Why is this necessary?
The Facebook Pixel and Conversions API greatly enhances the ability for your ads to optimize and generate results for your business. Typically, the more data you have the better your results will be. Your Facebook Pixel, Conversions API and Ad Account will get trained over time from the data collected from your website. All this data will help put your ad in front of the right people and generate revenue for your business.
What is a Pixel and what does it do? Here is my simplified breakdown:
The Facebook Pixel is a piece code that is placed on your website that establishes a browser to browser connection between the person visiting your website and your Facebook Ad account. Facebook will collect, store and analyze the actions that people take on your website and fire conversion events based on the actions they take on your site. Conversion events are specific packets of code that are triggered and sent your Ads Manager when specific actions are taken on your website.
Example:
When you visit an e-commerce store with a standard Facebook Pixel setup, a PageView conversion event will fire. Then you look at a product page, a ViewContent conversion event will fire. Then you add the product to your cart and an AddToCart conversion event fires. You checkout, InitiateCheckout fires. You complete your purchase and the Purchase Event fires. Each one of these events contains parameters, or information about the event that took place and who did it. The Purchase Event typical passes information such as purchase value, currency, eventID, name(hashed), email(hashed) and more.
What is Conversions API?
With the introduction of iOS 14.5+, Apple made it possible for people to opt out of being tracked on certain websites and apps, like Facebook. This had pretty serious consequences for advertisers back when this was released in 2021 because most people opted out of being tracked which meant less data which meant bad ad performance. Facebook created Conversions API to address this. Conversions API establishes a server to server connection between the person visiting your website and Facebook Ads. It collects the same data as the Pixel but can also track activity of people who opted out to pixel tracking. Facebook de-duplicates this data in their back end systems and you are left with more data than if you only had the Pixel.
Long story short, Conversion API = more data. More data is good for your ads.
How do I create a pixel?
Go to business.facebook.com then hover over the left panel of the screen where there are icons. Click on the icon with three horizontal lines named ‘All Tools’ > Events Manager.
Click on the green + icon then choose > Web > Enter a name for your new data set
*Careful, you cannot delete a Dataset once you create one.
Partner Integrations:
Nowadays, Facebook has a full suite of partner integrations which you can use to easily set up your pixel and conversion API. Services like Shopify, WordPress, Squarespace, Wix and Woocommerce all have partner integrations with Facebook. If your website service provider does not have a partner integration, you may need the assistance of a software developer to help install it on your site.
Events Setup Tool:
The event setup tool is a useful tool that allows you to visually set up conversion events on your site. You can track either button clicks or URLs. To use the events set up tool go to Events Manager > Data Sources > your Pixel > Settings > Event Setup Tool. Make sure your pop up blocker is off. Enter your URL and launch your webpage. The Event Setup Tool should show up as a pop up in front of your website. Follow these instructions to set up events for your website.
How can I check if my pixel is set up properly?
Go to Events Manager > Data Sources > your Pixel > Test Events > Open the second dropdown that says ‘Confirm your websites’s events are set up correctly’ > Enter your URL and your website will launch in another tab. Make sure your pop up blocker is off. Now run through a purchase and keep checking back on the previous tab to see what event fires when you take certain actions on your site. The conversion events should match what you do much like the example I laid out earlier.
