How to Use the Facebook Pixel for Conversion Tracking

What is the Facebook Pixel? 

The Facebook pixel is a piece of code that you place on your website. It is an analytical tool that collects data to help you measure the effectiveness of your Facebook advertising. More specifically, it is a tool that can assist your business in measuring, optimizing and building audiences for your ad campaigns.

It works by reporting the specific actions (often referred to as “events”) that are taken by your website’s visitors through tracking cookies. These actions may include when a customer purchases your product or places an item in their shopping cart. Note, the actions tracked on a website may be customized based on what is most important to your business. The overall goal of the Facebook pixel is to enable you to know when a customer takes an action after seeing your Facebook ad. 

Why is the Facebook Pixel Valuable to Use for Conversion Tracking? 

The Facebook pixel is valuable because it provides you with important information that can help you produce quality Facebook ads and better target prospective customers. This leads to higher ROI (Return on Investment) and ad conversion rates, or the percentage of people who click on your ad and take your desired action. 

The Facebook pixel provides this value by:

• • Measuring cross-device conversion: Insight to know when someone clicks on an ad on one device but completes the desired action or conversion from another. For example, someone clicks on your ad from a computer but makes a purchase from you via their mobile device.
  • Making sure your ads are seen by the right audience: Knowledge to know that your ad is being presented to those that are most likely to take your desired action.
  • Allowing you to retarget your products through dynamic ads: Re-introduce your products or related products to someone who has already visited your website, but didn’t finish completing the desired action. 

 

• Measuring the results of your ads: Review how your ads performed and what happened as a direct result.

 

• Providing insight on your website’s traffic: See how people are using your website from your Facebook pixel dashboard.

How Do You Create and Install the Facebook Pixel?

Creating and installing a Facebook pixel to your website is a fairly quick and easy process. Below we’ll discuss how to complete these processes. 

To create a Facebook pixel, you must:

• Have a website for your business.
• Be able to update your website’s code.

Creating a Facebook Pixel

To create a Facebook pixel:

1. Go to the Pixels tab in the Events Manager page of your Facebook Business Account.
2. Click on Create a Pixel.
3. Click Create in the box you’re prompted with to finish creating your pixel.

Installing the Facebook Pixel on Your Website

Once you’ve created your Facebook pixel, you can proceed in placing its code on your website. It’s important to know that this process differs based on whether or not you update your own website’s code or if you have someone else that does it for you. To better explain each of these processes, we’ve broken them down for you individually, below. 

Installing the Facebook Pixel If Someone Else Updates Your Website

If someone else manages your website on your behalf, you’ll need to follow these simple steps to email them the instructions on how to set up the Facebook pixel on your website.

1. Go to the Pixels tab in the Events Manager page of your Facebook Business Account.
2. Click Set up Pixel.
3. Click Email Instructions to a Developer.
4. Enter your recipient’s email address.
5. Click Send at the bottom of the page.

 

Installing the Facebook Pixel on Your Website Yourself

1. Go to the Pixels tab in the Events Manager page of your Facebook Business Account.
2. Click Set up Pixel.
3. Click Manually Install Pixel Code Yourself.
4. Go to your website and find you the code for your website’s header.
5. Copy the entire code as it is and place it in the header of your website. Be sure to paste the code at the bottom of the header section, directly above the closing tag.
6. Optional: You may toggle by clicking Automatic Advanced Matching.
7. Click Send Test Traffic after you’ve placed your pixel code in the correct spot. This will allow you to make sure your pixel is working properly. If the status says “Active”, your code and pixel have been installed correctly. Note: It may take several minutes for this to update. 

Installing the Facebook Pixel If Your Website Uses a Tag Manager or is Hosted on a Popular Website Platform

If your website runs on a Facebook pixel supported platform, you can easily add a pixel to your website without having to edit your website’s code. 

To do so:

1. Go to the Partner Integrations tab on the Events Manager page of your Facebook Business Account.
2. Select the platform or tag manager your website uses.
3. Click Connect Account.
4. Follow the instructions onscreen to connect your pixel to your website.

Now that you’ve successfully installed your pixel, follow the instructions provided onscreen to specify the specific actions or events you’d like your pixel to measure.

What are the 5 Most Common Facebook Pixel Technical Problems that May Require Troubleshooting?

There are 5 common technical problems you may experience after creating and installing your Facebook pixel. However, through some troubleshooting, these problems can normally be resolved. 

These 5 most common problems are:

1. Not being able to see your pixel and event in your Events Manager after setting them up on your web pages.
2. You created a standard event on your web page, but it isn’t showing up in your Events Manager or Facebook Pixel Helper.
3. The Facebook Pixel Helper is displaying errors or warning messages.
4. Your standard event is showing up as a customer event in your Events Manager.
5. Your events show up in your Events Manager, but your reporting doesn’t correspond with other website analytics you have.

We hope you found this article useful on how to use the Facebook pixel to improve your ad campaigns. Using your newfound knowledge of the Facebook pixel, you’ll be able to create high-quality Facebook ads and know how well they are working and driving new business!