Facebook Pixel: A Beginners Guide

Remember when you visited a website to buy a product, and the next day you saw ads of that product almost everywhere on the Internet?

You might’ve thought the internet could read your mind, or it’s some kind of magic!

Well, no! The Internet can’t read your mind. But, it’s intelligent enough to track your online activities.

This is where we should introduce Facebook Pixel. It’s a data-collecting tool that helps you make the most of your Facebook and even Instagram ad campaigns.

Whatever you search, read, or do on websites, Facebook Pixel can measure. If you’re using Facebook ads or thinking about using them, you must know about Pixel.

Here we’ve shared all the ifs and buts of Facebook Pixel in detail and with examples. So, read on to find out about one of the greatest tools of social media advertising.

Facebook Pixel helps you gauge the actions people take on your site and retarget them for future advertising campaigns. It gathers data that helps you measure the effectiveness of Facebook ad campaigns, build target audiences for the future and optimize ads.

With Pixel, you can track events on page views, scroll depth, time on page, scroll depth, add to cart, purchase, and more. You can view all these actions on the Facebook Pixel page in the Events Manager section.

Additionally, Facebook Pixel retargets your website visitors by dropping a cookie that’ll track them so you can reach out to them in the future.

How Does The Facebook Pixel Work?

Now we’re going to explain how the Facebook Pixel works as simply as possible. It won’t be full of jargon, and there will be a lot of examples. So, let’s dig in.

Technically speaking, the Facebook Pixel works by placing cookies to monitor website visitors as they interact with your service or product on and off Facebook and Instagram.

For example, let’s say Steve is a digital marketer in Los Angeles, California. Now Steve knows that the business owners in California will go online to look for digital marketers when needed. So, he created a website.

Now, if business owners from California search for “Digital marketers near me” on Google, a bunch of digital marketing websites, including Steve’s, will show up. And mostly these business owners are at the research phase. And probably they’ll not make a decision yet.

But, Steve is smart enough to install Facebook Pixel on his website. With Pixel, he can retarget those business owners (who were looking for digital marketers) on Facebook and Instagram. It helps to create ads retargeting web visitors with a free offer or discounts to turn them into leads.

That’s why every time you look for Nike’s shoes or Zara’s dress on their website, you see ads from these sites later on your Facebook and Instagram.

Retargeting is one of the best marketing tricks to remind eCommerce site visitors to return and purchase all those products they’ve left on the shopping carts.

Facebook Pixel is equally crucial for analytics and overall ad optimization, not just retargeting. From making a purchase to adding an item to a wishlist, once you install Pixel, it analyzes various actions people take on your site.

These actions are known as “standard events.” Events are predetermined by Facebook. You can use these events to build audiences, log conversions, and optimize for conversions.

Here is a list of standard Facebook Pixel events:

• Purchase: A customer completes a purchase on your site.

• Lead: A customer submits a form or signs up for a trial on your website, indicating themselves as a lead.

• Add to Cart: A visitor adds an item to their shopping cart on your website.

• Add Payment Info: A customer adds their payment information during the purchase process on your site.

• Add to Wishlist: A customer adds an item to their wishlist on your website.

• Complete Registration: A customer completes their registration form on your site.

• Search: A customer uses the search function to look for a product on your website.

• Contact: Someone tries to contact your business on your site.

• Customize Product: A customer selects a specific feature of a product on your site. For example, choosing a certain size for a dress.

• Initiate Checkout: A customer starts the checkout process to purchase something on your site.

• Subscribe: A customer subscribes to a paid service or product on your site.

• Schedule: A website visitor schedules an appointment at your office.

You can add more standard events using standard event codes or parameters. These codes let you customize events based on: currency, a conversion event’s worth, content type, etc.

How Can You Use Facebook Pixel For Your Facebook Ad Campaigns?

Facebook Pixel can make your advertising campaigns on Facebook much more effective. It allows you to get a better understanding of who your target audience is, who you’re advertising to, and how your ad campaigns are performing.

Here’s how you can use Facebook Pixel to get a better return on investment for your ad campaigns:

Custom Audiences from Your Website

Facebook Pixel’s core feature is Custom Audiences. With custom audiences, Facebook helps you retarget your site visitors.

The pixel will track the behaviors or actions of any web visitor who already has an active Facebook account. It will measure which pages in your website they landed when they landed on them, and which pages they don’t visit.

Gathering these data, you can create Facebook ads to the specific targeted groups of audience, for example:

• Audience who have visited your site in the last 24 hours.

• Who has landed on a specific page on your website, for instance, the service page.

• Audience who have not been back on your site in the past 30 days.

Audiences are created independently from Facebook ads. Once you’ve created an audience, you can decide when to run your advertisement campaigns and which ads to use.

Let’s take an example here. Suppose you sell gadgets like mobiles and laptops. Now Pixel will know all the Facebook users who searched for laptops on your site and when they searched it. So, from that data, you’ll have a custom audience who visited the “laptops” page on your site in the past 30 days.

