Facebook’s enormous reach and copious opportunities for advertisers has made investing in Facebook ads a very enticing prospect for many companies. Additionally, it has a lot of features which, while confusing, can also pack a lot of benefits when used efficiently. So if you use Facebook ads (or plan to in the foreseeable future), we have some good news for you. The new Facebook Pixel has the potential to make things a lot easier for you.

 

What are Facebook Pixels?

 

Pixels are pieces of code that allow you to track visitors to your website so that you can advertise to them later, and also measure the effectiveness of your ads. A Facebook Pixel is a code that you can place on your website which can help you in a wide variety of ways, including:

 

Conversion Tracking

 

The Facebook Pixel allows you to track conversions across multiple devices. This means that you can track if someone saw your ad on their smartphone, but switched over to a laptop or tablet before making a purchase. It also lets you track visitor activity on your website after they view your Facebook ad.

 

Optimized delivery

 

With Pixel, Facebook will automatically target your ads towards the people who are most likely to complete the action you want. You can create custom audiences to retarget (people who have already visited your site, added something to cart, or have made a previous purchase).

 

Lookalike Audiences

 

Facebook can also use its data to let you create and target lookalike audiences (people similar to your existing customer base in terms of interest, demographics and online activity).

 

Audience Insights

 

Pixel also gives you valuable insights into your website audience, including a detailed analysis of how people interact with your site. It also gives you detailed information based on demographic, location, interests, and purchasing behaviour of customers. It then lets you target audiences based on this information, and other products they have recently viewed on your website.

 

Standard Events and Custom Conversions

 

Even though you can only create one Pixel per ad account, you’re able to add Standard Events or Custom Conversions to report different conversion events (where an ‘event’ is defined as a specified action that a user takes on your website).

 

Standard Events

 

Standard Events allow you to track a variety of actions, where you simply have to copy and paste the predetermined code provided by Facebook. There are currently nine of these available, as listed below:

View content: tracks when someone lands on your website

Search: tracks searches on your website

Add to cart: tracks when someone adds an item to a shopping cart

Add to wishlist: tracks when someone adds an item to their wishlist

Initiate checkout: tracks when people begin the checkout process

Add payment information: tracks when someone adds payment information during checkout

Make purchase: tracks when checkout processes are completed

Lead: tracks when someone expresses interest in your products by submitting a form, signing up for a trial, or landing on a pricing page

Complete registration: tracks when registration is completed

 

Custom Conversions

 

If the Standard Events do not suit your needs, you also have the option of using Custom Conversions, are created by selecting the completion page and naming the conversion using special URL rules defined by Facebook.

You can also create Facebook pixel to customize your Standard Events to give you even more insight into your audience and ad performance.

You can find information on how to create a Facebook Pixel here and its implementation guidelines here.