Custom Conversions Archives - Jon Loomer Digital

Conversions for Meta Advertising Checklist

Jon Loomer — Mon, 23 Sep 2024 23:57:18 +0000

Conversions are the centerpiece of any effective Meta advertising strategy. They help you define success, measure performance, and optimize for the action that you want. If your focus isn’t on conversions, you’re likely swimming in misleading, low-quality results.

It’s easy to say, “Focus on conversions.” But, there are many steps required to make sure that conversion attribution is complete and accurate.

That’s why I created this checklist for website-first businesses. You may not need all of these steps, but you should at least consider them all. In this post, we’ll cover the following:

Add the Pixel
Standard Events
Custom Events
Custom Conversions
Conversions API for Web Events
Conversions API for Offline Events
Test Events
Understand Attribution
Interpret Results

I’ll cover the basics of each. At the end of each section, I provide a list of resources for deeper learning.

Let’s get to it…

1. Add the Pixel

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard the rumor that the pixel is about to die, I’d have at least $10. But, it remains relevant.

The Meta pixel is a snippet of code that is unique to the advertiser who controls it. When a page of your website loads, the pixel loads. Once that happens, any conversion events can be associated with the pixel. This will be necessary for conversion attribution, reporting, and optimization.

You need to add the pixel to your website. Not just on your home page. Not just the pages you believe are important. Every single page of your website. If some pages are owned by a third-party that allows you to inject your pixel, add it there, too.

I’d love to tell you that there is one, simple way to do this. But, it depends on how your website is set up.

If you’re lucky, there’s a simple integration. Shopify, for example, makes it very easy.

You can also inject the pixel to every page of your website using WordPress plugins and customizations of the header. I added the pixel to this website using Google Tag Manager.

Create a pixel.

To get started, go to Events Manager and click on the left to Connect Data Sources.

Select Web.

Enter the name of your dataset (whatever you’re calling your pixel) and click “Create.”

If you utilize one of the partners that can be used for integration, select it.

The “WordPress” integration utilizes the official Meta for WordPress plugin. Just know that you don’t necessarily need to use that plugin if your website is on WordPress.

If you’re connecting manually, let’s connect the pixel only for this demonstration.

Click “See instructions.”

You will now be taken through a pixel installation wizard.

Copy the pixel code and paste it into the bottom of the header section (right before the closing “head” tag) of the template of your website.

Consider turning on Automatic Advanced Matching to improve attribution (you can turn it on later within the Settings tab of Events Manager if you want to wait).

Apply a previously created pixel.

If you already have a pixel, find it within Events Manager under Data Sources. If there hasn’t been any activity on the pixel, select the option to Set up Meta Pixel.

If there has already been activity on the pixel, click the Add Events dropdown menu from the Overview tab and select “Add New Integration.”

Select “Meta Pixel” and click “Set Up.”

Choose to either manually add code or use partner integration.

From this point forward, the steps are the same as when creating a new pixel.

RESOURCES:

2. Standard Events

The pixel itself is pointless without events. Events notify Meta when an important action occurs so that it can be used for attribution purposes. For example, if someone who saw or clicked your ad performs that event, it can be reported in Ads Manager.

Standard events are predefined actions that any advertiser can track. Examples include Purchase, Add to Cart, Initiate Checkout, Complete Registration, and Lead.

Once again, there are multiple ways to add standard events.

Add standard events manually.

Standard events are marked with a separate snippet of code that will be important if you’re adding standard events manually.

I also have a resource that generates the code if you are adding it to a page manually.

The main pixel will load with each page load. An event should only load when the action it represents has completed. For example, you don’t want the Purchase event to fire until the purchase is completed. This is why you might add the Purchase event code to the confirmation page following a successful purchase.

I add standard events manually, specifically with Google Tag Manager. A separate tag and trigger is created for each standard event.

Use the Event Setup Tool

The Event Setup Tool is a codeless method for creating standard events. You’ll find it once you reach the final step after creating your pixel.

You can also find it within the Settings tab in Events Manager.

Enter the URL of the page where you want to add a standard event and click “Open Website.” NOTE: Your pixel first needs to be on this page.

The page will load and a box will appear at the top left for managing events.

Only events created with the Event Setup Tool will appear here. You can create an event by button click (if the button is detected on the page) or URL (the URL of the current page).

Use partner integration.

If you use a partner like Shopify, most or all of this manual work will be unnecessary.

RESOURCES:

3. Custom Events

The concept of a custom event is rather straightforward. This is an action that is important but it cannot be defined using one of Meta’s standard events.

