- What is it
- How it works
- What kind of events I have
- Standard events
- Custom events
- Parameters
- Remarketing based on events
- Custom conversions
- Conclusion
What is it
The facebook pixel is the engine of the facebook analytics and ads. It similar to Google Analytics. You can track every user interaction both on web and app.
It’s a „simple” code snippet that you have to install on your site and it gives you the ability to track the user interactions, but for in-depth tracking you have to add more. It is not rocket science, so let’s get dive into it 🙂
How it works
First of all, you have to install the Facebook pixel code. If you have Google Tag Manager, you just have to add the ID of the code to this tag (Simo’s tag). If you have an ecommerce site or some kind of CMS, I guess you can install it directly, too. But I highly recommend to use Google Tag Manager, because of it’s flexibility.
If you’ve added the base pixel code, you can track the page views. It is a good start, but why you stop here if you can go further? You can add events, such as at Google Analytics
Facebook Pixel events
You can add 2 type of event to your site or app. The standard and the custom events.
Standard Facebook events
The standard events are predefined, covers 90% of the needs of an ecommerce shop. It means, if you don’t need any specific event, you are good to go with it.
There are a lot of predefined events. Here you can find the standard events. As you can see, it can cover almost every user interaction, a ecommerce site can receive/generate.
The code is look like this:
fbq('track', 'Lead');
The most ecommerce specific event is the Purchase. But you can almost “clone” the Enhanced Ecommerce steup of Google Analytics, because you can add ViewContent, AddToCart and InitiateCheckout. Of course, you can’t replicate enhanced ecommerce like reports, but you can track the product scope interactions.
Beyond that you can track other type of user interactions, the most common is the Lead, for a soft conversion, but you can track registrations (CompleteRegistration), Search and a lot more 🙂
Custom events
If the standard events are not enough for you, you can create custom events. It has the same structure, than the custom events.
fbq('yourCustomEvent');
You can add any name and any paramteres to this event. It’s up to you.
If you would like to use cust events and parameters on your ecommerce site (web) you can use it as a standard event, but if you would like to use it at your ecommerce app you can’t create custom conversions based on the custom event. It’s a bit odd, but since there is a lot of standard events, you can choose one. Need a bit more planning if you would like to optimize your Facebook campaigns for one specific app event.
Event parameters
As I mentioned above you can add paramters to the events. Both standard and custom events have parameters.
You can find here the list of the standard events and parameters.
It helps you to add more info, not just an event, eg. Add To Cart, but how many items are added to cart or what was the item name/id/variant/etc.
Just add these parameters to the events like this:
fbq('track', 'Purchase', {
currency: "USD",
value: 30.00
});
The code above not just sends he fact that your visitor just made a purchase, but the purchase value is 30 USD. The value is 30, the currency is USD.
Bear in mind, you can add more parameters/properties to the Purchase event and if you would like to implement dynamic remarketing you should add more, such as IDs, number of items, etc. But the required ones are only the value and currency
You can add additional parameters to every event. It’s not only helps you to analyze the user behaviour, but helps you to create custom remarketing lists.
Remarketing Lists based on Facebook Pixel
There is a whole blogpost about remarketing in general, take a look at it for more info.
You can create remarketing lists based on the events you created. You can use both standard and custom events and not just the events, but you can “filter” them based on the event parameters
Let’s say you track form signups on your site with the Lead standard event:
fbq('track', 'Lead');
If you have only one form, it should be enough, you can add or remove the users who made a Lead event to a list. But what if you have several forms with several options? You should add parameters. Like the name of the form and/or some of the answers/choices the user made.
fbq('track', 'Lead', {
content_name: "ContactForm"
});
So, you’ll have separate lists for every form submit. Of course, you can create a general Lead event where all the form submits are and you can make groups based on the content_name parameter or just add another parameter and use that to create groups
Custom conversion
Custom conversions are similar to the remarketing lists, but custom conversions are for tracking.
You can use the standard conversions to track your campaigns performance. Which is usually enough, but if you have to track the submits of one specific form, you can do it, too. Just “filter” the original Lead event with the content_name parameter.
Or if you have a sneaker store and you run a campaign focused on Air Jordans, you can create a custom conversion where only these purchases of sneakers count and the Facebook algorithm tries to find users who more likely to purchase Air Jordans not just make a “simple” purchase
Conclusion
You can track almost every user interaction with Facebook Pixel and make segments, remarketing lists based on your business needs.
My advice for the use of Facebook Pixel (and even every tracking task), start it with your business needs, what are the micro / macro conversion points, how your users use your ecommerce site and what is important for you.
If you have this write it down, a piece of paper is just fine. After that (and only after that) think about what you can implement. Facebook Pixel is just a tool, it has limitations, but never start the planning with the question of what can I do with [the name of the tool].
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