Note: Meta is phasing out the use of the term "pixel" and has replaced it with datasets. Find out everything you need to know about datasets here.
Tracking who comes to your website and the actions they take is one of the most useful metrics you can have in your marketing arsenal. What’s the point of running a marketing campaign if you don't know who’s interacting with it?
Enter the Facebook Pixel (now called Meta Pixel).
This useful little tool in your Facebook Ad Account allows you to track your website visitors and see what they are doing there. You can then tailor your Facebook ad campaigns based on their actions.
Want to know how to create a Facebook Pixel and use it like a pro? You're in the right place. Follow this step-by-step guide to get your Pixel set up in no time!
Prefer a video? 👇
Before your read about how to set up a Facebook Pixel, let's start with a simple question...
What is the Facebook Pixel?
You may have heard the term floating around but aren’t sure what it refers to. Well, the Facebook Pixel is a bit of javascript code from Facebook. The Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that lets you know who has interacted with your site.
You can use your Facebook Pixel to track conversions from your Facebook advertising. It helps you to measure the success of your ads and will show you if your target audience is completing the actions you want them to.
What might those actions be? Subscribing to your newsletter, submitting an email address, following you on social media, or making a purchase.
How to Create a Facebook Pixel
You can create a Facebook Pixel in your Facebook Business Manager or Meta Business Suite (depending which one you use).
Here's how:
1. Click on All tools on the left panel of your Meta Business Suite or Facebook Business Manager
2. Click on Events Manager
3. Then select Connect Data Sources
4. Select Web —> Click Connect
5. Enter a name for your Meta Pixel —> click Create Pixel
6. Enter the name of your website —> click Next
7. Choose how to connect your website (Facebook recommends choosing the Meta Pixel and Conversions API) —> click Next:
8. Select the partner you want to install the Pixel for:
Check below to learn how to install the Pixel on your website. It completely depends on the site provider you use and we only walk you through manual installation for Wix and Wordpress sites.
How to Install a Facebook Pixel on your Website
How you install a Facebook pixel on your website depends on the platform you use to host your site, for example, WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace.
There are two ways to install a Pixel on your website, either directly through Facebook if you want to use one of Facebook’s partner integrations as in the choose a partner screenshot above or manually using the code from Facebook.
Option 1: How to Install a Pixel Via Facebook's Partner Integration
Facebook will walk you through the detailed instructions like this:
You will follow the steps it shows you until you reach the end screen and everything is set up:
Here is an example of what the screen looks like if you want to connect your Pixel using this method for a WordPress website:
While this is how you install your Pixel directly via Facebook, you can find the detailed Facebook Pixel implementation guide below to manually install your Pixel on a Wordpress or Wix site.
Option 2: How to MANUALLY install a Facebook Pixel Using Code
If you or your web developer want to install your Facebook tracking Pixel manually, follow these steps:
1. Head to Data sources (the triangle in the left hand menu of events manager) and select the Pixel you want to install
2. Click Continue Pixel Setup
3. Select Meta Pixel —> click Connect
4. Select Install Code Manually
5. Click Copy Code and paste it to your website code in the bottom of the header section just above the </head> tag
How to Install your Facebook Pixel Manually on a WordPress Website
Here’s how to install your Pixel manually with WordPress:
- Download the plugin Header Footer Code Manager (HFCM)
- Click on HFCM
- Add snippet
- Give the snippet a name
- Snippet type is HTML
- Select Site Wide
- Paste the code you copied from Facebook in the Snippet / Code section at the bottom
- Hit save. It's done! 🙌
After you connect your Facebook Pixel with your website, you can continue setting up your Pixel back in Facebook Business Manager or Meta Business Suite (whichever you started in)
For Facebook to get as much pixel data as possible from your site, you need to activate the Automatic Advanced Matching setting like this:
9. You need to verify the domain & add it to your Meta Business Suite or Facebook Business Manager
10. Add your website domain and click Add
11. You will get a few options - this is how to verify your domain by selecting Option 1 —> Copy this meta-tag: Copy the code you see in that section
12. Go to HFCM in WordPress and create a new snippet
13. Add the code you just copied from Facebook to the Snippet / Code section at the bottom
14. Go back to Facebook and click on Verify Domain
NOTE: it could take several hours until Facebook verifies it for you, so keep trying if you've done the steps above, it will work 😁
Once approved, you will then have the option to Create Events, you can skip here to learn how to do that
How to Create and Install your Facebook Pixel Directly on a Wix Website
For Wix sites, there's another easy option for creating your Facebook Pixel directly in your site manager. So you can skip all the steps about copying code!
Here’s how to create AND install your Pixel with the Facebook Integration directly from Wix (no need to login in to Facebook first).