When possible, use standard events. Meta has standard event data from advertisers around the world to help optimize ad delivery to make sure that the people who are most likely to perform the action that you want will see your ads.

But, this isn’t always possible. You also may not use custom events for delivery optimization, but instead to provide additional reporting information.

I track dozens of important actions on my website that cannot be defined with standard events. They include:

2 Minutes Time on Page
Scroll Depth 50%
2 Minutes AND 50% Scroll
Video Watched
Podcast Play
Google Referral
Internal Link Click
External Link Click

Custom events for website activity are most often sent using code. They utilize the same code structure as standard events, but you define them. If you send an event that Meta doesn’t recognize by name, it’s a custom event.

I use Google Tag Manager to track these custom events. The primary reason for that is that GTM offers built-in trigger actions for things like timers (to track time spent), scroll depth, and embedded YouTube plays.

RESOURCES:

4. Custom Conversions

Standard events and custom events are for tracking important actions so that they can be used for reporting, optimization, and even targeting. Custom conversions are similar, but they should not be used in place of standard or custom events.

Think of it like this…

You have a purchase event that fires whenever someone purchases a product from you. It could be your most expensive or least expensive product. It could be a training course or a t-shirt. They are all tracked as purchases.

Custom conversions allow you to segment those purchases. You don’t need code or help from partner integrations. It’s all done within Events Manager.

Click “Custom Conversions.”

Click to “Create Custom Conversion.”

You could create a custom conversion based on the specific URL that someone views.

Or select the specific standard or custom event…

…and then create a rule based on the specific URL, referring domain, or event parameters when that event fired.

A common use case for custom conversions is to add a column to your Ads Manager reporting for the purchase of the specific product that you’re promoting. Meta’s “Results” column will otherwise include all purchases (for example) that are attributed to your ads. But, those who engage with your ad may purchase something you didn’t promote. The custom conversion can provide more certainty.

Standard events fire on my website following any purchase or registration. I created custom conversions for the purchase of specific products and registrations to specific lead magnets.

RESOURCES:

5. Conversions API for Web Events

The purpose of the Conversions API is to send events to Meta directly from your server. Combined with pixel events from your browser, this can help provide a much fuller picture of conversions that customers are having with your business.

Of course, there are two primary ways that typical businesses can take advantage of this. One is for web events (we’ll get to offline events in a moment).

As discussed earlier, there have been rumors of the Meta pixel’s demise for years. It’s simply not as dependable as it once was. The reasons for this are mostly due to privacy restrictions and cookie blocking, but this is also where my technical expertise on the subject gets a little thin. The main thing is that the pixel alone has big holes.

The Conversions API for web events allows you to send a second set of events for website activity from your own server. By itself, the Conversions API for web events is far more dependable than the pixel alone. When you send events from both sources, Meta is more likely to reflect conversion activity on your website.

If you have some technical expertise or know someone who does, the Conversions API can be set up manually. Otherwise, it’s going to require partner integration.

The key consideration here is deduplication. Since events will be sent from two different sources, Meta will need to be able to sort out whether events are unique or duplicates. Otherwise, your results will be inflated.

This is where third-party integration can be especially helpful. Especially when a partner manages both your pixel and API integration, the deduplication is often done for you.

In some cases, this integration requires very little of you. If you’re on Shopify, it’s practically as simple as checking a box. That’s the case for many platforms.

I use the Conversions API Gateway, which mimics all of the events that are sent with the pixel. It utilizes an AWS server. While you can set up the API Gateway directly with Amazon (I have), you also may not need that much power (or cost). I’ve found a great alternative to be Stape, which allows me to set up the API Gateway at a fraction of the cost.

On average, I see about 10% additional events as a result of using the Conversions API Gateway.

This can be found within the Events Manager Overview tab.

RESOURCES:

6. Conversions API for Offline Events

Another reason you may send events using the Conversions API is so that Meta has events that do not happen on your website. In this case, you are passing offline events, which typically come from your CRM.

This method isn’t necessary for all businesses. If conversions happen exclusively online and you aren’t struggling to get full attribution, I have a tough time making the argument of sending offline events. But if you do, deduplication becomes an even bigger hassle, and you’ll undoubtedly need an expert who knows how to sort that out.

A use case for needing to pass offline events goes like this:

You collect leads on your website
A salesperson contacts these leads
The purchase and other important actions are recorded in your CRM (not via a customer-initiated website action)

I do pass a small number of offline events using the Conversions API, but these are events that are only recorded within my CRM. There isn’t going to be an issue related to deduplication, so it’s rather straightforward in that case. I use these events for reporting purposes so that I can see what leads who came in via ads, for example, do further down the funnel.

