How to setup and install the new Facebook Pixel
Are you using the Facebook Pixel correctly?
All the work you do researching and setting up a new Facebook ad campaign can be worthless if you aren’t tracking the results and then optimising the campaign.
If you don’t install the correct tracking then you’re flying blind. You won’t know if your campaign is delivering the desired results and you won’t be able to track your ROI down to the penny.
Campaign tracking on Facebook comes from your Facebook Pixel. This is a piece of code that you install on every page of your website.
In this article you’ll learn how to setup the Facebook Pixel in your ads manager, how to install it on your website and how to create custom website audiences.
Step 1: Where to find the Facebook Pixel
The Facebook Pixel is located in your ads manager under the “Pixels” tab.
Go to ads manager
Then click the top left menu button and under “Assets” select “Pixels”
Here you’ll see 1 of 2 screens.
If you haven’t yet created your pixel you’ll see this:
Follow the instructions until you get to the pop up window with your pixel code.
If you’ve created the pixel but not actually installed it, you wont have any data yet so you’ll see an empty graph with a message which says no pixel activity.
To view your pixel code click on the actions button and then scroll down to View Pixel Code.
A pop-up window will appear with your pixel code.
This is known as the base code and will need to be installed on every page of your website.
For WordPress websites there’s an awesome free plugin called PixelYourSite that allows you to easily install the pixel across your whole site with just one click.
If you’re website is not in WordPress, here’s the how to install it on:
Step 2: Facebook Pixel WordPress installation
Go to the plugins menu and search for PixelYourSite.
Click install.
Activate the pixel.
Once you’ve installed and activated the plugin go to the PixelYourSite dashboard.
You’ll need to enter your Pixel ID into the section called “Add your pixel ID”.
To find your pixel ID, go back to the “Pixels” tab in your Facebook ads manager, it’s located in the top right corner under your pixel name.
Copy your Pixel ID and paste it into the Pixel ID field in the PixelYourSite plugin dashboard.
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click “Save settings”.
Congratulations, you’ve now installed the Facebook pixel on your site. Now when someone visits your site, from any source: search, social media, email etc, they get tagged by the pixel, matched on Facebook and you can then start building up website custom audiences of people who have visited your site.
Step 3: How to check the Pixel is working
To check that the pixel is working, go to your website and load a page.
Then head back to the “Pixels” tab in Ads manager and in the right hand column under details it should say “Active.”
You can also use the Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome browser extension just to be sure.
Step 4: How to build your website custom audience in Facebook ads manager.
Now that you have created your pixel and installed it on your site, it’s time to create your custom audience of people who have been visiting your website.
Go to your ads manager and select “Pixels”. In your pixel dashboard click on “Create Audience”.
A pop up will then appear that looks something like this:
For now we will create the most basic website custom audience that is, everyone who visits your site.
Website traffic: keep as “Anyone who vistis your website.
Domain: You might not see this optional box if you only have the Facebook pixel installed on one domain.
In the last: You can change the number of days field from 30 up to a maximum of 180 days. But bare in mind that if you are running a retargeting campaign the greater the number of days from someone last visiting your site the lower the CTR.
Audience name: give your audience a name such as Blog Traffic (Last 30 Days).
Click create audience.
You’ll then see a message that’s says your audience has been created. To view your new audience go to the “Audiences” tab the same way you navigated to the “Pixels” tab.
Conclusion
To recap then:
Step 1 is to create your Facebook pixel in your ads manager by navigating to the “Pixels” section under the “Assets” tab.
Step 2 is to install it on your website, if you are using WordPress you can do so easily with the PixeYourSite plugin and just your Pixel ID.
Step 3 is to test to see if the pixel is active. To do this you can either load a web page and then head back to the “Pixels” tab to check on the pixel status or you can use the Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome browser extension.
Step 4 is to create your custom website audience of all visitors in the last X number of days.
Originally published at charlielawrance.com on September 17, 2016.
