The Facebook pixel is like that silent partner in the background (of a website), who made that one big investment (install/setting up/integration), making sure the business has resources (data) to carry on its activities. Quite important, aren’t they? According to Facebook, “you can use the pixel to make sure your ads are shown to the right people, drive more sales and measure the effectiveness of your ads.
Advertisers have been using Facebooks suite of Marketing tools for years now and in this post, we’ll run through some of the reasons why this specific analytics tool can help draw your business closer to its marketing goals.
WHY IS THE FACEBOOK PIXEL AN IMPORTANT TOOL FOR MARKETING?
Generating leads, increasing sales, acquiring new customers, improving awareness, just to name a few, are some important marketing goals that can be achieved with the proper use of the Facebook pixel.
The Facebook Pixel is an analytics tool that allows you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising by understanding the actions people take on your website. Basically, it uses a data driven approach to predict future customer behaviour.
“The pixel is a piece of code for your website that lets you measure, optimize and build audiences for your advertising campaigns.” – Facebook
Pratik Dholakiya, founder at Growfusely put it like this: “There’s no doubt that targeting customers by the data you’ve acquired about them, in particular their behaviour, is a great way to optimize your marketing strategy.”
Let’s jump into some of the ways the Facebook pixel can provide significant improvements to your marketing efforts.
RETARGETING
You’ve probably noticed that in the days following your last online window shop session, Ads for products similar to what you were looking at kept popping up. Don’t worry, your computer didn’t suddenly become a mind reader, it’s the magic of pixels at work.
The pixels are fired up every time someone visits your site and collect information on actions like ‘Add to cart’, ‘search’, ‘view content’ etc. that they take on your website. The data gathered from each visit can then be used to retarget customers by allowing you to show them ads based on their interest or preferences during their last visit to your website. You can choose to show them the exact same products they were looking at or similar products.
Just to be clear, the code itself doesn’t do the retargeting but it allows you know exactly who your ads should be targeted at the next time you run them.
TRACKING CONVERSIONS
After installing the pixel, you can choose which standard event you want to track for, so you’ll be able to see how many ad clicks were eventually converted. Make sure you have a clear goal in mind so you’re tracking for the right event. All the data will be available to view in your ads report and you’ll be able to see things like how much each conversion cost and how many people converted.
Facebook users access the platform via various devices on a daily basis and having the pixel installed can help you understand things like whether they are accessing and making purchases on their mobile devices or whether they switch to a desktop to complete the buying process.
The pixel lets you gain insight on how your audience interacts with your website after viewing your ads. The data collected on this behaviour can help you improve your ad strategy which takes you one step closer to aligning with your marketing goals.
CREATING LOOKALIKE AUDIENCES
This powerful tool can target people who may have purchased something from you in the past, had some kind of interaction with your ads or visited your website i.e. people who have expressed interest in your products or services, and then use the data to create an audience with similar interests as they’ll likely also be interested in what you have to offer.
Imagine you ran an online store that sells clothes and you had about 40 people who visited your website and showed interest in blue denim jackets. The pixel collects the data around their visit (actions on your website) and makes it available to you.
You’re now looking to increase sales/get some conversions, so you decide to run an ad for your unique collection of denim jackets. With the data you already have on previous visitors (thanks to the pixel), you can create a lookalike audience with similar interests, demographics, etc. and target your ads at them.
What you’ve done is that you have increased the probability of getting people to take a desired action on your website by targeting a broader pool of potential customers.
So, at the end of the day, Advertisers are looking to get the overall best results in the most cost-effective ways and using the Facebook pixel is a great way to get there.
This short and magical piece of code that’s embedded in your website, fires up every time someone visit to collect important data that can provide insights into customer buying behavior, that can then be used to retarget customers in future.
Want to find out more about how the Facebook pixel can help provide insights for your business? Contact us for a FREE CONSULTATION!