Another example of leveraging offline events is when running ads optimized for Conversion Leads. In this case, you pass the offline events so that Meta can follow new leads through various stages of your funnel so that it can help improve optimization.

An important point here is that the Offline Conversions API is getting phased out and will no longer be active come May of 2025. You’ll still be able to send offline events, but you’ll need to do so via the main API.

Admittedly, this is a transition that I still need to make. I use Zapier to pass offline events, and I haven’t yet been able to get it to work for sending them using the main Conversions API.

You may have another partner or method for sending those events. I encourage you to do so, especially if important actions happen exclusively away from your website.

RESOURCES:

7. Test Events

Once you’re sending events, you’ll need to test them.

This is a primary source for overcounting and undercounting conversions. If you aren’t sending events properly (or they aren’t getting deduplicated), your results will be off.

The primary way to test events is within Meta’s own testing tool in Events Manager.

You can test web and CRM events.

When testing website events, you can focus on server events or browser pixel events.

When testing, you can get an actual accounting of the events that fire from your visit. This can help troubleshoot issues when you fear that events aren’t getting sent or they’re getting sent too often.

RESOURCES:

How to Test Meta Conversion Events
Are Ads Manager Results Too Good to Be True?
Test your app or web browser events using the test events tool

8. Understand Attribution

Passing conversion events to Meta is great, but you also need to understand how attribution works. Otherwise, the entire exercise is pointless.

Attribution is how Meta gives credit to an ad for conversions. In the simplest terms, someone you paid to reach clicked on an ad and converted within the attribution window. As a result, your ad gets credit for that conversion.

The attribution setting is defined within the ad set when utilizing the Website conversion location and optimizing for conversions.

The default attribution setting is 7-day click and 1-day view. In other words, Meta will attribute conversions to your ads if someone clicks on your ad and conversions within 7 days or views your ad (without clicking) and converts within a day.

But, you have options for defining the attribution setting:

Click: 7-day or 1-day
View: 1-day or none
Engaged View: 1-day or none

Engaged View is only relevant to videos. If someone views at least 10 seconds of your video, doesn’t click, and converts within a day, it’s considered an Engaged View conversion.

The attribution setting controls two things:

1. How conversions are reported, by default.
2. How delivery is optimized.

Meta’s goal will be to get you as many conversions as possible. Changing the attribution setting can impact who ends up seeing your ads. For example, if you remove 1-day view, Meta won’t see a view-through conversion as successful. Because of this, the focus may be on those who will click to convert.

Finally, understand that Meta utilizes a last-click attribution model. Two ads can’t get credit for the same conversion. If someone engaged with two different ads before converting, attribution goes to the most recent click. If neither ad was clicked and a view falls within the attribution setting, credit goes to the most recent view.

RESOURCES:

9. Interpret Results

This is related to understanding attribution, but it’s an extension of it. Knowing how attribution works is an important step. But, then you have to apply that knowledge.

You can’t always take your results at face value. You need context behind those results. There are two features that are especially helpful in this area.

Compare Attribution Settings.

Let’s assume that the attribution setting is 7-day click and 1-day view, which it will be in most cases. How many of those conversions were view-through? How many happened within a day of clicking? This context matters.

Within the Columns dropdown menu, select Compare Attribution Settings.

From there, you can choose to add columns for each attribution window — even if it wasn’t used in the attribution setting. There’s even an option for 28-day click.

Were most of the reported conversions from 1-day view attribution? If that’s the case, it’s likely that this is a remarketing campaign and many of the conversions would have happened without your ad. Were most 1-day click? That would be a good sign that your ads were directly responsible.

It’s not that view-through or 28-day click are worthless, but the context is important.

First Conversion.

This is the latest addition to the Compare Attribution Settings feature that helps solve issues where your results appear inflated. Let’s assume that someone clicks your ad and makes three separate purchases within the attribution setting. In that case, all three conversions would be reported.

But, you can have only the first of those conversions appear within your reporting.

And when you do, you may see a drastic difference in results — especially for non-purchase conversions.

RESOURCES:

Your Turn

This became a lot! Consider this your starting point with conversions, but drill down using the additional resources.

Have you had issues with conversions and attribution?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Conversions for Meta Advertising Checklist appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

5 Most Common Attribution Mistakes Advertisers Make

Jon Loomer — Mon, 05 Feb 2024 22:27:01 +0000

Attribution may be the single most important element of advertising. It not only helps advertisers see what works and what doesn’t by assigning conversion credit to ads, but it impacts optimization and targeting. Get this wrong, and your mistakes spill down through every step of your advertising.

