Downloading a helper browser extension is silly if you don’t have a Facebook Pixel already installed on a site you control. But what is a Facebook Pixel, what does one do, and why would you want one?
First off, it’s exactly what it sounds like: a pixel that you add to your website that is connected to Facebook. Adding one of these Facebook Pixels to your site allows you to harvest information from the people visiting your web page, and to track the actions they take while there. In most use cases, businesses install the Facebook Pixel on-site to track conversions and engagement from their Facebook ad campaigns.
Whether they add something to their cart, sign up for a newsletter, click on a pop-up, or engage with an ad while visiting your site: you’ll know about it if you have the tracking pixel installed. The benefits of this are legion. To quote G.I. Joe: knowing is half the battle.
Once you have access to the information, you can start to manipulate and study the data to learn about your customers. You can find out what they are engaging with on your page and what they’re ignoring; learn demographic data about your customers like gender, age, location, employment history, marital status, and whether or not they like the Seahawks. The types of information you can glean from a Facebook Pixel are covered in-depth here, on Facebook’s own site. Note: in order to make use of a tracking pixel from Facebook, you’ll need to have a Facebook page and account, Facebook Analytics and Facebook Ad Manager all set up beforehand.
Sound like a Facebook Pixel is something you want to set up? Here’s where to start. Don’t forget you need to be able to add code to your website in order to get the pixel installed there.
