Traffic

Facebook Pixel: How to Track Your Facebook Ads

By 10th January 2017 No Comments

Tracking results on Facebook is essential to see how your marketing is fairing up for your business, but in February, tracking your results is going to change.

The tech guys at Facebook HQ will be getting rid of the old Facebook conversion code and the Facebook Pixel will take over completely.

So if you’re using the old conversion code, it’s time to scrap it and start using Facebook Pixel.

In this article, we will walk you through the steps of setting up the new Facebook Pixel and start using it to track your conversions.

 

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Facebook Pixel Explained

The Facebook pixel is the latest method to tracking your Facebook conversions. There are two ways you can track: with standard events and custom conversions.

facebook pixel help

The custom conversions method is the simplest form of conversion tracking, requiring absolutely no modification of the Facebook pixel code on your website.

This tracking method is contained within the Facebook Ads Manager and uses the URLs of the pages you want to track.

The more advanced method of tracking your conversions is through standard events. This method does require more work and involves pieces of code that track a specific action and sit within the Facebook pixel on the web page you are choosing to track.

When it comes to tracking events, there are nine you can track, and installing them requires you to modify the Facebook pixel on your website, slightly.

Here’s how to get started.

 

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#1 Install the Facebook Pixel

The first step to setting up your conversion tracking is installing the Pixel code into your website.

facebook pixel help

To gather all the data throughout your website, you need to install the Facebook Pixel throughout your website on every page. This allows you to establish a baseline for measuring specific events.

If you haven’t installed your Facebook Pixel, you can learn how to do it in the Active Fuel Lab (members only) or for non-members, click here.

 

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#2 Choose Which Event Actions to Track

Once you’ve installed your Facebook Pixel, you need to decide which event you want to track.

Currently, you can track nine event actions: View Cart, Search, Add To Cart, Add To Wishlist, Initiate Checkout, Add Payment Info, Purchase, Lead, and Complete Registration. A wide variety!

These actions will vary on your Facebook ad campaign objective and the overall goal of your ad campaigns.

For example, if you want people to book in for free consultations, online, and you’re using Facebook ads to generate leads, you’ll want to track ‘leads’.

In your Facebook Ads Managerclick the menu button in the top-left corner and then All Tools at the bottom of the menu.

 

facebook pixel guide help

 

Then under assets, click the Pixel tab.

 

fb pixel help

This will then open up the Pixel menu. Under Conversion Tracking Pixel (Old), click the Create Conversion button.

A pop-up menu will appear with the two conversion methods. Select Track Conversions With Standard Events.

facebook tracking help

A pop-up will then appear with an array of actions that you can choose to suit your campaign.

 

Facebook pixel february 2016

You’ll see a description of each action and a column with the code you’ll need to add to the Facebook pixel on the page you want to track.

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#3: Install the Conversion Code on Your Website

Once you have determined which action you want to track, you need to add the conversion code to your website. There are a number of ways to do this, all depending on your website platform and your knowledge of code.

If you see yourself as quite handy with code, you can manually copy and paste the Facebook pixel plus the standard event code, you have chosen, into the tags of the page you want to track.

However, if you don’t feel comfortable adding the code manually, don’t worry, there is a plugin you can install called PixelYourSite. This plugin is free and allows you to install the Facebook pixel across your whole site with one click and create standard events for the specific actions you want to track – definitely one we recommend!

To add this plugin to your website, go to Plugins in your WordPress dashboard and click Add New. Then search for PixelYourSite.

 

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#4 Check Your Tracking Works

The last thing we want is to begin running our campaign, only to notice, a few days down the line that your tracking code isn’t working!

To check that your tracking pixel is doing the right job, you can download a free extension plugin for Chrome Internet Browser, called The Facebook Pixel Helper.

Bare in mind, to use this you will have to be using the Chrome Browser.

 

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#5 Add Conversions to Your Dashboard

The final step is to add your conversions in your Facebook Ads Manager dashboard so that you can view them easily.

When you create custom conversion columns, you can measure the exact number of conversions for the event actions you’re tracking.

You can track other pieces of data too, including your cost per conversion and total conversion values for actions such as purchases.

To create a new reporting column in the Ads Manager dashboard, click on the Columns button. Then scroll down and select Customize Columns from the drop-down list.

 

facebook pixel help 2017

 

In the left column of the pop-up box, click Website under Conversions. You’ll see a list of standard event actions to choose from.

 

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Simply click the check boxes next to the standard event actions you want to add to your reporting and they’ll appear in the right-hand column. Directly below the list of standard event actions, you’ll find the cost per event action metric and below that the conversion value metric.

If you’re running an ad campaign to generate leads for your business, for example, you’d add the standard event field Lead into your reporting, as well as Cost per Lead.

facebook tracking code 2017

Once you’ve added all of the standard event actions you want to be displayed in your Ads Manager, select the Save as Preset check box in the bottom-left corner of the windowType in a name for your conversion column and click Apply.

Note: If you’ve created custom conversions, at the bottom of the Website sections you’ll see a list of your custom conversions under the title Website Custom Conversions.

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Conclusion

Facebook advertising can be highly profitable for your business. However, the only way to know the true impact of your efforts is to track your campaign results using conversion tracking.

By setting up conversion tracking using the process outlined above, you’ll be able to effectively measure the ROI of your campaigns.