Facebook Advertising: Don’t forget the Pixel

With so many things to remember for a successful Facebook campaign, it’s easy to forget the basics when you’re looking for solutions in account performance. What we usually do is review each audience, we try to find out where the bidding error is, or we worry about thinking about how our ads might be better.

Actually, the first thing we should do is take a look at how the Facebook pixel is working, especially if there are recent changes that might have affected it.

The pixel is, after all, one of the building blocks to understand the performance of the Facebook ads. It ‘s a few lines of code that link your Web And Facebook, and many optimization techniques depend on it working perfectly.

Let’s examine how to identify potential problems using the Facebook pixel window and then how to diagnose Web site problems Using the Facebook pixel helper plugin for the Chrome browser.

Identify problems using the pixel window

We start from that you have noticed some performance problems of your advertising campaigns: they just don’t add up. So, the first thing you should do, is check that the Facebook pixel is working properly, before you get to change audiences, bids and copy of the ad.

Now where are we going?

The first thing you have to do is open the Facebook platform and go to the pixel window. In the capture below you can see that it is in the “Assets” column.

   

Once you have clicked you will be taken to the main activity window of the pixel. In addition to things like pixel specific identification (the ID that links the pixel to your ad account), you can get a general snapshot of your pixel and the traffic data you are feeding on Facebook.

Below we can see that the main window is showing us raw pixel downloads during the last 7 days. Remember that these are representative of all shot pixels, whether they are from the Facebook traffic or not. People often get to this window and can’t figure out why the numbers they see in the Ad Manager don’t match what they see here.

Now that we are in this window, how can we identify problems in the pixel?

First, the raw-pixel records in the main window can be a good indication of site performance. Do you see a random drop in the pixel logs that recover quickly? It might be a good time to consult Google Analytics or another platform to check if something was happening with the site that day.

Or in your case you’re not seeing any data? Then it appears that the pixel is not being deployed, deleted, or not working properly on the site. The next step is to go to the site and start browsing the pages to see what’s going on. You can also take a look at what URL´s, events, domains and devices are being traqueados and determine what things do not make sense. This is where you’ll discover most of the problems.

For example, if it is assumed that the pixel should only be in a domain but it is registering you from two different, there is a problem. Or sometimes you may be trying to locate which URLs on the site are registering traffic and could be the source of a problem. The URL section will help you discover that.

Often, the pixel can only be partially implemented. This means that ‘ page views ‘ can be tracked, but not ‘ purchases ‘ or ‘ potential customers ‘. By using Events, you can see what the pixel is following and what is not, helping you identify problems.

Once you have thoroughly scanned the pixel window and identified some problems to investigate, it is time to go to the site and examine where the pixel is and what it is registering.

Diagnosing the problem using the Pixel Helper

To review our website what we will do is to download the Facebook Pixel Helper. This plugin of Chrome, built by Facebook, helps us to understand the behavior of the pixel as soon as the page recharges.

If you’ve ever used Google Tag Manager To identify Adwords problems, this is very similar.

Once you have downloaded it you can navigate the page in question and look at the icon that lights up in your bar, indicating that there is activity of the pixel.

Once you have identified the icon you just have to click on it to open an explanatory window of what is happening in this web. You can see examples of how the pixel is picking up “Page view” and there are no problems on this website.

Compared to the image below, the pixel is indicating an error state and is not being loaded for this web. Besides, it’s not picking up “Page view” as it should.

In this case, we will need to find out why the pixel is not working, but at least we have the problem located.

The Pixel helper plugin can help you with pixel problems of any kind. You can generate a report of why it is not loading, why it is not linked to an account, or why it loads so slow. It depends on what you’re measuring you can use to see what you’ve been reporting to Facebook, from a purchase value to a product ID.

If you know in advance what the pixel should be doing, this plugin should show you what it is actually measuring or not.

Conclusion

There are so many things to set up in the Facebook campaigns That it is easy to forget the basic steps. Always check that your pixel is working properly using the processes and tools that we have taught you. It can save you a lot of time and effort looking for errors and Solucionándolos Facebook Marketing. If you have any question about how to implement it, do not hesitate to contact us!