Facebook Pixel – The Who, What, When, Where, and Why You Need It

If you have your own business, a website and a Facebook page, there is a good chance that you would have come across notifications about the Facebook Pixel or at least people recommending you use it. Unfortunately, this is another one of those notifications (!!)

If you are not familiar with this term, this blog will walk you through the who, what, why, when and where. So, let’s waste no time and get started…

Who?

A pixel is a marketing tool developed by, you guessed it, Facebook. This tool makes it easier for businesses of all sizes to connect their web traffic and interactions between your Facebook  page and your website. According to the social media giant, “the Facebook Pixel is an analytics tool that allows you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising by understanding the actions people take on your website”

So, what actually is the Facebook Pixel?

It’s a piece of code which is generated by Facebook and pasted into the header code on your website; similar to Google analytics. This code then sits in the background and watches how users interact with your website. When a user logs into Facebook again, the pixel will collate the data about them from your website and the appropriate adverts will be shown . Have you ever browsed a website, then used, and a Facebook advert pops up with the business you were looking at? Spooky eh?!?!

Not really because it’s all down to the Facebook Pixel.

Why Do You need it?

The Facebook Pixel helps a business owner to learn how the users of their website behave. With this, you can help to target future adverts at the right time to the right customers. This can save you money on wasted ad spend to irrelevant people and give a gentle nudge to previously interested users to about your business. It can massively increase your brand awareness by returning ads to Facebook feeds for your users.

When Should I use It?

Even if you don’t plan to run any Facebook adverts in the near future, it’s worth adding the Facebook pixel to your website. It can begin tracking user data over a period of time. This way, when you do decide to run an ad, the information you need has already been collated. This means you can effectively target your adverts.

Where Do I Put it?

To utilise the Facebook Pixel, you need two things; a Facebook adverts account (to create the Pixel) and a live website to install it on. The pixel can be created by visiting the Events Manager menu on in your Facebook Page Manager and following the instructions to create a Pixel. When the Pixel is setup, the generated code can be added to your website header code in a matter of seconds. This provides a link between your website and Facebook for the Pixel to retrieve the relevant data. If you want to review the information later, you can visit Events Manager again and view the insights there.

So, there you have it. A quick guide on what it is, why you need it and how to use it.

If you are not sure how to go about installing the Pixel code on your website, I can help.