What Is Facebook Pixel? A Beginner’s Guide

What Is Facebook Pixel?

Facebook Pixel is a piece of code, a web analytics script, placed on your website. Facebook Pixel lets you collect data that helps track conversions from Facebook ads, optimize your ads, generate targeted audiences for future advertising, and remarket to visitors who have previously interacted with your website.

What Does Facebook Pixel Do?

Facebook Pixel optimizes your advertising effectiveness, and considering that Facebook is currently the most popular social media platform, it's an excellent tool to have access to and be proficient with.

The Pixel collects essential, relevant data from every action taken on your website, enabling you to develop ad campaigns that increase your chances of Facebook ad monetization. For example, Pixel tracks all hits on your website and ties the resulting traffic to an ad if you're currently running advertisements.

After setting it up, Pixel runs in your website's background and tracks user actions without you having to do anything else unless you want to customize the tracked data better.

Pixel connects a website user's data and actions to match a Facebook profile and lets you add powerful features to your ad campaigns like conversion optimization, remarketing, and in-depth audiences.

Suppose you want your online business to grow. In that case, you need a solid understanding of social media marketing analytics, and Pixel helps you use customer activity data to target your audience better.

What is Facebook Pixel:  Benefits of Facebook Pixel

Although we’ve already alluded to Pixel’s benefits, let’s spell them out in a more precise way:

• Pixel is free
• It measures the effectiveness of Facebook ads
• It tracks conversions
• Pixel helps you to understand your audience better
• Pixel shows ads to the right people who take specific actions, leading to more and better data-driven decisions
• Pixel increases your sales and revenue by optimizing ads toward visitors who will most likely perform a specified action
• Pixel gives you access to Facebook Analytics
• Pixel even lets you scale your Facebook ads profitably with audiences whose interests and demographics are close to your primary target audience (“look-alike” audiences).

What is Facebook Analytics?

Pixel-based Facebook Analytics shows you the data collected on your web site's visitors and actions. Analytics gives you a clean dashboard where you can learn more about your website and how it's performing.

Facebook Pixel uses analytics to track an assortment of conversion and behavioral metrics relating to your website visitors, increasing your understanding of your audience's habits. This greater understanding, in turn, makes it easier to test new things and can predict how people will react to changes you make on your site.

Analytics, in general, gives you a better idea of:

• How visitors are using your website
• Your visitors’ traffic sources
• Audience demographic data
• Facebook Analytics funnels identified on your website
• User retention
• Customer journeys
• Which of your content performs best

Ideally, Facebook Analytics should supplement your overall analytics efforts and tools, not replace them.

What is Facebook Pixel and What’s a Conversion?

We've already used the term "conversion" but never explained it. Let's remedy that. Conversions occur when a visitor completes a pre-determined, desired action on your site. So, when someone visits your Facebook and takes an action you planned out in advance, congratulations, that's a conversion!

Facebook Pixel accurately tracks conversions, giving you a good idea of what actions people take on your site. Pixel automatically tracks these events:

• Add an item to the shopping cart
• Initiate a checkout
• Lead
• Buy
• Add payment information
• Add to the customer’s wishlist
• Complete registration/sign-up
• Contact
• Customize a product
• Donate
• Find a location
• Schedule
• Search
• Start a trial
• Submit an application
• Subscribe
• View content

Use the Event Setup Tool to apply these standard events to your website. You can even create customized events using the Google Tag Manager. Of course, custom events require creating a custom conversion.

To create custom conversions, go to the Events Manager, click 'Create' and choose a custom conversion. Next, locate your custom event, and add any necessary rules and any desired values. Then, you're good to go!

The Principle Behind Facebook Ads Result Optimization and Conversions

If you run ads on Facebook, you need Facebook Pixel. Facebook provides surface-level campaign options (e.g., impressions, clicks), but these lack the depth required for proper optimization. For example, it's not enough to know how many clicks and conversions your website has; you need to know who's conducting these actions, which areas are performing better, and even factors such as geography and timing.

