Facebook Pixel and IOS Changes that Happened Still Effect You Today
There are significant updates and changes concerning the Facebook Pixel and Apple IOS in regard to data privacy and Facebook ads. This article by Jon Loomer, “Enforcement of iOS 14 Changes for Facebook Advertisers Begins” does a great job of explaining what you need to know. Also, here are Facebook’s instructions for Pixel requirements you need to address.
What is the Facebook pixel and why would you possibly care?
The Facebook pixel is a snippet of code that is generated in the Facebook ads manager. It is unique code that is placed in the back-end of your website that tracks behaviors and reports back to Facebook. It makes your engagement efforts, ads, and business page communications cohesive, going beyond what Google Analytics can tell you in terms of matching website traffic to Facebook users. Here is a more in depth explanation of the Facebook pixel and how to generate one.
So, why would you care about a Facebook pixel and how would you use it to benefit your business?
At a very minimum, generating a Facebook pixel and placing it on your website is a great start. From the minute you put the code on your website, it will begin collecting data. If you ever want to put that data to work later, it will be ready for you.
The Facebook pixel can help you retarget, optimize, and track.
The data the Facebook pixel collects has to do with people visiting your website from Facebook, what they clicked on to get there (what enticed them), what device they used, where they went on your website, if they filled out a form, made a purchase, visited a specific page, and much more. This is helpful if you decide to run ads and tailor them to people who have already been on your website or are repeat buyers, for instance. Facebook will also give you demographics of people, so you know things like age, gender, geographic regions, and more about who is engaging with your ads and website.
This is where retargeting comes into play. You can retarget people on Facebook with ads that cater specifically to how people have interacted on your website. Want to tailor an ad to only your customers with a up-sell item to something that you know they already have purchased? The Facebook pixel makes this possible. Want to tailor an ad to people who abandoned shopping carts somewhere along the checkout process on your website? You can do that too, with the Facebook pixel. The ideas for utilizing the Facebook pixel with more personalized ad content and graphics are vast.
