Everything You Need To Know About Facebook Ad Pixels

Everything You Need To Know About Facebook Ad Pixels

With over one billion daily active users, Facebook has become the go-to social network when it comes to advertising and lead generation.

Facebook’s pixel functionality has the marketing world buzzing; however, there’s still a lot of confusion surrounding the platform’s specifics.

Keep reading to understand the hype behind the pixel and how it could potentially transform your advertising efforts.

You can’t spend more than five minutes on an Internet marketing blog or forum without someone buzzing about advertising via the social network like it was 2011.

Whether we’re talking about B2C companies generating new leads or niche affiliates driving traffic to their sites, the billions upon billions of dollars that marketers spend on social media are certainly going somewhere, right?

Unfortunately, ROI is often difficult to measure when it comes to social media marketing and advertising.

Many marketers evangelize vague concepts of “engagement” and promote purchasing social ads; however, how do we really know if we’re getting our money’s worth?

Why dump cash in the social space when those resources could potentially go into other parts of our funnel?

Fair question. If there’s one company that’s looking to provide a solid, legitimate answer, it’s Facebook.

We don’t need to spend too long singing Facebook’s praises.

However, when you consider that Mark Zuckerberg’s social network is leveraged by more than 92% of businesses and overwhelmingly presents the best ROI for advertisers versus competitors like Twitter and Instagram, it’s no secret why Facebook is so widely discussed, researched and dissected in the Internet marketing sphere.

If there’s something that Facebook does well, it’s advertising.

Beyond their base of one billion daily active users, Facebook’s advertising platform is robust and effective at generating leads.

Whether you’re looking to drive new traffic to your funnel or retarget those who fell out, Facebook advertising is far more than buzz and hype for marketers willing to do their homework.

Speaking of hype, let’s talk about Facebook’s pixel tracking.

While pixels have been around for some time, they represent a more advanced approach to lead targeting and generation.

Despite this, there’s a lot of confusion surrounding what exactly pixels do and how they work.

In short, Facebook pixels allow advertisers to do the following:

  • Optimize their ads for increased conversions
  • Keep better track of their ads to understand what converts best
  • Build new ads prime for targeting their audience (based on data)

Admittedly, these claims may seem vague at first sight; meanwhile, Facebook’s pixels admittedly can be a bit complicated (especially on the backend).

Thus the debate and confusion among marketers asking whether or not pixels are worth the time investment.

You’re probably wondering whether or not you should use pixels for your own marketing efforts.

Rightfully so.

Thankfully, we’ve taken the time to break pixels down into relatively simple terms, easy to understand and digest.

Let’s start by breaking down what exactly a pixel does.

Understanding Pixel

Image Source: Facebook Help Center

Marketers and Facebook alike are making some bold claims about the pixel’s functionality and what it can do for you.

According to Facebook themselves, pixels do the following:

Measure Conversions – Pixels allow you to track actions users take after viewing your ads on Facebook.

In other words, you can continue to follow users back to your website after they’ve clicked on your Facebook ad.

See Who Converts – ROI is always a concern with social media advertising; however, pixels allow you to see which users click through Facebook ads and end up going through your sales funnel (onto the checkout page of your website, for example).

Therefore, pixels allow a truer measure of ROI as you can see who ends up buying and who drops off.

Continuous Monitoring – Likewise, pixels allow you to monitor the actions of users beyond the ad; therefore, you can see which page they ultimately converted on.

This allows for continuous optimization of ads.

Facebook will automatically show you which of your ads are most likely to convert based on data gathered by pixels.

Meanwhile, you can also measure your conversions and determine your ROI.

Through pixels, you can optimize your ads for conversions and laser-target users based on their behavior.

By offering a legitimate means of seeing how users convert and allowing us to watch the same users go through our sales funnels, the use of pixels is a potential game-changer for skeptics concerned with Facebook ads and ROI.

However, in the case of any advertising, it requires some work on our end.

For example, the prerequisites for a successful ad campaign using pixels include…

  • Having a base of users and potentially warm leads to target on Facebook
  • An effective Facebook advertising campaign, including marketing messages, copy and images based on each segment of the campaign
  • An effective and engaging sales funnel to back up the ad and convert once users leave Facebook

Obviously, the use of pixels isn’t going to transform your business by itself; however, they can serve as a powerful means of understanding how well your ads are converting and whether or not your sales funnel is as strong as you think it is.