Last week, we covered the most common optimization mistakes that advertisers make. This week, let’s focus on attribution mistakes.

Maybe you are making some of these mistakes. It’s not too late. Make the necessary corrections.

Let’s get to the most common attribution mistakes…

What is Attribution?

First, let’s be clear about what we’re talking about.

Attribution is the ability to give credit to an ad for a conversion. While a simple concept, there are several layers to proper attribution that can impact advertising performance.

When something goes wrong with attribution, it’s due to a failure in one of these areas…

1. Setup. You’ve done everything on the back end to make sure that results are reported accurately and completely.
2. Application. You know how to apply your knowledge of attribution to different optimization strategies.
3. Interpretation. You are able to make meaning of your results.
4. Understanding. You understand how attribution works, it’s strengths, and weaknesses and how that impacts your approach.

Now let’s break down the most common mistakes.

1. Improper or Incomplete Setup of Pixel or Conversions API

Conversion attribution is impossible without first setting up a way for Meta to know how people are engaging with your business away from the Meta family of apps.

This starts with the Meta pixel. It needs to be on every page of your websites. When possible, it needs to be on other websites you don’t own where you sell products.

At one time, setting up the pixel (and events, which we’ll get to in a moment) was enough. But mostly due to privacy laws and weaker tracking, passing first-party data is critical to complete attribution. If you haven’t set up the Conversions API, you are sending incomplete data to Meta.

That could come in two forms:

1. Web API. This is the most common form of the Conversions API. By sending conversion information from the web API in addition to the pixel, you can help fill in blanks where the pixel can fail. There are multiple methods to accomplish this, but I use Stape to set up the API Gateway.

2. Offline or CRM API. If all business is done on your website, the web API may be sufficient. Otherwise, offline leads and purchases need to be passed to Meta via an offline or CRM API. This allows the possibility that you can see when your ads lead to conversions that happen away from your website. Meta can also optimize for these conversions.

2. Failure of Standard Events, Custom Events, and Custom Conversions

Of course, setting up the pixel and Conversions API is half the battle. Make sure you do that. But it’s the events themselves that define when someone performed an important action.

Events help define whether someone performed a purchase, registration, search, or other important action on your website. Custom conversions help provide granularity to your reporting, like the specific product that was purchased.

Failure in this area comes down to three primary things…

1. Misunderstanding their roles and unique purpose. Do you know the differences between standard events, custom events, and custom conversions? Most advertisers don’t, confusing custom events for custom conversions. Advertisers will attempt to use one in place of another. The reality is that you need to use all three.

2. Improper or incomplete setup. Set up standard events for all important actions when possible. Set up custom events for those unique actions that aren’t predefined. Pass the necessary details of these actions via parameters. Create custom conversions to add granularity to your reporting.

3. Over or under reporting. When results are clearly wrong, advertisers are often quick to blame Meta. But start with yourself. The pixel, Conversions API, and events all need to be set up properly to fire on the right page and at the right time. Do this incorrectly, and you may send too many or too few events, which will impact your reporting.

3. Inability to Understand Meaning of Conversion Results

One of the most fundamental failures is misunderstanding your results, how they are calculated, and the context behind different types of attribution.

By default, conversions are counted when someone clicks your ad and converts within seven days or views your ad and converts within a day (without clicking). Far too many advertisers have no idea this is the case. They assume that all reported conversions in the Results column are due to someone clicking their ad and immediately converting.

That conversion may not be immediate. It may happen later that day. It may happen seven days later. Or your customer may not have clicked at all, but they were shown your ad.

Attribution mistakes often come down to misunderstanding that either all conversions are equal or that all conversions of a type (1-day click or 1-day view) are always good or always bad.

Context matters.

If you are an experienced advertiser who appreciates the nuance of the various types of attribution, you regularly use the Compare Attribution Settings feature to see how your results break down. You’ll even add a column for 28-day click, which is otherwise buried.

How many of your conversions are view-through? Depending on what you’re promoting, a high percentage is a red flag. You may want to discount them. Or simply acknowledge that they aren’t as meaningful as the the click-through conversions.

Of course, if you’re selling a product and a high percentage of those view-through conversions are engaged-view (and your ad uses video), you may have more confidence in those numbers.

There’s also the matter of visitors performing a conversion event multiple times, which can lead to the perception of inflated results. This can be addressed with First Conversion reporting.

4. Expecting Google Analytics and Ads Manager to Report the Same

One of the advertiser’s biggest annoyances is a client who insists that Ads Manager reporting is wrong because it doesn’t match up with Google Analytics.

