Facebook Pixel: Everything You Need To Know

The smarter a business can market itself, the higher its chances of converting its audience to sales. There are many tools available across multiple mediums to support businesses optimize their marketing campaigns and the Facebook Pixel is one of the most helpful ones.

With over 60 million active business pages on Facebook and over 25 million business profiles on Instagram, marketers must utilise all available tools to create social media ads that work efficiently for them.

What Is The Facebook Pixel Code?

The Facebook Pixel is a free piece of code that anyone can install on their website to track existing ad conversions, optimize future ads and build custom audiences. The Facebook Pixel enables businesses to remarket dynamic content to previous website visitors based on the products or services they were previously browsing online.

One of the most common struggles with social media marketing is calculating ROI due to data protection. However, when a Facebook or Instagram user sees a social media ad, leaves the platform and takes an action on a website, such as make a purchase, the pixel will be able to attribute the conversion back to said Facebook Ad.

Add The Facebook Pixel To Your Website

Businesses can create a unique Facebook Pixel in ‘Events Manager’, found within Facebook Business Manager. Here, businesses can ‘Connect A Data Source’. Possible data sources include Apps, Offline (to Track Offline Conversions), CRM and Web.

To create the Facebook Pixel in Events Manager, businesses should select a ‘Web’ source.

When ‘Facebook Pixel‘ is selected, Facebook will prompt the user to enter their business URL to see if their website is hosted by an integration partner such as WordPress or Shopify.

If this is the case, the Facebook pixel implementation will be much more straightforward and there will be no need for expert knowledge from a web developer, for example.

Manual Placement

If the website isn’t connected to an integrated partner, the business can opt to install the pixel code manually. The pixel code would need to be added to the bottom of the header section of the website above the tag.

To work effectively, the code must be added to every page of the site. If you need help ask your web developer for support. Facebook gives you an option here to email the code to a developer, all you need to do is enter your developer’s email.

They will receive an email from Facebook with your name and business name included along with instructions for setup.

Automatic Advanced Matching

Businesses can select to activate ‘Automatic Advanced Matching’ which will allow the Facebook pixel to capture and use the information customers have submitted to the business’s website to match them to a Facebook user. This will enable businesses to attribute more conversions to their Facebook ads and reach new, engaged, prospects.

The customer information that is available to match includes:

• Email address
• Gender
• Town/city, county/region, postal code and country
• First name and surname
• Phone number
• Date of birth
• External ID

How Does The Facebook Pixel Work?

The Facebook Pixel works using cookies, so it’s important to note that the Facebook terms require businesses to disclose to their visitors how they use cookies to collect data on their site and the visitor must accept this for the tracking tool to work.

The more businesses know about their customers’ behaviours on their site, the better they can segment their custom audience and market the most relevant ads – thus getting the most out of their marketing budget!

Standard Events

Businesses only need one pixel added to their entire website. The Facebook pixel code generated above is the ‘base’ code that appears on every page of the website. Business can then add ‘Standard Events’ to the pixel code on specific pages to trigger when a visitor takes an action.

For example, if a customer adds something to their basket, or makes a purchase on the site, this will trigger a standard event (if the code has been added to the site). Businesses can add the events most relevant to their website using the Events Setup Tool – another super helpful feature within Facebook that reduces the need for a developer.

Events include:

• Add payment info
• Add to cart
• Complete registration
• Contact
• Find location
• Initiate checkout
• Lead

At any time, businesses can check Facebook Events Manager to review the insight and pixel events captured.

They can also share the information with other Business Accounts under ‘Settings’ and then ‘Data Sources’.

If the Facebook pixel isn’t returning the results you’d expect, and you don’t have access to a developer or to the backend of the website then it helps to install the Facebook Pixel Helper.

What Is The Facebook Pixel Helper

The Facebook Pixel Helper is a free Chrome extension that marketers can install to review websites for Facebook Pixel code. The Pixel Helper will show those who don’t have access to the backend of a website whether the code has been installed correctly on a page, that it’s currently working as it should and if any sites they don’t have access to have an existing code.

This will help businesses gain valuable insight without the need for code reading access (or developer knowledge) as well as agencies or freelancers checking for pixels on existing or potential client sites.

The Facebook Pixel Helper extension will also allow a business to check their standard events have been added to the correct pages.

Using The Pixel Data In Facebook Ads

The Facebook Pixel can be utilised in two ways when it comes to Facebook Advertising. The first way is to create a target audience and the second is to track additional metrics to gain a better insight into the results of the Ads.

Facebook Audiences

The Facebook Pixel works as a data source for businesses to showcase relevant ads to people most likely to convert.

The Facebook Tracking Pixel captures website visitors information and pairs it with Facebook or Instagram users. The data captured via cookies can be used by businesses to create custom audiences within Facebook Ads Manager.

Once the audience is of a reasonable size, businesses can ‘remarket’ these website visitors with targeted Ads. Within Facebook, marketers can also create custom audiences based on other quality data, for example, those who have engaged with their organic posts, marketplace listings and any other Facebook Ad campaign.

Although custom audiences tend to be of the highest quality as they are ‘warm leads’, they may be rather small – at least to start with. However, businesses can use the Custom Audience generated by website visitors as the basis for ‘Lookalike’ Audiences, which enables Facebook to generate a much larger pot to target.

Lookalike Audiences

A Lookalike Audience is created by Facebook based on the custom data businesses initially provide, whether this is captured via the Facebook Pixel or uploaded as existing customer data. Facebook then create a pot of users who ‘look like’ the key demographic to increase a business’s reach and therefore opportunities. Although lookalike audiences tend to be ‘colder’ leads, they are a helpful tool for generating large brand awareness and exposure to conquest customers. 

nFacebook Results

There are many metrics to review within a Facebook Ad Account, so to avoid overwhelming yourself with too much data when analysing the results of your ad campaigns, it’s best to focus on the results that truly matter – such as conversions. Whether you’re tracking specific events like a website purchase, for instance, or just conversion tracking as a whole, the Facebook Pixel allows for greater (and more accurate) insight into your results.

Because Facebook is tracking everything, Businesses can optimise their ads based on the actions people have taken previously such as adding products to a basket. This level of targeting will benefit both businesses and consumers. Facebook will only show ads to people who are likely to complete the action the business wants to achieve and Facebook consumers will see the most relevant ads.

If you are struggling with  your Pixel set up consider speaking to us about our Social Media Consultant Packages.