The Facebook Pixel: What It Is And How To Use It

If you plan to advertise using Facebook or you are currently running ads on Facebook for effective engagement or perhaps you plan to use it in the future. There’s one great and powerful marketing tool I would like to introduce to you, it’s called Facebook Pixel. Facebook Pixel is a piece of code from Facebook that you can use to track how people engage with your website. Then, you can use this data collected to better target your ads by creating custom audiences. The Facebook Pixel is a must tool in getting the most out of your ads.

Here’s everything you need to know about Facebook Pixel and how it works.

What is a Facebook pixel?

The Facebook pixel is an analytics code from Facebook that track the users’ activities on your website. It measures the effectiveness of your advertising by understanding the actions people take on your website. The code allows you to monitor site visitors, conversions from Facebook ads, optimize ads, build targeted audiences for future ads and ensure your Facebook ads are shown to the right audience.  

Facebook Pixel works by placing and triggering cookies on your website to track users as they interact with your website and your Facebook ads.

WHY YOU NEED TO SET UP THE FACEBOOK PIXEL

The Facebook pixel provides important information you can use to create better Facebook ads, and how to target your ads to the right people. Facebook tracking pixel data helps ensure your ads are seen by the people who are most likely to take your desired action. This allows you to improve your Facebook ad conversion rate and get better ROI.

Even if you’re not yet using Facebook ads, it’s still worth having Facebook Pixel on your website. Facebook will start collecting data now so that you’ll have an easier time targeting users in the future.

WHO SHOULD USE FACEBOOK PIXEL?

Every website’s owner should add Facebook Pixel to their website, there’s no doubt about that at all. As a matter of fact, every brand needs Facebook Pixel on their site. There is absolutely no disadvantage for using the Facebook Pixel on your website, it’s absolutely free and won’t increase your site loading time,  it will rather optimize your ad and get you better Facebook ROI

Even if you’re not yet ready to create Facebook ads, you should install the Facebook pixel now to take advantage of Pixel measurement capabilities so that you won’t start from scratch when you are ready to create Facebook Ads.

WHAT TO DO WITH THE DATA COLLECTED

Since Facebook Pixel tracks significant customer behaviour on your site, you can use Facebook Pixel’s tracking data to target your Facebook ads to people that are already interested in your products, this will optimize your Facebook ad and increase your conversion rate.

It’s a known fact that you can use Facebook Pixel to target people that are most likely to spend the most amount of money on your site. 

Here are the ways to use data collected by Facebook Pixel

USE FACEBOOK CONVERSION TRACKING

Since Facebook pixel allows you to see how people interact with your website after viewing your Facebook ad. You can use Facebook Pixel to understand how people relate with your website after they click on one of your ads. See the pages they go to and if they visit your site on another device.

For instance, if someone originally finds your website on a smartphone, and then completes the purchase on their laptop or maybe it’s another way around. You can use this data to refine your ad strategy and better optimize your mobile experience

You can use Facebook retargeting pixel data and dynamic ads to show targeted ads to people who have already visited your site. For example, you can show people an ad for the exact product that they abandoned in a shopping cart or added to a wishlist on your website. This increases your chance of closing the sale and keeps your brand fresh in the mind of potential customers.

FACEBOOK AD TARGETING WITH LOOKALIKE AUDIENCES

You can also use Facebook Pixel data to build a lookalike audience of people who have similar likes, interests, and demographics to people who are already interacting with your website. This can help expand your potential customer base.

OPTIMIZE FACEBOOK ADS FOR CONVERSIONS

You can also use Facebook tracking pixel data to optimize your Facebook ads for specific conversion events on your website. Without a pixel, the only conversion you can optimize for is link clicks. But with the Facebook pixel install on your site, you can optimize for conversions that are in line with your business goals, like purchases and sign-ups.

OPTIMIZE FACEBOOK ADS FOR VALUE

As Facebook collects data on who buys from your site and how much they spend, it can help you optimize your ad audience based on value. That means it will automatically show your ads to the people who are most likely to make high-value purchases.

HAVE INSIGHTS ABOUT FACEBOOK AD TOOLS AND METRICS

With Facebook Pixel you can track metrics like cost per lead or cost per conversion. This can only be achieved with Facebook Pixel installed on your site.

HOW TO USE FACEBOOK PIXEL

You can use Facebook pixel to collect data on two different kinds of events.