How do you respond?

Meta and GA4 will measure your conversions differently. And frankly, Google has less data than Meta does.

Only Meta has the knowledge that someone saw your ad without clicking prior to converting. And Meta may be better equipped to attribute a conversion to an ad when a customer switches devices or comes back days later to complete a purchase.

It doesn’t matter that you use UTM parameters. This still doesn’t solve for view-through conversions. And it’s unlikely to be enough to help GA4 properly attribute a conversion from Facebook if it happens days after the initial click.

It’s important to use both. Use GA4 with UTM parameters as a second source of information. This can also help you spot problems if you are unable to explain the disparity.

But one isn’t “right.” Neither is perfect. Embrace this.

5. Always Leaving the Attribution Setting at the Default

A big mistake is misunderstanding how the attribution setting applies both to default reporting and optimization for ad delivery.

Once again, the default attribution setting is 7-day click and 1-day view. Not only does that mean that conversions will be reported that happen within that window, but Meta will optimize to show ads to people who are likely to convert within that window as well.

This is important. If you’re optimizing for purchase, a 7-day click and 1-day view attribution setting makes sense. But it may not for any other type of conversion.

You can make the case that a view-through conversion is relevant for purchases. Someone saw your ad. They were interested. But it is a big commitment. They need to discuss with their spouse, business partner, or higher ups. They either go directly to your website or Google your product later that day and convert.

But this explanation for view-through conversions falls flat when discussing the typical lead. If something is free and easy to acquire, it makes very little sense that someone wouldn’t simply act on that ad when they see it.

This also applies to when optimizing for custom events based on engagement actions. These events can happen repeatedly. The result is that Meta can inflate your results by simply displaying ads to people who visit your website regularly. Even if they don’t click.

There is a solution. Edit the attribution setting in these cases to be 1-day click only. Since view-throughs won’t be counted as conversions by default, the algorithm won’t optimize for that type of conversion.

You can still see 1-day view conversions, though. They just aren’t included in the default reporting. Use the compare attribution settings feature to see them. Expect that you’ll get fewer of them when they aren’t included in the ad set attribution setting.

Watch Video

I recorded a video about this, too. Watch it below…

Your Turn

What areas of attribution do you struggle with?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post 5 Most Common Attribution Mistakes Advertisers Make appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

A Guide to Standard Events, Custom Events, and Custom Conversions

Jon Loomer — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:59:58 +0000

One of the most critical elements of Meta advertising is the ability to define important actions that happen on your website or your owned properties. Once defined, you can pass that information to Meta for improved attribution, reporting, optimization, and targeting. This is possible with the help of standard events, custom events, and custom conversions.

While foundational, it’s common for this topic to create confusion. I’m hoping to provide some clarity.

In this post, we’ll focus on the following:

Definitions of standard events, custom events, and custom conversions
Examples of each one
Explanations of how they are used
General tips on how they are created
When should you use each?

Let’s go…

Definitions

Let’s provide some basic definitions to help you understand what each of these are and how they’re similar and different.

1. Events: This is how we define an important action. The most common application of events is on our website, though it doesn’t have to be. Someone visited our website and performed a specific action or group of actions that are important to us. That information is shared with Meta to help enhance our advertising.

2. Standard Events: Actions that are predefined by Meta. When you use one of these predefined labels for an action, Meta has an understanding of what that means. You can pass details (parameters) about that action that are relevant to the type of event.

3. Custom Events: Actions that go outside of the predefined standard events. It’s an important action that a specific advertiser wants to track, custom to their needs. Since it is custom, the data Meta has on a custom event is limited to individual websites.

4. Custom Conversions: Map events (standard or custom) to custom conversions to provide granularity for the purpose of reporting or optimization. Custom conversions help answer a question like how many of a specific product were purchased?

Examples

Make sense? Maybe not. Let’s provide some more detail by using examples…

1. Standard Events: There are at least 17 predefined standard events. Here are a few common examples:

Purchase
Add to Cart
Initiate Checkout
Complete Registration
Lead
Search
Contact

When someone purchases a product on your website, the details of that event can be passed to Meta.

