People are active on Facebook an average of 22 times a day, so running Facebook ads is probably a good strategy for your brand. But if you’re not using a Facebook pixel, you’re probably losing out on the R part of ROI in a big way.
What’s a Facebook pixel?
When you create a Facebook ad, you’ll notice there are three ad objectives to choose from—awareness, consideration and conversion.
Facebook already has everything it needs to help you measure the results of the first two objectives, but if you’re looking for conversions, that’s where Facebook pixel comes in.
According to Facebook: “The Facebook pixel is an analytics tool that allows you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising by understanding the actions people take on your website.”
Or perhaps more simply: A pixel allows you to track conversions from your Facebook ads by showing you who’s going to your site, how they got there and what they did there.
Record scratch, freeze frame. What’s a conversion?
A conversion is an action that a user takes on your site. For example, if your business sells custom booties for llamas and someone visits llamabooties.com and buys a pair of booties, they have converted. But a conversion doesn’t have to be a purchase—it could be filling out an event registration, watching a video or downloading educational material.
So back to this pixel…
Bottom line: If you’re advertising on Facebook, you should absolutely have the pixel installed on your site. Without it, you’ll only be able to measure clicks, not conversions. And after all, isn’t it better to have 10 visitors that all convert instead of 100 visitors with no conversions?
That’s not the only reason to get in on the pixel action, though. When you add a pixel to your site, you can:
- Optimize ads based on data. Since conversions can be tracked across devices, it can help you fine-tune your ad strategy (e.g., base it more for mobile than desktop, etc.).
- Build targeted audiences for future campaigns. You can put your pixel to work helping you create lookalike audiences that have similar demographics and interests to the people you’re already targeting.
- Retarget qualified leads (i.e., people who have already taken action on your website). The Facebook pixel places and triggers cookies as users interact with your ad, so when you’re retargeting, you’ll be able to go so far as to show people the item they abandoned in their shopping cart.
You sold me—now how do I do it?
Your pixel is created in Ads Manager. From there, you’ll install the code on your site. You can either use an integration or tag manager or manually copy and paste it into your site. Let Facebook give you all the nitty gritty details.
So go get your pixel and start measuring your results. Need some help coming up with killer creative or maneuvering the technical aspects of the ‘book? We’re just a call (402.437.0000) or email (hello@firespring.com) away.