Billions of active users make Facebook a powerful advertising platform. Yet ad costs and competition are increasing. It’s easy to waste money. Here’s how to use a Facebook pixel to get more from your advertising dollars.
What is a Facebook Pixel?
It’s a piece of code, known as JavaScript, that you put on your website. Facebook became Meta and the pixel is now called a Meta Pixel.
Why should you use a Facebook Pixel?
How do people respond to your ads? What about after they click?
The Facebook pixel collects the data you need to answer these questions and improve your ads. Marketers call this process “ad and campaign optimization.”
What kind of people respond? The pixel answers this too, helping you target your audience ever more clearly.
A pixel lets you retarget, or follow up with people who visited but didn’t buy. It also helps you build look-alike audiences (reach new customers similar to your existing ones.)
What kind of data can this pixel collect?
Facebook pixels can detect:
- Sale or purchase.
- Lead: Any lead-gathering action.
- Registration: Completing a subscription form.
- Payment Information: Filling out a payment form.
- Cart: Adding a product to a shopping cart.
- Wishlist: Putting one of your products on a wishlist.
- Starting Checkout: Hitting the Buy button.
- Searching: Using a search function.
- Locate: Searching for your business address.
- Visit: Landing on a page and viewing content.
- Contact: Contacting your business.
- Customizing a Product: Choosing a product’s color, size or model.
- Appointment: Scheduling a meeting.
- Donate: Giving money.
- Application: Requesting a service.
- Subscription: Subscribing to a paid service.
- Trial Signup: Applying for a free trial.
The pixel can monitor conversions like these and reveal how your campaigns are performing. You can customize these events further, describing a conversion or giving it a monetary value.
Facebook pixels help optimize ads and campaigns
Always keep testing to improve your ads. Pixel data might indicate people clicked on Ad B 20% more than Ad A.
From this, you might decide to pause Ad A and create a new ad based on Ad B.
Build a more targeted audience
A Facebook pixel can tell you what ad responders have in common. Now you can create a “lookalike audience.” This means finding more people who have demographics like your existing customers.
How does retargeting work?
The pixel can monitor people in or outside of Facebook using cookies. Why not track people who expressed interest in one of your products but didn’t yet buy?
Then you can put additional ads in front of them again on Facebook or Instagram.
How do you create and use a Facebook Pixel?
Navigate to “Facebook Events Manager.” Tap “Connect to Data Sources” in the left menu. Then select “Web” and click the “Get Started” button.
Now choose “Facebook Pixel” and click “Connect.” Choose a name for your pixel. Add your site URL and click “Continue.”
Name your pixel based on your business, not any specific campaign. Facebook Business Manager might let you have more than one pixel, but you usually get one pixel per account.
How to set up a Facebook pixel
Now you can add the pixel to your site. Facebook has detailed instructions for adding pixel code manually if you have coding skills.
However, it’s usually easier to let Facebook install the pixel for you. Especially if you’re using a Facebook partner such as Squarespace, WordPress or Shopify.
Look for the “Connect Website Activity Using Pixel” screen. Tap the “Use a Partner” button. This will guide you through an easier installation process.
Now you’ll want to set up Facebook pixel events:
- Click the button “Open Event Setup Tool.”
- Choose the ID of your new pixel and click Settings.
- Scroll to “Open Event Setup Tool.”
- Enter your website URL and tap “Open Website.”
- Go through the suggested events list, choosing to Review, then Confirm or Dismiss.
- Click Finish Setup.
If you need to resume this process, simply visit the Events Manager.
After you install the pixel, how do you use a facebook pixel
Check if your pixel is working. Using the Chrome browser, install the Facebook Pixel Helper browser extension.
Tap “Add to Chrome” then visit any page on your site. Facebook Pixel Helper indicates whether Facebook pixels are on the page and if they’re working.
Facebook requires you to notify visitors that your site has a pixel. How? Review the Facebook Business Tools Terms. Scroll down and see Section 3: “Special Provisions Concerning the Use of Certain Business Tools.”
Get the most from your advertising dollars
Sometimes ads don’t work as you expected. Inexperienced marketers react before collecting enough data to prove what the problem is.
However, most marketers are guilty of the opposite: letting weak ads run long after they should improve them.
Facebook pixels collect the data so you can avoid these problems.
What you need to know about how to use a Facebook pixel?
Phones running iOS 14.5 or later no longer support cookies. Right now, this affects only 15% of people. Yet Google’s Chrome will soon follow suit. Privacy issues are forcing these changes.
This means the Facebook Pixel can’t collect data. Avoid this problem by using your pixel with Meta’s new tool: Conversions API. How?
On Facebook, from “Events Manager” tap “Data Sources” in the left menu, then “Settings.” Scroll down to “Conversions API” then “Choose a Partner.” Facebook partners like WordPress let you install this tool without writing any code.
What does this all mean for you?
Don’t let your ads run blindly. Track your results. Add the Conversions API tool.
Using these tips, you know how to use a Facebook pixel to get the most from your advertising dollars.