2. Custom Events: Since these aren’t predefined, there are limitless possibilities for custom events that fit priorities for each individual website. When possible, you should use standard events because Meta has global data related to those actions that can help with optimization. But, sometimes there are actions that are unique to your website. Here are a few examples of custom events that I use:

1-Minute Time on Page: Fires when someone spends at least one minute on a page
50% Scroll: Fires when someone scrolls at least 50% of the length of a page
Video Watched: Fires when someone starts an embedded YouTube video
Internal Link Click: Fires when someone clicks a link to another page of the website
Bot Click: Fires when someone clicks my bot to begin a conversation with it
Podcast Plays: Fires when someone starts the embedded podcast player that appears on some of my pages
Social Share: Fires when someone clicks one of the social share buttons

3. Custom Conversions: Custom conversions can be used with either standard or custom events (or neither). Using rules, advertisers define a very specific conversion that can be used for reporting and optimization.

Let’s say that you are running a Sales campaign that optimizes for the Purchase standard event. This could be the purchase of any product, regardless of what you are promoting. The results column will include all purchases. If you want to isolate results to the purchase of a specific product, you could create a custom conversion.

How They’re Used

Standard and custom events have the same uses, so we’ll group them together in this section.

1. Standard and custom events: Both of these can aid reporting. Create a column in Ads Manager and you can see how many of that specific event can be attributed to your ads.

Both can also be used for ad set optimization. When using the Website conversion location, you can set conversions as your performance goal. Then, set a specific conversion event for optimization. This allows you to define your goal action so that Meta can make adjustments to delivery to make sure that you get as many of those actions as possible.

And finally, you can create custom audiences based on either standard or custom events. An example would be a custom audience of all people who have completed a purchase during the past 30 days. You could then target or exclude these people in your ad set.

2. Custom Conversions: Recall that custom conversions provide granularity that standard and custom events do not by themselves. So, in addition to having a column in your reporting for all purchases (based on the standard event), you could add a column for the purchase of a specific product (the custom conversion).

And instead of optimizing for the purchase of any product (your standard event), you could optimize your ad set for the purchase of a specific product (the custom conversion). That way, the algorithm knows that only the purchases of that product count towards your goal.

Unlike standard and custom events, custom conversions cannot be used for targeting. The granularity custom conversions provide don’t add any value to custom audiences. You can create a custom audience based on a standard or custom event and add granularity by creating rules.

How They’re Created

Once again, standard and custom events follow similar rules, so we’ll group them together here.

1. Standard and custom events: The most common method of creating standard and custom events is by using code in addition to your Meta pixel. This, of course, would only apply when creating events that fire on your website.

Here’s an example of basic code for a lead…

fbq('track', 'Lead');

You can use my Pixel Event Generator tool to assist with this.

In its most basic form, you’d create a custom event by replacing “Lead” above with an event that Meta won’t recognize — something other than one of the predefined standard events.

This code will typically fire on page load or when a dynamic action (like a button click) occurs. But, there are obviously several potential layers of complexity. While standard events tend to be straightforward in terms of how and when they fire, they sometimes require more complicated solutions.

Meta does offer a no-code option for creating standard events called the Event Setup Tool in Events Manager. It doesn’t offer much customization, so it should only be used in the most basic situations.

Custom events are often much more complicated. I use Google Tag Manager to create mine, which utilizes built-in triggers to track complex actions like scroll depth, time spent, and video plays.

These events aren’t always created with code, of course. You may have a third-party solution that makes the creation of these events easy. You can also pass events via the Conversions API, which could use website, offline, or CRM events. I use Stape to set up the Conversions API Gateway for web events.

2. Custom Conversions: Much easier! The nice benefit of custom conversions is that they don’t require code and they are created within Meta’s interface.

Access custom conversions by going to your Events Manager.

Create a new custom conversion. Pick an action source of either Website or Physical Store.

You can create a custom conversion based on URL alone by leaving Event at All Website Traffic and setting a URL rule. Here’s an example where a custom conversion is defined as a visit to any page of my website that includes “custom-conversions” in the URL…

You can otherwise base it on a custom event (assuming it is found on your website)…

Or a standard event…

And then create a rule based on URL, Referring Domain, or Event Parameters.

When Should You Use Each?

For the purpose of reporting and optimization, you can use any of these three. But understand that this isn’t a matter of only using one or the other. A good strategy utilizes all three.

1. Standard Events: You should prioritize standard events. Make sure that they fire any time one of these predefined actions happens on your website. It’s typically recommended to optimize for standard events rather than custom conversions when you can since the standard event will provide greater volume.

2. Custom Events: Make a list of all important actions that happen on your website. Is there a standard event that can define them? If not, consider setting up custom events. This will allow you to gain reporting and optimization for actions that are unique to your business.

3. Custom Conversions: Create custom conversions whenever you want to gain additional insight into your reporting. If you optimize for Purchases, Meta will report on all purchases in the Results column. If you create a custom conversion for a specific product, you can view how many purchases of that product your ads drove.

