What is a Facebook Pixel and why do you need one for your business?
And perhaps you have absolutely no idea what it is or why it would benefit your business. If this sounds familiar, this post has been written for you.
This was me not so long ago, but now I have started using it I am understanding just how valuable and powerful it is! And what all the fuss is about.... ;o)
What is the Facebook Pixel?
The Facebook Pixel in essence is very simple. It is a piece of code that can be installed on your website, lead pages, blog and any site that you own or create content on, to collect data from people visiting and interacting with your site
This data can then be used to track and optimise your Facebook advertising and attract new highly targeted audiences. It will even allow you to retarget people that have visited your site but not completed a desired action (such as a purchase or registration) through a new Facebook ad campaign.
I’m sure you have noticed items that you have been looking at purchasing online, suddenly appearing in front of you when you’re on Facebook, tempting you into going back to complete the purchase? This is the power of retargeting and can all be done using the Facebook Pixel.
What can it do for me?
When you set up a Facebook Pixel, a generic piece of code will be generated that can be used on your website to collect data on all visitors. This data can then be used to create a custom audience of your website visitors or a lookalike audience, to target people similar to those that have shown interest in your site. The Pixel data will also show you characteristics of your website visitors such as age, sex, location and so on, giving you a much better idea of your avatar.
You can then use additional pieces of code for your Pixel to break it down further and track specific events and interactions. For example, you could track purchases and registrations for any ad campaign, giving you a much more accurate picture of how well your ads are doing. You can use his information to improve ad performance and switch off any adverts that aren’t generating the results you want.
You can also use this data to set up custom audiences of people visiting your site but not purchasing or completing a registrations, for example and then retargeting them to try and entice them to complete the desired action. This alone is an incredibly powerful tool.
There are in fact 17 different events that can be tracked through the Facebook Pixel allowing you to get more transparency than ever on the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. These are:
- Purchase: Someone completes a purchase on your website.
- Lead: Someone signs up for a trial or otherwise identifies themselves as a lead on your site.
- Complete registration: Someone completes a registration form on your site, such as a subscription form.
- Add payment info: Someone enters their payment information in the purchase process on your website.
- Add to cart: Someone adds a product to their shopping cart on your site.
- Add to wishlist: Someone adds a product to a wishlist on your site.
- Initiate checkout: Someone starts the checkout process to buy something from your site.
- Search: Someone uses the search function to look for something on your site.
- View content: Someone lands on a specific page on your website.
- Contact: Someone contacts your business.
- Customize product: Someone selects a specific version of product, such as choosing a certain color.
- Donate: Someone makes a donation to your cause.
- Find location: Someone searches for your business’s physical location.
- Schedule: Someone books an appointment at your business.
- Start trial: Someone signs up for a free trial of your product.
- Submit application: Someone applies for your product, service, or program, such as a credit card.
- Subscribe: Someone subscribes to a paid product or service.
An example of how am I using the Facebook Pixel
I am using Facebook ads to generate traffic to a sales funnel for an eCommerce business. Because this is cold traffic and the majority of people will not purchase the first time they hear about you or your product, I then use the Facebook Pixel to retarget the people who actually clicked through to the landing page (and were therefore interested) but didn't purchase.
I show them an add with a slightly better offer than before to attract them into purchasing. The Pixel allows me to:
- See how many sales are being generated through the campaign
- See how many opt-ins we are getting from the campaign
- See what the cost per lead and cost per purchase are and know the true return on advertising spend
- Make adjustments to the campaigns to improve and track the results
- Create a custom audience of people visiting my page - which I can then use to retarget or create a lookalike audience to attract new customers into the business
- Understand the demographic profile of my prospects
I am also using the Facebook Pixel to;
- Create custom audiences of website visitors to 1) retarget and 2) create lookalike audiences so that I can target a new prospect base
- Create a custom audience of people who have viewed a certain percentage of a video ad (thus showing their interest) to retarget them with an offer for the product or service.
- Measure lead generation campaigns, where I'm using Facebook ads to drive traffic to an opt-in page to build a database of prospective customers. By using the Facebook Pixel I can see how many people have viewed the page, how many opt-ins there have been, what the cost per lead is and again - I can retarget anyone that views the content but doesn’t, for whatever reason, complete the registration.
- Get a better understanding of the people who are interested in and interacting with my content, products or services so that I know who I am targeting and how best I can communicate with them
Sounds great, but I’m not very technical...
This is the best part - you don’t have to be. Facebook has done it all for you. All you need to do is go into your business manager in Facebook and set up a pixel. Facebook will prompt you and give you the code to install the pixel. It will also let you chose from the 17 events that you want to track and generate a piece of code for each event, that can be installed on specific pages of your site.
If you don’t manage the website yourself you can get your developer to install it for you. It is incredibly quick and really is straightforward to do, by following Facebook’s instructions. I have managed to install it on Click Funnels, 3D Cart and Blogger.
Good luck! Give it a go, it might seem like a minefield but once you start working with it, it becomes much much clearer! I promise. If I can do it - you can do it! ;o)
Have a great day! 😃
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