What is Facebook Pixel: All About Pixel Retargeting

Retargeting, also referred to as remarketing, is defined as an online advertising method that targets users who have visited your website before and demonstrated an interest in your content and products. Facebook Pixel has the mechanisms in place to make it easier for you to retarget based on the information it collects.

With Pixel-based retargeting, you can develop a more compelling online marketing strategy using custom conversions and events, giving you greater marketing flexibility. As a result, your retargeting efforts stand a better chance of success.

In plainer words, you can’t retarget if you don’t have the best, most accurate information regarding where you should aim. So Facebook Pixel is your aiming mechanism.

How to Initiate Audience Optimization and Custom Audiences

You can optimize your audience by using Pixel data. In fact, you can achieve audience optimization by customizing your audiences. Let’s go through the steps.

• Go to “Audiences” on your ad account
• Select "Website" as your data source, ensuring you look at the correct Pixel and ad account
• Start building your customized audience. Facebook gives you the following default events to choose from:
• All visitors to your site
• People who went to specific pages on your site
• Visitor breakdown by time spent
• Events on your website
• PageView
• ViewContent
• Any events you set up previously (e.g., standard and customized events)

• Choose how many days the members of your target audience stay in that audience, ranging from one to 180 days
• Add any needed URL, a landing page, for example, or parameters such as currency

You can also create effective sales funnels for your ads by creating different audiences based on which of your pages they visited. A sales funnel is a path that guides Facebook users to a chosen destination. Sales funnels consist of a series of stages visitors take to reach a final goal, which in the case of most Facebook pages, is a sale.

For instance, say you were selling a new exercise program. Stage one of the funnel would be your site’s landing page, explaining who you are and what you’re offering. Stage two could be a quiz that users take to determine their current state of health and fitness goals. Stage three might be a video that shows how your program works, and stage four is the final pitch and sign-up — in other words — the conversion.

With Pixel, you can create target audiences that fit into each step.

How to Get Started with Facebook Pixel

It’s easy to get Facebook Pixel off the ground. You need:

• A Facebook ad account or Facebook business manager account
• A website where you can insert the script
• Actions on your site that will function as conversion measures (optional)

Installation and Setup: How to Add Facebook Pixel

After you line up the needed starting resources, go to the Event Manager and click “Connect Data Sources.” Choose the “Website” option, then “Facebook Pixel.” Name your selection, and let Facebook check your platform to see if there’s an easy, fast way to conduct the setup. That final item is optional but could save you time and aggravation.

Once you’ve completed the above tasks, the site will prompt you for code, which you insert manually via cut-and-paste or choose a partner integration solution.

Now let’s install and set up Facebook Pixel!

Add the code you got when creating the Pixel in Event Manager by placing it at the bottom of your website’s header section, right above the /head. Alternately, you can use a partner integration, choosing from a selection of partners such as HubSpot, Shopify, Squarespace, or Teespring, to name a few.

If you ever need your Pixel ID, you can get it from the settings found in the Event Manager.

Using Facebook Pixel With Google Tag Manager (GTM)

If you want to use Pixel with Google Tag Manager, just open the Partner Integration screen and connect with your Google Tag Manager account. The installation will happen instantly and automatically.

Pixel With Other Platforms Such as Shopify, Squarespace, WordPress, and Wix

Here’s a very brief guide that shows you how to use Pixel with a sampling of popular platforms.

• Shopify. Go to your Shopify’s online store preferences and paste your Pixel ID where it indicates.
• Squarespace. Go to the Marketing settings by starting at the Home Menu, clicking on Marketing, clicking “Facebook Pixel & Ads,” and entering your Pixel ID where prompted.
• Wordpress/Woocommerce. Go to Pixel setup’s Partner Integration section and select WooCommerce or WordPress. You will get a link you can use to download the plugin. Download and install the plugin in WordPress and add your ID in the appropriate fields.
• Wix. Go from Home to Marketing Tools, select Marketing Integrations, then select Connect (Facebook Pixel).

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