It’s common for advertisers to confuse these three. I regularly see the terms custom conversions and custom events used interchangeably, but they have very unique purposes.

Prioritize using standard events. Create custom events when a standard event can’t define an important action. And use custom conversions to add granularity to reporting.

Your Turn

How do you use standard events, custom events, and custom conversions?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post A Guide to Standard Events, Custom Events, and Custom Conversions appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Differences Between Custom Events and Custom Conversions

Jon Loomer — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 02:03:37 +0000

Meta advertisers have plenty to get confused about. But one of the most common points of confusion I see is understanding the differences between custom events and custom conversions.

This became especially obvious recently as I’ve written more about custom events. So many advertisers either think I’m discussing custom conversions or use the two terms interchangeably.

There are some similarities between the two. But there are also some very distinct differences. By the end of this post, I’ll also walk you through specific situations when you’d use each.

Let’s clear up the confusion…

An Initial Note

Whether we’re talking about custom events or custom conversions, we’re highlighting important actions performed by our customers. While these actions can technically happen away from your website, our focus today on conversions and events are those that happen there.

You will need to utilize the pixel and/or Conversions API to define these actions.

Custom Events

To understand custom events, we first need to define “standard events.” Standard events are predefined actions that occur on your website. In order to pass standard events back to Meta, you’ll need to utilize the Meta pixel or Conversions API (or both). You can then add standard events using separate event code or the Event Setup Tool.

Examples of standard events include Purchase, Lead, Search, Add to Cart, Initiate Checkout, and Complete Registration. Since Meta supports these specific events that all advertisers can use, Meta has access to global data about the people who perform those actions.

Custom events work like standard events, but they go beyond the predefined terms. You would create a custom event when a standard event doesn’t accurately reflect the action that you want to track.

You name the event and decide on the trigger action that results in that custom event. In some cases, additional programming is necessary or access to a third-party tool that utilizes built-in triggers. I use Google Tag Manager to manage my pixel, which helps me create custom events that fire based on a timer (how long someone spends on a page), scroll depth, engagement with embedded YouTube videos, and more.

Standard events are limited to the predefined events that Meta makes available. Custom events are limited only by your imagination and ability to create them.

Are they used for reporting?

Yes. I add columns to my Ads Manager reporting for my custom events.

In order for custom events to be available for this purpose, you first need to optimize for the event at least once.

Are they used for optimization?

Yes. Custom events can be useful for creative optimization options when Meta’s default optimization isn’t good enough.

An example is when your goal is to drive quality traffic to your website (without a purchase or lead as an immediate goal). If you run a Traffic campaign, your primary options are to optimize for Link Clicks or Landing Page Views.

Unfortunately, this approach notoriously leads to low-quality results. Meta will get you lots of link clicks or landing page views, but these people rarely do anything else.

Custom events allow you to define that “something else” for the algorithm so that it is seen as the measure for success. I’ve created custom events for many actions that provide signals for deep engagement with my content. I can then create an Engagement campaign using the Website conversion location and select one of these custom events as my performance goal.

This event will then be used as the determinant metric for success, which should lead to more quality traffic than if you optimize for link clicks or landing page views.

Are they used for targeting?

Yes. You can create a website custom audience that is based on people who performed your custom event.

You can create a website custom audience to target all people who perform that custom event generally. You can also refine it by URL or parameters (if you pass them) to help focus on a specific segment of people who performed this event. Examples include people who engaged with a specific embedded YouTube video on your website or spent at least 1 minute on a specific page.

Custom Conversions

Custom conversions do not require code and are created within the Events Manager interface.

They require an active pixel on your website, though you can technically create custom conversions based on website or physical store activity.

By default, custom conversions are based on all URL traffic, and you define them with URL rules.

You can also map your custom conversion to a specific standard or custom event.

You could then create rules based on URL, referring domain, or parameters to segment people who performed that event.

Are they used for reporting?

Yes. You can add custom conversions as columns to your Ads Manager.

Are they used for optimization?

Yes. You can select custom conversions among conversion events when utilizing a Website conversion location.

Are they used for targeting?

No. You cannot create a website custom audience based on a custom conversion.

Similarities

I’d understand if you are still confused. We’ll take this slowly.

There are two primary ways that custom events and custom conversions are similar…

1. Both used for conversion reporting. You can add both custom events and custom conversions as columns to your Ads Manager.

2. Both used for conversion optimization. When using an objective (Sales, Leads, or Engagement) that utilizes the Website conversion location, you can select either custom events or custom conversions as your conversion event that determines optimization.