1. There are 17 predefined standard events.
2. You can set up custom events yourself.

Facebook “events” are particular actions taking by your website visitors, such as making a purchase.

FACEBOOK PIXEL STANDARD EVENTS

• Add payment info: When someone enters payment information when buying items on your website
• Add to Cart: Someone adds a product to their shopping cart on your site
• Add to wishlist: Someone adds items to a wishlist on your website
• Complete registration: Someone completes a registration, subscribed or sign up for a service on your site
• Contact: Someone contact your business using the telephone, SMS, email on your website
• Customize product: The customization of products through a configuration tool or other application your business owns
• Donate: Someone makes a donation to your cause
• Find a location: Someone searches for your business’s physical location with the intention to visit.
• Initiate checkout: When someone initial the checkout process to buy something from your site.
• Lead: when someone expresses interest in your offering, sign up for a trial service or form submission.
• Purchase: Someone completes a purchase on your website.
• Schedule: When someone books an appointment to visit your business.
• Search: When someone searches for you online
• Start trial: When someone signs up for a free trial of your product.
• Submit application: When someone submitted a registration form for a product, service or program you offer
• Subscribe: Someone subscribes to a paid product or service.
• View content: Someone lands on a specific page on your website.

FACEBOOK PIXEL CUSTOM EVENTS

If you wish to collect more information about events on your site more than what Facebook Pixel standard events can provide, you can use custom events. You can use custom events in place of standard events. Custom events use URL rules based on specific URLs or URL keywords.

Learn more about the custom event in this Facebook help article.

How to create a Facebook pixel and add it your website

Now that you’ve known what Facebook Pixel is used for and what you can track with it, it’s time to create your pixel and put it to work on your website.

To add Facebook Pixel to your site, just follow these steps.

Steps To Create Facebook Pixel

1. Log on to Facebook Business Manager and click hamburger menu at the left-hand side.
   
2. Click the green button Create Pixel
   
3. Name your pixel, enter your website URL, and click Create.
   

When you’re choosing the pixel’s name, keep in mind that with Events Manager, you only get one pixel for each ad account. The name should represent your business, rather than a specific campaign. If you want to use more than one pixel per ad account, you need to create A Business Account

How To Add Pixel Code To Your Website

1. Set Up Pixel Code
   
2. If you build your site from the ground-up, click the Manually Install Pixel Code button and Facebook will give you the necessary code to install Facebook Pixel on your website.
3. Add Facebook Pixel code to your website: Copy and paste the Facebook Pixel code in the <head> tag of your website. Note that this code makes no visual changes to your website.
   
4. Enable Automatic Advanced Matching: Enable the automatic advanced matching. This option extracts customers’ data from your website to Facebook profiles. This will enable you to track conversions more accurately and create larger custom audiences.

Test your Facebook Pixel

Check if you’ve installed the code correctly by entering your website URL and clicking Send Test Traffic. Enter your website URL in the text box and click Send Test Traffic. Facebook will test your newly added Pixel and verify that it can communicate with your website.

If all goes well, you’ll get a confirmation that Facebook Pixel is now active on your website. If it fails, make sure you added the code to the right part of your website.

Track The Right Events For Your Business

Now that you have Facebook Pixel on your website, you need to choose what actions you’d like to track. You can choose from the 17 predefined standard events using the toggle button. Select which template best fits your website. Then, at the centre of the screen, you can see all of the data that template tracks. Go through the list and look for additional setup instructions for each feature. This requires copying and pasting additional code into your site’s <header> tag.

Confirm The Facebook Pixel On Your Website

Now you’ve selected the data you’d like to track, you will need to add the Facebook Pixel Helper extension to Google Chrome and load your webpage. The extension’s </> icon will turn blue when it finds working Facebook Pixel code on your website.

Add Facebook Pixel Cookies notice to your website

Now that Facebook Pixel code is running on your website you will need to provide clear cookies notice to your website privacy policy page to inform your visitors how you collect their data through Facebook Pixel in compliance with Facebook’s terms and laws of some countries. You also need to let users know how they can opt-out of having their data collected.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Facebook Pixel is one of the most powerful marketing tools known in the social media marketing world. It’s therefore a must-use tool for every website owner, digital marketers and whoever planning to advertise using Facebook. Like I said earlier you lose nothing by using Facebook Pixel on your site rather you gain a lot by expanding your target audiences and getting better ROI.

What’s your thought about using Facebook Pixel? Let’s hear in the comments section.