How To Add A Facebook Tracking Pixel To Your Website

If you don’t have a Facebook page, you need one. If you do but don’t have Business Manager then you need to set this up – find out how to do both of these things with this handy guide on creating a Facebook page and setting up Business Manager. According to the results of Facebook’s Q1, there are more than 2.20 billion active users – a 13% increase year on year. With this in mind, it’s clear that your business, local or global, needs to be on Facebook. You also need a solid but flexible social media strategy for organic and paid content that puts the user at the heart and drives commercial results. Alex recently wrote about the power and intelligence of Facebook’s ad targeting capabilities and the value of that, so here I’ll be diving into the use of the pixel and how that can be a key driver in ROI for your digital marketing activities.

How to create a Facebook pixel

1) Head to your Business Manager, click the hamburger in the top left corner, and head over to ‘Pixels’. 2) If you haven’t set up a Pixel, then you will be greeted by this screen. If there is a Pixel that has already been created then you need to go to the top right and hit ‘Add Data Source’ and ‘Facebook Pixel’. From here, you choose a name for the Pixel and then you just need to set it up. 3) To set up, you get three options: integration or tag manager, manually install or email to a developer. For Facebook's guide on placing the pixel on the website yourself, see this guide. Once this is done then the Pixel will be tracking people who go to your website while logged in to Facebook. 4) You can choose from seeing all users from today, yesterday, 7 days, 14 days and 30 days. This will give you the activity on the site and allow you to remarket to those people across the Facebook platform. Once this is set up, then you need to know how to use it. The best way to use a Pixel is through remarketing, so that you can continue to get in front of people who already have an affiliation to your page.

Using remarketing in your Facebook ads

You can use the audience for any marketing objectives in the Facebook Ads Manager. So whether you click Reach, Traffic, App Stalls or Lead Generation, you can use this audience. You can create and save these either directly through the Pixel or when setting up an ad – here we will be doing it through the Pixel. 1) Open up the Pixel to see all the data gathered and hit ‘Create Custom Audience’. You can choose from a number of options, with the main three being ‘All website visitors’, ‘People who visited specific web pages’ and ‘Visitors by time spent’. 2) Press ‘Create’ and you’re all set. You will see the screen underneath and it’s up to you whether you use it to create an ad or develop a lookalike audience.

You’ve set up your Facebook Pixel – what now?

With your Pixel set up and audiences created then you can do a number of things:

Lookalike audiences – Facebook will build audiences that demographically ‘look like’ those who have been on the website.
General remarketing – If you run a car showroom, for example, then you might want to show people who have been on your website in the last 30/90/180 days your latest deals to tempt them into the showroom.
Specific pages – This is particularly useful for ecommerce sites. If people have purchased previously then maybe they get an offer code for buying more when on Facebook, for example.

The real benefit, as with all marketing these days, is not getting the data itself but knowing how to use it most effectively to gain clients, customers and repeat visitors.

Adding a Custom Conversion to your Facebook Pixel

You can increase your ability to track the results of your Facebook ads (with and without remarketing) using custom conversions. If you head into your Business Manager and down to the Pixel again, custom conversions will come up. By pressing ‘Create Custom Conversion’ you can then build a conversion – from a certain product page or offering to a completed purchase, whatever your goals are – and then create that so you can use it within your adverts.

How to add a Custom Conversion to your Facebook Ads

Go to create a Facebook ad (as you normally would) and select ‘Conversions’ as your objective. When you then get through to creating the Ad Set you will be given the option of selecting a conversion event. If you want to use this conversion for a saved audience from the Pixel, click on the ‘Use a saved audience’ dropdown. If you don’t currently have one, by pressing ‘Create new’, you will be able to use it there and then.

Using data more effectively for tighter results

Facebook pixels, and the data that they provide, enable you to move further and further away from sticking a finger in the air. It proves what’s working and shows what needs to be improved. But that’s the thing with data, it's a waste of time unless you know how to use it. Having a Pixel tracks the people who go to the website, allows you to create custom audiences to show ads to and even allows custom conversions to be set up. This means you can figure out social media ROI and spend money more effectively. Jonathan Bell Social Media Manager Knapton Wright

Av-It!

This could be you

Challenge Us!

We're Ready For It.

Our clients are open to change, and they embraced it. They challenged us and it paid off.

Now we want to help you.

We love working with brands who put the planet first. From renewables and agri-tech, to environmental and sustainability-focused businesses, get in touch to find out how we can help you.