
| Search | A search performed on your website, app or other property (for example, product searches or travel searches). | fbq(‘track’, ‘Search’); |
| Start trial | The start of a free trial of a product or service you offer (for example, trial subscription). | fbq(‘track’, ‘StartTrial’, {value: ‘0.00’, currency: ‘USD’, predicted_ltv: ‘0.00’}); |
| Submit application | The submission of an application for a product, service or program you offer (for example, a credit card, educational program or job). | fbq(‘track’, ‘SubmitApplication’); |
| Subscribe | The start of a paid subscription for a product or service you offer. | fbq(‘track’, ‘Subscribe’, {value: ‘0.00’, currency: ‘USD’, predicted_ltv: ‘0.00’}); |
| View content | A visit to a content page you care about (for example, a product page or landing page). View Content tells you if someone visits a web page, but not what they do on that web page. | fbq(‘track’, ‘ViewContent’); |
(Table via https://business.facebook.com/business/help/402791146561655?id=1205376682832142)
Custom events are used in case you need specific actions taken by your website visitors that aren’t available in the standard events list. These custom events can be used/created via custom audiences for ad optimization. You can learn more about custom events in this Facebook Help article.
How to install the Pixel?
In order to install the Pixel you need to do these 3 steps:
- From Facebook Ad Manager create Pixel
- Install Pixel code into your every website’s page
- Track the right events for your business
Step 1: Create Pixel code
- In Facebook Ad manager’s search box type in “Pixel”.
- Click on “+Add”
- Name your Pixel, add your website address & click “Create”
Step 2: Install Pixel code into your every website’s page
Depending on what platform you use for the website, you have 3 options to install the Pixel code on each of your web pages.
- If you have WordPress, Shopify, or Google Tag Manager you can use this Help article to install Pixel code.
- If you have a developer in your team you can send him a detailed, automatically generated email with instructions to follow. To do this simply add his/her email at the top bar and click send.
- If the above options don’t apply there is a 3rd method of installing the code manually. It is not as complicated as you might think. And as I previously said, you don’t need to be a developer to successfully install it.
- Click on Manually Install the code yourself
- Copy+paste the code into every website page under <head>
Placing the code within your <head> tags reduces the chances of browsers or third-party code blocking the pixel’s execution. It also executes the code sooner, increasing the chance that your visitors are tracked before they leave your page.
- Choose the automatic advanced matching. This matches your website customers to their profiles of Facebook. This feature enables you to track conversions more accurately and create more targeted audiences.
- Check the status of your code via sending traffic to your Pixel. Once everything is working, click Continue.
Related article: How to get verified on Instagram?
Step 3: Track the right events for your business
How to use custom conversions via Facebook Pixel?
To start tracking conversions you need to create individually configured conversions by specifying pages where you want the conversion to occur.
- Go to Facebook Ad Manager > Facebook Pixel > Custom Conversions
- Click on Create Custom Conversions
- Add a keyword and the website page you want to track
- Choose Category
- Click Save
How to create customized audiences for retargeting?
A customized audience is people who have already had a touch with your brand. Facebook Pixel enables you to retarget to those audiences who are more likely to perform the desired actions. It matches your website’s viewers to their Facebook accounts and shows them ads on social media itself.
A website is a targeting parameter that, with the help of the Facebook pixel, compares people who visit your website with people on Facebook.
To create a custom Pixel audience:
- Click the Audiences tab in Ads Manager.
- Click Tools and select Audiences.
- Click Create an audience in the upper left.
- Select the Custom Audience.
Click Website Traffic & pick the time (Facebook stores the data for the last 180 days)
You can either retarget all the people who visited your website. OR target specific people who have visited specific pages. For example, you can retarget people who were interested in your event but didn’t finish the registration. Sending them a Facebook ad showcasing the event is going to boost conversion rates rather than showing the event add to everybody who visits your website.
You can also target people based on the time spent on your website. Maybe only a small percentage of all website visitors are interested in what you are selling. A typically those are the people who spend the most amount of time on your website. You can choose the top 5, 10, or 25%.
- Add Audience name
- Click on the “Create a new audience”, which you can use when creating a new ad campaign.
To wrap this long guide up,
Facebook Pixel is a powerful tool that improves your ads conversion rates, by retargeting to people who are more likely to convert. By simply installing the Pixel code into your website, it is able to gather data for you to optimize social media advertising by creating custom audiences and custom conversions.
In today’s guide, we’ve shown you the basics of using Facebook Pixel and its capabilities. Now you can use all this information to achieve great results and boost ROI.
