Long gone are the days when marketing campaigns meant a captivating billboard on the busiest roadside or a TV commercial during the 9 pm news bulletin.
For any business that wants to advertise its goods or services in today’s economy, the answer lies in online marketing. However, online marketing goes far beyond maintaining a proper website or having a presence on different social media platforms.
Businesses need to attract more visitors to their website, ensure better user engagement, make sure their website ranks amongst the top search results and keep track of it all for their online marketing to be truly successful.
When it comes to the ideal platform for online marketing, it goes without saying that Facebook is the first choice. With over 2 billion active users each month, it is the most promising arena to lure customers to your goods and services. But not everyone in the online world is your target audience.
You need to sieve out the customers and channel your marketing efforts to the group that has the most potential to invest in your business.
Needless to say, this is not possible without the use of software tools. Necessity is the mother of invention – and the need for effective marketing via Facebook led to the introduction of its own analytical tool.
Facebook Pixel.
What is Facebook Pixel?
Facebook Pixel is an analytical tool that helps businesses track the conversions from their online ads. Basically, it is a piece of software code. When it is inserted into any website’s main code, it gives certain results and data to the owner, allowing them to target the right audience in the future. Furthermore, it can be used to gain insight into what online viewers do on their website.
Before 2015, Facebook offered multiple pixels to track different conversion rates. However, it became too complicated to manage and keep a record of the several pixels together. The drive towards simplifying things and making it more manageable, cost-effective and time-efficient, led to the introduction of Facebook Pixel.
With the help of Facebook Pixel, you can now optimize your ads, advertise to the required customer groups, remarket to qualified leads and therefore, expand your customer base by making the most of your marketing campaigns.
How Does It Work?
Facebook Pixel uses a code to drop and trigger cookies that track the user interactions with your website and the ads that you place on Facebook.
The code is embedded into your website to relate individuals’ onsite behavior to their Facebook user profiles. This synchronization between an online viewer and their social media account helps Facebook in delivering personalized ads based on their past record and the actions that they take on various domains.
Therefore, Facebook Pixel helps you gauge the effectiveness of your marketing techniques, ad placement and the overall efficiency of your website in turning browsers into buyers.
The Benefits of Facebook Pixel
The data collected by Facebook Pixel enables you to refine and remodel the steps you undertake to promote your organization.
Besides helping you reach the right people and find new customers, this tool allows you to interact more closely with people who have already visited your website or taken a certain desired action on it.
Facebook Pixel enables you to maximize your ads for conversion by setting up automatic bidding. It drives more sales for your store when you take the required measures to prompt visitors browsing the website to make a purchase.
The powers of this analytical tool are tremendous, but in a nutshell, it offers you the following benefits.
- Learn about your website traffic
- Create Custom Audiences through website browsers
- Maximize delivery to viewers who have the highest chances of taking the desired action
- Monitor cross-device conversions
It might be considered as an advanced marketing tool by many advertisers. But when it comes to fruitful advertisements and getting a positive return on investments, it is an undisputed fact that Facebook Pixels is a must-have for every business that wants to maximize its revenue through online publicity.
So, if you too are thinking of embedding Pixel in your website, then here’s an easy guide to installing Facebook Pixel.
How to Install Facebook Pixel?
There are two pre-requisites to installing Facebook Pixel.
Firstly, you must have a website for your business. Secondly, you must have access and be able to update your website’s code. So, in case you hired a professional web developer to do the job for you, coordinate with them accordingly to make certain changes.
Creating a Facebook Pixel
- Open Facebook Ads Manager and click on the hamburger icon (three horizontal lines)
- Under the Events Manager tab, click on Pixels.
- Click on Create a Pixel.
- Click the ‘Create’ button on the dialog box that appears.
- Give a new name your Pixel.
Adding Facebook Pixel to your website
After creating the pixel, the next step is to insert the Facebook Pixel code in your website’s code.
If you have access to the code and can update it on your own, then follow the steps below.
- Find the header code for your website. This is the code written in between the <head> and </head> tags.
- Copy and then paste the pixel code – Copy the complete pixel code and then paste it before the closing head tag in your website’s code.
- Ensure that it is working properly – To make sure that the code has been inserted correctly, click on ‘Send Test Traffic’ option. This may take several minutes to complete but wait until the status shows ‘Active.’ This indicates the code has been updated successfully.
If web development is not your niche and you require an expert to update the code, then all you need to do is forward the code to them instead. Here’s how to do it.
- In the Ads manager, go to the Pixels tab.
- Select ‘Set Up Pixel.’
- Select Email Instructions to a Developer.
- In the bar below the instructions, enter the developer’s email address before clicking ‘Send.’
Alternately, if your website is hosted on some popular website platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magneto, to name a few, or if your site uses a tag manager such as Google Tab Manager or Adobe, then you can also use that third-party platform to install your pixel.
Simply go to the concerned party’s page in Events Manager, select the pixel that you want and enter your pixel ID in the account.
You can follow any of the above-mentioned methods to insert the pixel code, but it is preferable to use the third option if it is applicable in your case.
For instance, here’s how you can add the Facebook pixel code to Shopify.
- In the Shopify Admin account, go to ‘Online Store.’
- Click on Preferences.
- Scroll down to the Facebook pixel section. Paste you Pixel ID in this section.
