Before you run an Ad on Facebook that will send customers to your website, be sure to set up your Facebook Pixel.
(don’t worry – it’s not as hard as it sounds).
If you don’t know what the Facebook Pixel is, or how it works:
- Go to Page 13 of my Facebook Ads book.
- If you don’t have the book, get it sent to you here free
- And / or keep reading below.
The best way I can think of explaining what the Facebook Pixel is right now is: “it’s like a invisible tracking beacon from Facebook, that sits hidden on your website.”
That’s what it is.
Now, this is what it does: “it finds out who specifically visits your website. As long as these people have a Facebook account, Facebook can marry up the visitors to your site, with the same people on Facebook.”
Now I’m on a roll here, so let’s keep going.
What can you do with the Facebook Pixel?
After having your Facebook pixel installed on your website (I explain how on page 22 of this book / or you can just google it). The next time you run an Ad on Facebook for that same business (website), you can say to Facebook:
“Remember those visitors who came to my website, but didn’t buy my product? Well, show this ad just to them people. DON’T waste my advertising budget on people who have never come to my website and who probably don’t even know me.”
(this is just one of many many common scenarios you could set up).
It’s difficult to get strangers to become your customers.
It’s easier to get people who already know you or your business, to become your customer. And I’m talking 2x – 4x easier. Not just 4% easier.
But if you never set up your Facebook Pixel on your website, Facebook CAN’T know who did and who didn’t visit your website.
If you’re wanting to even try out Facebook Ads and you will use your website, setting up the Facebook pixel is not really even an option. If you were just going to use your Facebook Business page to advertise your business, and your customers can contact you direct on your Facebook page, then you won’t need to set up your Facebook Pixel, however, your options to market your business are limited. It’s ok and you might get some ok results.
If you’re serious about Facebook Marketing for your business, you must set up your Facebook Pixel. Remember: it will track help you “tag” people who visited your website, and then you can market to just these same people in future on Facebook, Instagram, etc.
With no FB Pixel, your Ads will be shown to your target market at random. This will mean more expensive and possible non-profitable and non-breakeven results for your marketing campaigns.
Where To Find Your Facebook Pixel
- First, whilst on a laptop or desktop (not mobile) go to business.facebook.com. If this is the first time you have been to this link, you will be prompted to set up your Facebook Business Account. This is a good thing, complete the steps.
- Once you have set this up, every time you go business.facebook.com (which you will to manage your Business Pages, Your Ads, and the “business side” of your Facebook Account), you will see something like this:
3. In the top left corner you have the three lines (known in the online industry as a ‘hamburger menu’). When you click that you will see this:
4. I have highlighted the Pixels option under the ‘Measure & Report’ heading. When you click on Pixels as shown here, now you will see:
- Click on ‘Set Up’, because you are setting up your Facebook Pixel on your site. (your Pixel lives here in this section).
- Click on ‘Manually Install the Code Yourself’ and you will see:
All these gibberish, non-sense looking letters, numbers and symbols is your Facebook Pixel! Now you know what he looks like! (I think it’s a he).
I have blocked out the unique number that is individual to my account, just to protect the security of my Pixel and Business Account – because this is all out in the open for the public to see.
I also would not suggest you share your Facebook Pixel with the world either, however, I have shared with mine with Web Developers in the past. Your Pixel code is not like your ATM pin number, however in the wrong hands it could ruin your reputation with Facebook.
So share your Pixel with only someone you believe you can trust.
5. If you know a bit about Web Development, I can say “just install your code in the Head Tags on all pages of your website”. I don’t know HOW to do that myself, don’t worry. But I know that’s the instructions and what to do.
In the screenshot above, you will also see there is an option to Email The Instructions to a web developer, this will send them your code and with the instructions of how to install it.
Note: Installing your Facebook Pixel is 2 minute job. So pay someone accordingly and don’t let them convince you otherwise. If they say it’s a delicate job or it takes time, just hire someone else.
It’s hard to find a trusty Web Developer like it’s hard to find a trust Mechanic. Because WHO KNOWS if what they are saying even makes sense!
After Your Facebook Pixel is Installed
If your website is new, it’s unlikely you already have 100 visitors a day checking out your business. It’s more likely you have zero visitors for a little while, except for yourself and your web developer.
Therefore, even though your Facebook Pixel is installed on your website, it won’t start to see and tag people because there is no one on your website.
If or when your website gets 100 visitors a day, Facebook will be making note of all of them.
And Facebook can keep “tagging” these people and adding them to your lists, so you can show your follow up Ads to these people late. Adding people to a list in Facebook, is the plain English way of saying “Creating Custom Audiences”, you can learn more about that on my other article here.
More Important Notes to Understand
- Every website, should have its own individual Facebook Pixel.
- Every one ‘Ad Account’ has its own unique Pixel.
- It is possible to have more than one Ad Account in your business.facebook.com manager account.
- Don’t mix your Pixels.
- If you own two websites:
- One you sell your Bookkeeping services.
- And on the 2nd you sell your Famous Homemade Pasta Sauce.
- You should (must if you want it to work) use a different Pixel for each website.
- Facebook will begin to learn more and more about everyone who visits your website. So don’t confuse it by tracking two different websites or two different genres of people.
- There’s lot of complicated things you can do with your Facebook Pixel:
- Track people who ‘purchase’ your product.
- Track different people who ‘add to cart’ only, but who don’t checkout and buy.
- Track different people who again who READ your product info, but they don’t ‘add to cart’ nor do they ‘buy’.
- You could also track people who enter their Name and Email to get your weekly newsletters.
- All these are great, but keep it simple first with basic custom audiences – outlined by me here.
It’s very possible that Facebook Pixels, pixel code, websites, and all of this info has left you feeling more confused than what you were when you started reading.
But let me assure you it really is a 2 minute job for someone to set up for you.
In simple terms, it’s like this:
- Get your unique Facebook pixel code (bunch of unique numbers and letters).
- Install it on your website (this gives Facebook eyes on your website).
- Back on Facebook, Facebook keeps track of everyone who visited your website.
- You can now run an Advertisement JUST to these same people! (rather than spending money to advertise to people who may or may not be interested in what you’re selling).
The bottom line is: Get it installed asap.
If you have more questions about this, post a specific question below in the comments and someone in my team will get back to you within a couple of days.
Talk soon,
Craig Marty
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