Setting up ads on Facebook but finding the whole thing a little confusing?
You’ve maybe heard of the ‘Facebook pixel‘ but you’re not really sure what it is, or how to use it…
Well, fear no more. In this tutorial, I’m going to walk you through what the Facebook pixel is and how to install it on your website if you use WordPress.
What the heck is the Facebook Pixel?
Anyone serious about tracking and optimising their Facebook campaigns needs to have the Facebook pixel installed on their site. If you don’t, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity.
For those of you new to the Facebook Pixel, it’s just a piece of code that you install into the back-end of your website that helps you to track the success of your Facebook adverts.
Hold it!
You have to install code?
“I’m not a developer!” I can hear you scream.
Don’t worry – neither am I.
It’s actually pretty straight forward, especially if you have a WordPress site.
Installing the Facebook Pixel to WordPress is a ONE TIME task.
And once it’s set up it allows you:
- Retarget your advertising to return visitors
- Track conversions directly associated with your Facebook ads.
- Optimise advertising campaigns
Tracking conversions on WordPress
Let’s take a look at conversion tracking.
A conversion is an interaction between your site visitor and your website that develops a relationship.
It might not turn a visitor into a customer right away, but it’s certainly laying down some good groundwork.
A conversion could be a visitor:
- Signing up to your mailing list
- Signing up for your regular newsletter
- Adding something to your store’s cart
- Opting in for a free trial membership (or taking up a special offer for new customers)
- Moving from your blog post to explore the rest of your site
These conversions are steps towards becoming a customer.
And it’s super important that we track these actions on our site, so we know what ads/campaigns are performing well.
If you’re not tracking your campaigns, you don’t know what’s working and what’s not working, meaning you’re just shooting in the dark.
Using the pixel gives you total control over your budget and your tracking; providing direct feedback from every campaign while helping you ascertain the most effective approaches to hitting your target audience.
With all marketing campaigns, there’s an element of trial and error – and you end up trying so many approaches to hook your audience that you often lose track of what worked and what didn’t.
Well, now you don’t have to keep track.
Now you’ve got the Facebook Pixel to do that for you.
Sounds good?
Let me show you how to install it on your WordPress site.
Where to start with Facebook Ads Manager
The Facebook Ads Manager is your hub for campaign analysis.
This is where you want to start.
But, to incorrectly quote Spiderman, with great power comes great confusion.
It can look pretty intimidating; there’s a LOT of information at your fingertips, and it can be easy to find yourself a little lost in the possibilities.
But what you’re about to discover is how EASY it is to add the Facebook Pixel to WordPress.
You’ll be wondering why you never did this before.
In Ads Manager, find the Measure & Report menu. Go down the list and choose Pixels.
Create a Facebook Pixel
Now you’re going to find yourself in a whole new world of Facebook that you didn’t know was there. When prompted, click “Create a Facebook Pixel”.
Give your Pixel a name – your company name makes the most sense. Tick the box to confirm that you agree to the Facebook Pixel Terms (read them first, obvs), and then hit “Create Pixel”.
The next page asks how to link to your website. If you have a Wix website, it’s super-simple – it has its own automatic process.
However, we’re going to concentrate on adding the Facebook Pixel to WordPress sites.
Adding Facebook Pixel to WordPress
Adding the Facebook Pixel to WordPress has a few extra steps.
But it’s still super-easy.
You’ll need some code from Facebook.
When you’re under ‘Pixels’ in the ads manager, then click on ‘set up’ in the top right-hand corner. Click on ‘install pixel’ and a box should appear with your setup options.
In this case, we want to select ‘Manually install the code yourself’. Another window will open and if you scroll down you’ll see a big block of code that looks something like this…
Log into your WordPress Dashboard
Now you have your code, you’ll be able to add it to WordPress.
Click on Plugins, then ‘Add New’.
You’ll need a plugin called “Insert Headers and Footers”. You might need to type that into the search bar.
Install the “Insert Headers and Footers” plugin.
Get the code you copied from Facebook and paste it into the “Scripts in Headers” box.
And click Save.
Simple!
I told you it was easy.
But, if you’re still a little lost, then this video talks you through it each step of the way.
Test Your Pixel
There are a couple of ways to do this.
Go back into the Facebook Ads Manager, and go back to Pixels.
Now that you’ve set it up, the interface will look different.
Facebook will present you with various options for testing your Pixel. Follow each on-screen instruction, and it will check the Pixel connection.
Alternatively, you can install the Chrome Pixel Helper extension. It’s free and provides all the evidence you need that your Pixel is operational.
Once installed, visit your site and click on your new Chrome extension – it should confirm whether the Pixel is live.
Setting up Custom Conversions
OK. Now we have the Pixel set up, let’s set it to work.
The Pixel will report actions that Facebook users take in relation to your Facebook Ads.
The simplest way to do this is to set up Custom Conversions.
They couldn’t be simpler to initiate!
Go back to your Pixel panel, and click Custom Conversions.
And then click on the blue “Create Custom Conversions” button.
A dialogue box pops up with a whole bunch of options.
From here, you need to type in the URL for the page of your site that indicates a conversion. It could be a “thank you” page that appears after a new user signs up to your mailing list or makes a purchase.
Change the URL drop-down to “equals”.
You don’t need the “Conversion Value” (unless you’re explicitly tracking purchases for specific products – in which case, enter the price of the product).
Click “Create”, and you’re done!
Additional things you might want to do
You’ve set everything up that needs setting up. But you might want to add some additional features to really hone into campaign specifics.
Perhaps you want to gauge engagement and conversion stats relating to your sales page or perhaps you’re launching a new product, and you’d like to monitor how your existing (and new) audience responds to it.
Perhaps you write a blog about your new product, with links to the new product page.
If you want to explore the deeper depths of your campaign tracking, you can create a Custom Conversion with the title “View Content”.
Your “View Content” conversion will show you:
- How many visitors clicked into your blog post from your Facebook ad.
- How many of those visitors engaged with the blog post further by clicking an internal link to your product or sales page
- How many people actually bought your product as a direct outcome of your Facebook ad.
I’m sure you can see how valuable this information can be.
And in comparison with previous campaigns, you’ll be able to establish which type of campaign approach yielded the best results from your visitors.
Standard Events
Standard Events offers another way to track conversions. This video will help you get more from Standard Events, including the features and the set-up.
Did I mention Instagram?
If your Facebook and Instagram accounts are linked (and if they’re not, give it a try!), you’ll get metrics regarding your Insta campaigns in the Facebook Ad Manager as well.
So, there you have it. The Facebook Pixel takes minutes to set up but will give you a wealth of information to help maximise your future and existing marketing campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.
Gavin