- Open up your Wix dashboard (get here by clicking WIX in the top left-hand corner of the website editor)
- Click on Marketing and SEO
- Click on Marketing Integrations
- Select the Facebook Pixel & CAPI option
- Click the Connect to Facebook option
- Login to your Facebook page
- Choose the business page you want to create the pixel for
- If you want to create a Facebook pixel, select Create New Pixel
- Name your pixel
- Click Continue
- Your Meta Pixel is created, yay!
- Click Continue (double-check that you created the pixel for the correct business manager)
- If it’s right, confirm the settings by clicking Continue
- Click Next on this screen:
- The process is complete! You should see this screen where you click Done
Alternative Option: How to Install your Facebook Pixel Manually on a Wix Website
If this option doesn't work and you want to add the code for your Pixel manually in the backend of the your Wix site, follow these steps:
- Login to Wix
- Choose the website you'd like to add the GTM tracking code to, then Edit Site
- Click Settings
- Then click Advanced Settings
- Select Custom Code
- Paste your Facebook Pixel Code into the provided space
- Select All Pages
- Select Head under "place code in"
- Click Apply
You will then need to go back to Facebook Business Suite or Meta Business Manager to verify your domain:
- Click Data sources
- Click Verify Domain
- Follow the same process as above to post the Meta tag in Wix
How to Test if a Facebook Pixel is working
1. Download the Pixel Helper Extension for your browser
2. Go to the website you created the Pixel for
3. Click on the Facebook Pixel Helper Extension icon in the top right corner
4. Cross-check the Facebook Pixel Id matches the one you created (you can find it in your Facebook Events Manager in the Meta Business Suite or Facebook Business Manager)
Learn More: "All You Need To Know About Facebook Datasets"
How to Create Events and Custom Conversions With a Facebook Pixel
Now everything is set up you can test events and create custom conversions to have a better overview of customer behavior and interaction with your ads and website.
What Are Custom Conversions?
Custom conversions are the data points you choose to track your website or Facebook ads conversions, they help you measure customer actions more specifically.
When you create an ad, Facebook will offer you generic conversion events to track:
When you create a custom conversion, you choose the rules for your campaigns.
What Are Events & Event Tracking in Facebook?
Events are the actions people take on your website, and tracking them can help you make better decisions about your ad spending, create custom audiences and be more accurate with the people you target your ads to.
The default event for your Meta Pixel will be page views.
You’ll see these at the bottom of your Events Manager —> Data Sources page:
To get more accurate data about your customer behavior, you can create different custom conversions:
1. Click on Custom Conversions on the left toolbar in your Events Manager click the blue button that says Create Custom conversion
2. Click and it will take you to this screen where you will select the pixel you just created as a data source, name your conversion, add the website URL & conversion value, click Create:
3. You should see the Success message —-> Click Done
4. Final step BEFORE you can create a new Facebook ad with this custom conversion —--> head back to Data sources and select Custom conversions and select Add —--> Add a custom conversion
- Choose the Ad account you want to connect with the Pixel
- Congrats! You can now use your Meta Pixel and custom conversions in your ad campaigns
How to Use the Custom Conversion From Your Pixel in Facebook Ads
1. Open Facebook Ads Manager (if you don't have an account, here's how to create one)
2. Choose Create New Campaign —--> Select Sales —--> Click Continue
3. Click New Sales Ad Set
4. Choose website as your conversion location and select the Pixel you just created and want to use for tracking —--> Choose the Conversion Event
Facebook will show you a list of default events (such as add to cart, or purchase) but you can also choose the custom conversion you created. To be able to choose this, that conversion needs to have occurred at least once beforehand.
All good? Congrats for making it this far! You're probably now an expert on how to create a new Pixel in Facebook.
Your Meta Pixel is up and running and ready to use to track the interactions potential customers have with your website. 🕺
Bonus: Create Custom Audiences
You want data from your website to be sent back to Facebook so you can understand who is interacting with your site.
With this learned data, you can create custom audiences and it helps you to decide who to include or exclude in your ad campaigns.
Using your Meta Pixel correctly will save you money on ads as they won't be shown to people who are not likely to interact with them.
When you're running ads, give Facebook as much information as possible to know what is working and what isn't.
How to Give Facebook Pixel Access to Your Agency or Partners
Looking to share access to your Facebook Pixel with an agency or partner who manages your Facebook Ads for you?
The easiest way is through Leadsie.
With Leadsie, sharing access to your Pixel and other access takes just a few clicks, without the need to navigate through Facebook Business Manager. You can even do it from your mobile device:
If you’d like to get access to your client's Facebook Pixel the easy way you can create a Leadsie account in under a minute. AND get a free 14-day trial to see how you like it.
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