- Click on ‘Save.’
The pixel is now integrated with your Shopify store.
Installation option for WordPress
You can install Facebook Pixel via an integration method as well.
- After installing the Pixel, click on Use an Integration or Tag manager option.
- Select WordPress from the Choose Your Solution screen.
- An instruction screen pops up to guide you on how to download Facebook Pixel’s own WordPress plugin.
- Click Download to get the plugin.
- Log in to the WordPress site and click on Add Plugin option.
- Select the file that you downloaded under the Upload Plugin section and then hit Install Now.
- Once the installation is complete, click on Activate.
- Go to the WordPress Admin Dashboard, then Settings and then Facebook Pixel.
- Enter you Pixel ID here.
- Click on Save and start taking advantage of Pixel!
How to Use Facebook Pixel?
Facebook Pixel helps you keep tabs on two different types of events. An ‘event’ is a certain action that a viewer takes on your website.
The two types of events that Pixel lets you collect data on are ‘Standard Events’ and ‘Custom Events.’
Tracking standard events
Facebook has nine predefined events which are as follows.
- View content
- Search
- Add to cart
- Add to wishlist
- Initiate checkout
- Add payment info
- Make purchase
- Lead
- Complete registration
To track how many users take any of these actions on your website, you need to add certain codes to help Facebook understand that such an event has taken place.
- Under the Events Manager tab, select Pixels.
- Click Set Up Pixel
- Select Manually install the code yourself
- Click Continue
- After clicking on Install Events, you will see a list of the events mentioned above. Toggle the one that you wish to track
- Based on your preference, select ‘Track Event on Page Load’ or ‘Track Event on Inline Action’
- Track event on page load should be selected if you wish to track when a visitor lands on a given page. For instance, a verification page after making a purchase.
- Track event on inline action should be selected if the action you want to track requires clicking something on the same page. For instance, add to wishlist or add to cart
- This is an additional step, but you can also track extra information on your events. Supplementary pieces of code called ‘parameters’ can tailor the standardized events to your specific needs. For this, toggle the button next to ‘Send Event Parameters’ and add the value for each parameter as appropriate. You can add the following details to achieve more personalized results.
- Worth of the conversion event
- Product’s name, category or ID
- Customers’ basket size (number of items added to shopping cart)
- Registration status
- Specific search string
- The event code will now be visible beneath the parameters. To add it to your website, simply select the entire code and copy it to the main code of the relevant page on your website. Be careful not to alter the pixel code you previously inserted in the header during installation.
- For page load events – insert the event code beneath the closing header section of the web page. This is usually underneath the opening <body> tag.
- For inline action events – the code has to be added between the script tags for the action to be tracked.
This will successfully set up an event on your website. Repeat the procedure for any or all other listed events that you want to monitor.
Tracking custom conversions
If the action that you wish to track is not available in the standard options or if you would like to collect additional information from the activities on your website, then Facebook Pixels lets you create customized events as well.
For example, if you want to monitor how many people searched for a particular product within your online store, then you can create a custom conversion for that item alone.
- Go to the Facebook Ads Manager
- Select Custom Conversions from the menu
- Click Create Custom Conversions
- Define the custom event by means of URL rules.
How to Ensure That Facebook Pixel is Properly Working?
To check that your pixel is functioning as it should, identify any errors as well as comprehend the data collected from a pixel, you will have to install the Facebook Pixel Helper.
Facebook Pixel Helper is a troubleshooting tool that can be downloaded through Chrome web browsers only. Here’s how to do it.
- Search for Facebook Pixel Helper on the Chrome web store.
- Click + Add to Chrome
- Select Add extension
- Once it is installed, you will see a small icon in the address bar of your browser. Visit the page where you installed the pixel.
- Click on the Pixel Helper icon in the address bar and the results will be displayed on the screen.
If the plugin finds any pixels, the </> icon will change its color to blue. Also, a dialog box showing the number of pixels found on that page will appear and will also indicate whether the pixel is working or not. If there are any errors, relevant information will be shown alongside so that you can make the required amendments.
Optimization Strategies
After Facebook Pixel is up and running properly on your website, you will gain access to various new tools and techniques for advertising your products. Following are some of the ways in which you can optimize your sales via the results from Facebook Pixel.
Conversion optimization
Check out how many pixel events occurred on your website in a given time period. A pixel event occurs, for instance, when a customer adds an item to their cart, completes the purchase, visits your website and so on.
Based on your observation, take the right approach to drive more sales. A monthly count of say 500 pixel events or less means that you need to build up the number of visitors on your site by increasing ad placement or the likes.
Note that the number of pixel fires is the sum total of all the activity on your page and not just that driven by Facebook ads.
Remarketing
Remarketing refers to advertisements made for previous customers who have shopped through your online store or have simply visited it. So, for example, if someone clicked on a link to buy a sweatshirt, you know that marketing sweatpants or other supplementary accessories can mean prospective sales.
Now that you know the basics of this marvelous analytical tool, create your own pixels, monitor the events and track the effectiveness of your website as well as your marketing strategies for turning visitors into customers. Facebook Pixel will help you change these expenses into golden assets for your business.
So, what are you waiting for? Get started to get the most out of your advertising efforts.
Happy Pi-excelling!