Now, let’s say we’ve got a Facebook campaign going and want to run pixels on our site.

What next?

Placing Your Pixel

Creating a Facebook pixel seems more complicated than it really it.

Pixels themselves are pieces of javascript code which track activity on specific pages of your website.

For example, it would perhaps be most beneficial to monitor pixels on your checkout or shopping cart pages to keep track of user behavior once they’ve shown a distinct interest in buying.

Step 1 Firstly, you have to create your pixel to generate the previously mentioned code.

Image Source: Facebook Help Center

Once you’ve created the pixel, Facebook provides you with the code to copy onto your site.

Additionally, you have the options to track specific actions on your site such as actions of specific pages, searches conducted on your site and any items that are added to a shopping cart.

Step 2 – Once you have your pixel code squared away, simply copy-and-paste the code on between the <head></head> tags of the site you wish to track conversions on.

Image Source: Facebook Help Center

Facebook advises that you add the pixel to “pages on your site where conversions take place.”

To ensure that your pixel is active, it must be installed correctly and record a conversion.

Step 3 – The third step of the process sees you creating ads in conjunction with the pixels that you’re using. Facebook’s robust ad platform allows you customize your ads and optimize them.

Consider combining the best practices of your niche with the tactics of high-performing Facebook ads to get the most bang for your buck.

Keep in mind that Facebook ads track conversions that happen within a single day, a week or 28 days after both clicking and viewing an ad.

Step 4 – Finally, Facebook allows you measure conversions after the pixel is in place and your ads have been created.

Image Source: Facebook Help Center

You’ll be able to monitor how many conversions you’d gotten, the reach of your ads and cost of each conversion.

Keep in mind that the conversions you’re tracking include checkouts, sign-ups, and leads.

The monitoring piece is perhaps the most important as it allows you to see how much your efforts are paying off, meanwhile providing insight into which ads are working best.

Should I Be Using Pixels?

The question remains: should I be using pixels as means of tracking users as they enter my funnel?

If you’re already running Facebook ads, why wouldn’t you?

Pixels don’t necessary represent a breakthrough in advertising itself, but rather a means to track user behavior.

Understanding our users is absolutely key to honing our marketing strategy and increasing conversions.

Therefore, pixels represent a fantastic means of finding strengths in your marketing and potentially weak points in your sales funnel.

Since the pixel functionality comes at no extra cost, there’s really nothing to lose if you’re on the fence about whether or not to install them on your site.

To summarize, pixels can help you…

  • Understand which products and pages on your site best convert users who click on Facebook ads
  • Recognize weak points in your ads and sales funnel, allows you to revise pages and drop ads that don’t convert
  • Legitimately measure your ROI from Facebook ads, helping to determine whether you should ramp up or scale back your efforts accordingly.

Whether you’re looking to get your feet wet with Facebook ads or have run multiple campaigns in the past, you should definitely integrate pixels as part of your strategy.

The data you obtain could be the difference-maker for your next campaign.

How to Add Your Pixel Into ClickFunnels

So now you know you should be using Facebook pixels.

But where do you drop the code in ClickFunnels?

This will open up the header scripts area of your page which should look like this:

Worth the Hype?

Many marketers swear by advertising via social; however, perhaps just as many marketers scoff at the idea of spending precious time and resources on sites such as Facebook.

Pixel’s functionality works to silence the naysayers by making sure our advertising decisions are driven by data.

Do you think that Facebook’s pixels are worth the hype?

Would you rather spend more on Facebook ads or invest in other aspects of your sales funnel?

Let me know in the comments section below!

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7 thoughts on “Everything You Need To Know About Facebook Ad Pixels

  1. Thanks for the info! This was really helpful. I would like to know how you write the code for the standard event you want to use. Thanks!

  2. Hey Stephen, any thoughts on tracking “Add Payment Information” versus “Add to Cart” for FB Events?

    Our website is http://www.lipstickratings.com. We have a sales letter order page with a 2-step order form and product element at the bottom. Seeing as we don’t have a “Cart” technically… or do we?

    We’re frustrated because after we launched our website we’ve had 88 “add to carts” (supposedly according to FB manager), but not a single purchase.

  3. I'm new to Pixels & Click Funnels. My Question is…. Do you use the same Pixel code on Click Fuunnels that you install on your website ? Thank you!

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