Using Pixel, you can also target Facebook ads to already converted audiences’. For instance, you can run discount ad campaigns for their next purchase.

Or, you can create a custom audience based on how much money they’re spending. You can target ads with expensive items to big spenders. And Facebook Pixel will help you know who the expensive buyers are.

Lookalike Audience

Another great feature about Facebook Pixel is its Lookalike Audience. You can design the feature to reflect the characteristics of your best customers.

Pixel can measure your audience’s activities on your website. So you can use this data on your Facebook ad to identify who shares similar characteristics as your website visitors.

That means if your website visitors are 20-30 years old females who live in cities, Facebook can create another lookalike audience of 20-30-year-old females who might show interest in your product.

Design Custom Events

You can use Facebook Pixel to design Custom Events, which are more evolved versions of Standard Events.

As we mentioned earlier, Pixel tracks audiences’ actions with the help of standard events. These events can track audience actions automatically like “purchase,” “lead,” “add to wishlist,” and “add to cart.”

On the contrary, you can design custom events by yourself, for example, button clicks, video tracking, and scroll depth.

Custom Conversion

With Facebook Pixel, you can create Custom Conversions. You can design this by selecting a completion page, for example, a Thank You page.

And give a name to that conversion. You can name something like “Thank you for purchasing, as a thank you gift, here’s a 35% discount.” Now when a visitor visits your thank you page, the Pixel can track when they visited.

How to Install And Setup Facebook Pixel

Now that we’ve shared all the Whats and Hows of Facebook Pixel, it’s time to know how to install Pixel on your site. Here are the steps you can follow:

Step 1: Create a Facebook Pixel

To install Pixel on your website, you first have to create it. So, go to your Facebook Events Manager, select Connect to Data Sources located on the left side of the menu.

Pro tip: While choosing the name of your Pixel, remember the event manager gives you access to one Pixel for each ad account. So, make sure the name represents your brand visits instead of a specific ad campaign.

Step 2: Add the Pixel to Your Website

Now to activate the Pixel on your website, you have to install codes on your site pages. There are three ways you can install it; let’s explore each way in detail:

1. Manual Installation

You can manually install the Facebook Pixel code by following these steps:

• Click on Install Code Manually.

• Select the green button called Copy Code.

• Paste the code in the header code of your website, located above the </head> tag. You can paste the code into every page of your site, then click Continue.

2. Integration to Install Facebook Pixel

You can use Facebook’s integration partners, like SquareSpace and WordPress. With partner integration, you can install Pixel without any code.

You can also use Shopify to Install Facebook Pixel to your website. After installing Facebook Pixel to your online eCommerce sites, make sure to wait for the customer activity to take place before checking the data on the Facebook ads manager.

3. Email to a Developer

If a developer maintains your website or you work with someone else who knows how to code, select Email Instructions. And provide every information in the email that your developer may need to install the Pixel effectively.

Once installed, you can head to Facebook Pixel Helper to check if it’s working accurately. Facebook Helper will let you know if there are any errors, allowing you to redo the installation process to ensure it’s working properly.

However, if there are no errors, you can view real-time conversion data and events in your Facebook ad campaigns.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Facebook Pixels free?

Yes, Facebook Pixels is absolutely free. You don’t have to pay any amount to install it on your website.

However, advertising on Facebook isn’t free. But, tracking and setting up Pixel is free of cost. Moreover, it can save a lot of your money spent on ads by ensuring you get more out of the ad campaigns.

How Many Facebook Pixels Can You Create?

Technically yes. You can create multiple Pixel accounts on one ad account. But you need to have a Business Manager Account for that.

With a Business Manager Account, you can create up to 100 pixels. If you reach the limit of 100 and want to create more, Facebook allows you to create another ad account. Alternatively you can also create a second business manager account to create an additional 100 Pixels.

You can use Business Manager to create Facebook Pixel, if:

• You already have an account in Business Manager.

• Your business has multiple websites or websites for multiple products.

• Someone else manages your Facebook ads.

• You haven’t invested in ads yet, but want to test the capabilities of Pixel’s analytics.

What Does the Facebook Pixel Collect?

Facebook Pixels collects data that track visitors’ actions, ad conversions, and cross-device activities, which results in more targeted ads, optimized campaigns, and better ad ROI on Facebook.

Does Facebook Pixel Cost Anything?

No, installing Facebook Pixel doesn’t cost a single penny. However, if you take a developer or digital marketer’s help with the installation process, you’ll have to pay a certain fee for their time and service.

The Bottom Line

With Facebook Pixel, you can boost your ROI effectively. After all, it helps you target audiences who are most likely to take the desired action on your site.

As Facebook Pixel collects data you can, you can customize your Facebook ads for the future. With its analytics, you can gather insights about your audience and enhance ad conversion rates.

If you have a website and not using Pixel yet, you’re missing out on a lot of benefits. So, go ahead and install it right away. And if you get stuck while installing, make sure to check out a step-by-step guide to start from scratch.