The Facebook Pixel: Why It Will Make Your Business Happy
Have you heard of the Facebook Pixel? It’s been around in different forms for a while but recently Facebook HQ rolled it all into one and back out into the world.
And it’s lauded around by all the digital marketing media bigwigs as vital to the success of a Facebook ad. Success advertising equals a happy business.
What is the Facebook pixel?
In a nutshell, the Facebook pixel is a little piece of code that sits on your website and tracks the movements of people who land on your website via a Facebook link. And it tracks what those people do on your site.
The point of the pixel is to improve the effectiveness of your Facebook ads through retargeting.
RELATED POST: How To: Retarget Your Advertising On Social Media
How the Facebook pixel works
Tracks visitors to your site via a Facebook ad or post, and assesses their site interaction - read your blog, sign up to your newsletter, browse your products, leave straightaway, etc
Collects a database of these visitors who have a demonstrated interest in you
Creates ‘lookalikes’: other Facebook users with similar interests, demographics and likes to your existing database
Offers these options to help you really target your audience when you create Facebook ads
Measures the result s of your ads so you see what works and what doesn’t
(Yes, it’s all very Big Brother watching).
The simple fact is that whatever it is you’re trying to sell - services or products - the people most likely to buy from you are your existing fans. Which means that the most effective use of your business advertising dollars is targeting the people who you know already like your stuff.
You can see where this is leading, can’t you?
Every Facebook account has it’s own unique pixel ID. What I want you to do now, yep, right now, is to find your and pop it into your website.
Trust me, it’s super easy. See here for Squarespace instructions and here for Wordpress.
Once it’s been installed correctly, a notification will pop up on your Facebook page saying it’s all good.
Why you should install the Facebook pixel now
It’s key that small businesses like yours and mine install the Facebook pixel on our websites before venturing into the world of Facebook ads.
This is simply because the pixel needs to learn about your audience. It’s a data-gathering bot. The sooner the pixel starts accumulating that data, the more it can collect and the better the bot will understand your target audience.
If you install the pixel right before or at the same time as you launch your first ad, you’ll be going in blind when it comes to targeting. There won’t be any existing data about how people behave on your site. The pixel needs to learn about your current audience: their demographics, interests, likes, concerns and needs.
Don’t forget that at its core, Facebook is a social platform - its 2 billion users are constantly sharing their thoughts, feelings and desires. And all of that creates a profile about each user. Yep, even if you’ve never filled out your profile stating your favourite food and TV shows, Facebook knows you well. Oh, Big Brother is certainly alive and well.
But as a business advertiser, you can use all that knowledge to your advantage.
So, go and install that Facebook pixel and you’ll be one big step closer to more effective, targeted advertising. And a happier, busier business.
About the author: Lilani Goonesena is an Australian freelance writer, SEO copywriter and Squarespace web designer based in Vientiane, Laos. She loves boosting freelancers and small businesses with web design, SEO content and digital marketing strategy. She writes an awesome weekly newsletter on digital marketing, social media, blogging, web design and "all that online stuff". Lilani also blogs at the delectable Eat Drink Laos, just for fun.