How to set up a Facebook Pixel Properly

You’ve decided to add Facebook ads to your marketing strategy. Congratulations! You’re probably wondering what a Facebook pixel is and how it works. Let us try and explain that in short: When you build an ad on Facebook (with their online interface or self-service ads manager), you can add a pixel to your ad, which tracks what the users do on your website after they’ve clicked on your ad. 

You have an option of 3 types of pixels:

– Custom Audience Pixel – to create a custom audience for retargeting 

– Conversion Pixel – to track conversion events on your website (website conversion pixels) 

– Event Pixel – to track events on your website (action carrying a value, e.g., “subscribed to newsletter”)  

In this article, we’ll focus solely on a Facebook pixel for website conversions, the conversion pixel. When you add a pixel to one of your ads, you’ll be asked for a code, which will look something like this:

This code is to be inserted on your website, inside the body section (right before </body> tag). 

What this pixel does is collect data about the user who clicked on your ad. If they visit your website, the pixel will know which page was visited and what url was shown. 

This is how you can track conversions, i.e., how many people visited your website after clicking your Facebook ad (or at least – how many of them viewed the targeted page) using the Facebook pixel.

Note that you can set up a custom audience of people who visited specific pages on your website, even if they didn’t convert (i.e., didn’t make an order). You can then target this custom audience with other Facebook ads, remarketing to them what you showed to them earlier!

Create and install a Facebook pixel

If you have a website, just copy and paste the code Facebook provides on their pixel wizard page. If you don’t have a website yet or don’t know where exactly to put this code, ask a WordPress professional or a developer for assistance. 

Note that it’s really important not to place your Facebook pixel too early in the body HTML section, otherwise it may not work properly. Also, if you have a website built with WordPress, don’t copy and paste the code Facebook provides in your WP backend under “Settings,” because that won’t work. You should ask a developer to add this code instead (more on that below).

Once you have the code, go to your Facebook ad manager and create a new campaign! Note that if your pixel is not installed on your website, you will see an option under “Audiences” to upload pixels.

Now, just follow the instructions step by step – first select how many times people should be shown the ad before being counted as “converted.” Fans are considered converted after 7 days, while most other people are considered converted after 30 days.

Afterwards, you’ll be asked to select what kind of conversions you want to track for your ad – make sure to click on the drop-down menu and choose “website” conversion. 

Once you’re done, Facebook will ask you to choose what happens after a conversion is counted – do note that this part is mandatory. You can choose either the Ad Set or your Website Conversion value to be credited with conversions. 

When all’s finished, click on create pixel and download it. Now, there are 2 options here:

1. If you have a WP website, go to Plugins -> Add New and search for the Facebook Conversion Pixel by MonsterInsights plugin. Install it and activate it – now you can visit your WP dashboard under Settings -> Facebook Conversion Pixel and set up all the options within this plugin!

2. If not, no worries – ask a developer to help you by using a snippet or following this guide.

Once you have a pixel installed on your website, all you need to do is select the correct custom audience and set up your ad targeting! 

If this sounds overwhelming to you, you can always reach out to us if you need assistance. We are here to help!