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How to take your Facebook ads to the next level in one easy step

Part 1: How to get the most out of your social marketing budget by Audience Development Manager, Evan Lauterborn.

4 min read

Marketing Strategy

How to take your Facebook ads to the next level in one easy step

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The Facebook Pixel

The Facebook Pixel is a small bit of code that can be inserted into a website to capture cookie information from site visitors and then sync it with your Facebook Ads Manager account. It’s key to the success of any ad campaign where your goal is to drive traffic to a landing page or website. 

Captured user information is automatically matched with that person’s Facebook profile and sent to your Facebook Ads Manager account for use in site traffic analytics and retargeting. Because 2.41 billion people actively use Facebook each month, according to the company, the match rate is often quite high. 

Using the Pixel, you will be able to target people who have viewed your content or taken an action on your website with Facebook ads to supplement your primary marketing efforts. 

Have you ever looked at a sweater from J.Crew or sneakers from Adidas online, and then immediately been served ads for that same product on Instagram? That’s the power of the Facebook Pixel at work.

In addition, the Pixel is used by Facebook for conversions or traffic campaigns to determine whether people are taking the desired action once they click on your ad, such as viewing a landing page or filling out a form. Facebook Ads Manager will then use this data to automatically optimize your ad placements and find other people who are likely to take that same action.

In short, having a working Facebook Pixel will ensure your ads are more successful and your budget is more efficiently spent. For an in-depth explanation on how to create and install the Facebook Pixel on your website, click here.

 

Why You Should Care

According to Social Media Examiner’s “2019 Social Media Marketing Industry Report,” 72% of marketers use Facebook Ads, with 61% claiming that Facebook is their most important social platform. When so many brands are constantly competing for audience attention, ensuring you get the best possible ROAS has become more important than ever. 

The Facebook Pixel is the simplest way to combat ad saturation and overspending.

Running ads on Facebook without properly implementing the Facebook Pixel is like a football team without its coach. Players know their goal is to ultimately score a touchdown, but without a coach to provide oversight, the team would have no direction and couldn’t choose the most effective plays.

Facebook Ads Manager works in a similar way. Though you can run ads on Facebook and Instagram without Pixel implementation, the Ads Manager algorithm will have no idea if you are hitting your goals. It will serve ads blindly and waste budget showing your placements to people who likely will never buy your product or fill out your form. The Pixel allows Facebook to see whether your ads are converting, even after users have left the platform to visit your landing page.

You can also use all data captured by the Facebook Pixel for use in site traffic analytics and retargeting. Navigating to the “Pixel” tab in Ads Manager will allow you to see how many people with Facebook profiles are looking at your content and create audiences to retarget them in the future.

Stay tuned for the next installment of this multipart series on the Facebook Pixel for more in-depth insights and best practices about how to get the most out of your social marketing budget. You can sign up here for our monthly marketing updates.

 

Evan Lauterborn is manager of audience development at SmartBrief. He focuses on subscriber growth, subscriber retention, partnerships and managing the @SmartBrief Twitter account. Connect with him on LinkedIn.