Facebook Pixel and Custom Conversions Simply Defined

The Facebook Pixel is a multipurpose advertising tool which encompasses essential tools for advertising on the most popular social media platform; it unlocks gateways to simplified conversion tracking, optimisation and carefully crafted retargeting ads. It is an important tool if you have ads running on Facebook, or if you wish to run ads on Facebook sometime in the near future. The Facebook pixel, in basic terminology, is a snippet of code that Facebook provides you with when you register your business, which you can place on your website.

 

A disclaimer for people unfamiliar with coding: You DO NOT need to be a developer, or know how to code, to make use of Facebook Pixel.

This code then works for you by rendering pixel data from which you can draw numerous conclusions such as:

• Making sure your advertisements reach your targeted audience.
• Building a larger and wider advertising audience.
• Tracking your conversions and generated revenue.

The Facebook Pixel is primarily used because it allows you to:

• Tracks Conversions

For those of you who are unaware, a conversion on your website is basically defined as a completed action you want someone to make on your website; this conversion can be comprised of numerous different actions, such as a completed purchase a customer has made on your e-commerce website, a subscription to your email newsletter or simply an inquiry or a comment left on your website.

Your Facebook Pixel facilitates the tracking of conversions made on your website with renewed ease. By creating a Pixel and adding it to the header of your web pages where conversions are meant to happen, you can actively track who converts as a result of your Facebook ads across a multitude of devices, including desktop computers, tablets and mobile phones. It also allows you to instantly check how much you are spending on each conversion; and how much revenue you have generated from successful clicks by visitors, on services you are offering on your website. The information you can derive from this tracking is paramount in helping you refine your advertising strategy and calculating your ROI (Return on Investment)

• Optimize Ads

The Facebook Pixel automatically shows ads to the customers who have the highest possibility of conversion. It allows you to drive more people to your website and increase conversions. Facebook will automatically improve your ads and show them to a group of people who are more likely to convert. Facebook Pixel manages to do this by allowing you to make use of custom conversions.

 

Custom conversions give you the ability to track and optimise for conversions without adding anything to the Facebook pixel that has already been implemented on your site. Custom Conversions also partially replace Standard Events – an advanced feature of the Facebook Pixel, which, in layman’s terms, are actions that occur on your website due to organic reach (unpaid) or as a result of Facebook ads (paid). With Standard Events, you adjust the Facebook pixel on particular pages to help track or optimise for conversions.

The main thing to understand is that Custom Conversions have been implemented to make your life a little bit easier, as you will not have to manually copy and paste the code into the header of your website.

You can use the custom conversions option on Facebook Pixel for a variety of purposes. It is primarily used to create completion pages which are seen by visitors on your website after they have successfully completed a conversion. These completion pages are typically pages which thank the visitor for their patronage.

You can also choose the type of conversion and add a monetary value, if applicable. For example, if you create a Custom Conversion that tracks visitors to a sign-up page for a paid newsletter, you can include the cost of the newsletter. This feature will help you figure out if your ad campaigns are profitable.

• Create Retargeting Ads

Your Facebook Pixel allows you to create retargeting ads on Facebook. They have become extremely important over recent years as they are the most effective means of advertising to a specific custom audience that have visited your website before, but they may have left before completing a conversion.

Moreover, if you have the resources, you should continue to make use of traditional means of getting in touch with potential customers and clients i.e.; emailing and sending mail, as it can contribute a useful chunk to your conversion rate. For example, you may spend the entirety of your day sending a hundred emails to prospective customers and clients to sign up for your weekly newsletter, only to get a 10 percent conversion rate; meaning only 10 people out of the 100 people you sent the emails to will take action and register. You may proceed to follow up with the remaining 90 people by sending more emails, which may cause another 10 percent conversion. Now you have approximately 20 people who have registered for your newsletter, thereby doubling your conversion rate bit by bit.

However, you could put lesser effort into streamlining your Facebook ads experience for your customer and still achieve a greater, if not better, result from retargeted ads.

Now, what is the cherry on top of the cake? Advertising exclusively with the Facebook Pixel is dirt cheap, as you are targeting a custom audience which has been catered to your specific needs and interests.

Now the question arises. What exactly is a custom audience?

A Custom Audience from a customer list is a type of audience you can create made up of your existing customers. You can target ads to the audience you’ve created on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network.

You upload, copy and paste, or import your hashed customer list; which is based on a customer file, activity on your application, engagement on Facebook and traffic on your website, then you use the hashed data from it to match the people on your list to people on Facebook.

In the above scenario, you should resort to making use of Facebook ads as the average Facebook user is highly engaged. A Facebook user will check their newsfeed multiple times per day and as Facebook ads for custom audiences follow your specifically defined audience around the website, there is persistent engagement, allowing you to constantly brand yourself and remind visitors of their interest in your products. This also increases the chance of your products being shared to their friend’s list.

• Create Lookalike Audiences

Another important feature included in the Facebook Pixel is the ability to create look-alike audiences. This feature will allow you to reach new people who are, most likely, also interested in your business because of their similarity to your current customers. A look-alike audience is created from a source audience, which is a custom audience that may be based on pre-existing data that your pixel has stored on your best customers – a source audience may be based on the fans on your page, information gathered from your mobile application or data gathered by the pixel.

Moreover, you should consider keeping the size of your look-alike audience relatively small, as a smaller audience comprised of your best customers will net you greater revenue than a larger audience of customers who are not as engaged. The larger audience may grant you an additional reach, but those extra customers may not be as willing to purchase your products and services.

Conclusion:

The Facebook Pixel gives you an all-in-one package for all your online advertising. It is an invaluable piece of technology in today’s day and age as it allows you to take advantage of the social functions of Facebook and implement them into e-commerce, which is rapidly overtaking the trend of brick-and-mortar retail stores thanks to its increased convenience and accessibility.