What is a Facebook Pixel and why you MUST install one today – a Social Media Guide
The short version: Facebook Pixel is critical code that lives on your website that allows your business to be highly effective with your ads bringing you more leads and more business at a cheaper price. If you don’t want to decipher this yourself, click here now.
The Longer version:
It’s probably fair to say that today most businesses have a website.
Regardless if you sell clothing, gadgets, life insurance, coaching services, or high-end tech consulting services – your business needs to have a website. Why? Because when a customer is looking for your type of service, they start out at the Google search box. If your website doesn’t appear in the search result but your competitor’s business does, this is where your customer will land up.
So you now have a website and you manage to get potential customers to your site. But not everyone that lands up on your side buys from you. No everyone on your sites calls or emails you. Some look around and for whatever reason, they leave your site.
There is nothing you can do….WRONG.
What is the Facebook Pixel?
Right now people are clicking on your website but unless they leave their contact info, they are essentially anonymous. The second they leave your site, you have no way of contacting them. This is where the Facebook Pixel comes in.
The Facebook Pixel is the ability to turn those anonymous clicks into contactable people. In other words, when your web developer installs the right code in the right place, you would be able to send a Facebook Ad to those people.This is powerful stuff and you have most probably seen this in action yourself.
This is powerful stuff and you have most probably seen this in action yourself.
If you head over to a large website and you browse around looking at cameras for example. For some reason, you chose not to buy anything. Have you noticed that for the next while, almost every website you go to has the ads for the SAME camera you were looking at from that same retailer? This is no coincidence. Imagine if after looking at a specific camera for $899, you now see an ad from the same retailer offering the SAME camera but with a massive $200 discount – would you not seriously consider it now?
While the website owner doesn’t have your name or email address, they are still able to send you this highly targetted ad in the hope that you will be inspired enough and buy from them. If the offer is good, there is a high likelihood that you will.
The same applies to any industry. Search for “vacations in Hawaii” on a travel website and for the next while you see ads about Hawaii accommodation, Hawaii restaurants, Hawaii car rental. Search for “How to improve my business” on a business site and you will see ads from business coaches offering webinars.
Why should you add a Facebook Pixel today?
Right now people are on your site and right now people are leaving your site. Those that didn’t call you are gone forever. Those are customers that you could have done business with.
However, from the moment that you install the Facebook Pixel, you have options. You have the ability to make contact.
When you have the Facebook Pixel on your site, Facebook starts to collect vital information and it stores this data. The more info it collects, the more data it has, the more accurate and effective your ads will be.
Even if you are not using Facebook today to advertise, you should be setting your business to at least collect the data. The sooner you do this, the better position your business will be in WHEN (not if) you start to use Facebook to advertise.
What’s the catch with Facebook Pixel?
As with everything technological, there is a catch. In this case, it’s about knowing which Facebook Pixel Event to use and where to place it.
Inside the Pixel, there are categories called Events and it’s critical that you add the right event in the right area of your site. For example, the View Content Event is good to have on a page when someone lands on your site, but the Add to Cart Event needs to only be triggered at the point where the customer adds something to his/her basket.
Why? When you run an ad, you tell Facebook to help you target those people that came to your website. Facebook looks at your Pixel info and based on that it tries to decipher who it needs to show the ad to. If you used the wrong code at the wrong place, then you will confuse Facebook and your ad will not be effective.
If you just visited the travel website and clicked around random travel deals, imagine if you received an ad says “thank you for buying Travel Insurance”. Not only will you freak out a bit, but you not return to that website.
How to add Facebook Pixel the right way?
Reach out to your web developer and ask them if they have experience with Facebook Pixel. Do not accept a typical techie answer of “sure code is code”. The developer needs to understand how the Pixel works, where to place it, which events to trigger and where, as this is fundamental to getting your business leads and growing your business.
This is a marketing function and not a “developer” thing. Check out the official Facebook Pixel Help page where this is all explained in great detail.
If this is too complicated and you would like me to check out your website and grow your business with new leads and new customers, click here for more.
