Top 5 Reasons You Should Be Using the Facebook Pixel

Facebook ads remain a useful tool in the digital marketer toolkit. However, if you are using Facebook ads and not using the Facebook pixel, you are missing out on a lot of opportunities to gain more value and results from your ads. If Facebook ads are not currently part of your digital marketing strategy, the power of the pixel may give you a reason to look closer at this advertising opportunity. Check out the top 5 reasons you should be using the Facebook pixel and keep reading for a bonus reason.

What is the Facebook Pixel?

In its most basic form, the Facebook pixel is a small bit of code you place on your website. But that doesn’t describe the true value of the pixel. Its power lies in how it connects data about your website traffic to Facebook ads. The pixel collects data by sharing cookies with site visitors and then triggering them to track those users while they interact both with your website and your Facebook ads. It collects data related to the traffic to your website specifically from clicks on your Facebook ads. It then shares that data with Facebook giving you access to powerful marketing tools that can drastically increase your return on investment (ROI) on Facebook ads.

Here is why you should be using it.

Reason 1: Conversion Tracking

The most straightforward reason to use the Facebook pixel is conversion tracking. If you are running Facebook ads and encouraging people to visit your website, don’t you want to know exactly what they are doing once they get there? The pixel allows you to see how visitors are interacting with your site once they see your Facebook ad. It can even show you user activity across multiple devices. If someone sees your ad and then visits your website via mobile and then switches to desktop, you will know it. Insights like these can help you refine your ad purchase to impact customer behavior on your site. They can even help you make design changes on your own site to better take advantage of the inbound traffic.

Reason 2: Optimizing Ads for Value

Suddenly having access to more data allows you to drastically improve your ROI from Facebook ads. For instance, since the pixel can collect data on site visitors who make purchases and how much they spend, you can automatically show future ads to people who are likely to spend more on their next visit. And this is just one small example of how you can customize your ad spending based on the pixel.

Reason 3: Retargeting

You can begin to see the real power of the Facebook pixel when you take advantage of retargeting. Using data from your pixel and dynamic ads, you can target specific ads to people who have already visited your website. Imagine, someone visits your site but doesn’t complete a purchase. The next time they are on Facebook, they could see a dynamic ad related to their time on your website. If they added something to their shopping cart and then clicked away, you could even push an ad associated with that exact product.

Reason 4: Custom Audiences

The more you can target the audience for your Facebook ad buys, the more you can increase the ROI from each campaign. Installing and activating the pixel will allow you to use data to create custom audiences for each campaign. You can do more than simply target people who have previously visited your site. You can also create custom audiences for any tracked dimension. Perhaps you have a reason to target an ad to people who have visited a particular page of your site or visitors who have spent a certain amount of time on the site. There are numerous new audiences you can create to deliver your ads to the right consumers at the right time.

Reason 5: Lookalike Audiences

What if you could use the pixel to expand your customer base to even more Facebook users? The power of the pixel isn’t limited to tracking and targeting visitors to your site. Facebook can use your data and its existing targeting information to build another powerful type of audience, the lookalike audience. It can be comprised of people who haven’t visited your website but are known to have similar likes, interests, and demographics, as people who have visited your site. They are the consumers who are more likely than average to be interested in your product or service. This is a huge opportunity to grow your visitors and customer base.

Bonus Reason: Access to more Facebook Tools

If you are not yet using the Facebook pixel, you may be unaware of some of the powerful ad tools that Facebook makes available. You won’t have access to these tools until your pixel is activated. Once it is, you can unlock web conversion campaigns, dynamic ads, and advanced metrics like cost per lead and cost per conversion.

Whether you are ready to jump into an advanced pixel based campaign, or just want to experiment with some of the tools available, the first step is getting the pixel installed on your website. Once it is up and running, it will begin collecting the essential data you need to get more out of your investment in Facebook ads.