Differences

There are some primary differences that separate custom events and custom conversions.

1. Code vs. no-code. Custom conversions don’t require any code. You build them based on rules within the Events Manager interface. Custom events typically require extra event code that is added to your website.

2. Rules vs. custom triggers. Custom conversions are built using rules based on URL or the event fired. You’re limited to those parameters. Custom events allow you to track virtually any important action using custom triggers. I use Google Tag Manager, which has some of these triggers built-in.

3. Targeting. If you want to run ads to target people who performed your custom event — or a Lookalike Audience based on it as a source — you can do that. You can’t do either with custom conversions.

When to Use Custom Conversions vs. Custom Events

First, understand that this isn’t an either/or situation. While custom conversions are easier to set up, you wouldn’t create custom conversions instead of custom events. You should create both custom events and custom conversions. So, when are specific examples of times you should use one over the other?

We’ve already talked about targeting. Of the two, you can only use custom events as the source of a website custom audience. So, this is really a matter of optimization and reporting.

The key is that a custom event, by itself, tracks all people who perform that specific action. But there are many ways that you can segment the people who performed those actions — in particular, by URL and parameter.

You’ll recall that custom conversions can be mapped to custom events. There’s really no reason to create a custom conversion mapped to a custom event unless you segment people by URL or parameter. And that’s where the value lies.

Let’s use a specific example. You’ve created a custom event for VideoWatched, which fires when someone plays an embedded YouTube video on your website. With that custom event, parameters are passed for the title of the video and percentage watched.

You can add a column for the VideoWatched custom event, but all VideoWatched events will show up in your reporting, regardless of the specific video played or how much of a video was watched.

You could create a custom conversion that tracks views of a specific video and then add a column for it. You could also create a custom conversion that segments only those people who fired the VideoWatched event and watched at least 50% of a video. Then add a column for that, too, to highlight the high-quality views.

Same goes for optimization. Let’s use the 50% VideoWatched example here, too. You could choose to use VideoWatched as your optimization event, and that may work just fine. But if you use the custom conversion that requires people to watch at least 50% of your video, the algorithm may be more focused on accomplishing that goal.

Also keep in mind that a custom conversion can be mapped to standard events for this same purpose. You’d use the standard event to report on or optimize based on all Purchases, for example, but the custom conversion could isolate the purchase of a specific product — or purchases over a certain dollar amount.

Master Custom Events

Custom events are one of my absolutely favorite advertising tools. I tracked 18 custom events on my website during the past month. Needless to say, it’s something I’m passionate about!

If you want to take your usage of custom events to the next level, sign up for my Custom Event Mastery training course. There are 24 lessons in all, and I’ll walk through how to create specific custom events as well as how to leverage them.

Your Turn

How do you use custom events and custom conversions?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Differences Between Custom Events and Custom Conversions appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Hidden Advantages of Custom Events to Meta Advertisers

Jon Loomer — Tue, 26 Sep 2023 02:03:18 +0000

I’ve used custom events for years now, and it’s always felt like a secret underworld of Meta advertising. It’s as if custom events are seen as being too complicated to even bother, if advertisers know about them at all. But the advantages are undeniable.

In this post, you’ll learn:

What custom events are
How I add custom events
Examples of custom events
Benefits of custom events

Buckle up, this is a good one…

What Are Custom Events?

The best way to explain custom events is by defining some basic Meta ads conversion terminology.

1. Events. Events (or conversion events) are important actions that happen on your website, in your store, or in your CRM. You send event information with your pixel data to Meta, for example, and highlight events to signify, “HEY! This is an important thing that I care about.”

NOTE: We’ll focus on the pixel applications of custom events in this post.

2. Standard Events. Standard events are the predefined actions that fit within a universal category. Examples include Purchase, Lead, Search, and Complete Registration. Meta has lots of data on these actions because advertisers around the world use standard events to define important actions.

3. Custom Events. Custom events are important actions that fall outside of Meta’s predefined standard event categories. We’ll get to examples of these in a moment, but you define and name them yourself. It could be an action like scrolling down a page, engaging with a specific piece of media, or clicking on a certain image or button.

4. Custom Conversions are NOT Custom Events. Typical confusion arrises here because advertisers often look at custom conversions and custom events as being interchangeable. While they both signify a conversion of some kind, the similarities stop there. Custom conversions are created within the Events Manager interface using rules. Custom events typically require additional code with your pixel.

How I Add Them

There are many different ways that you can send conversion events to Meta, whether it be via the pixel or API. But I use Google Tag Manager to manage my pixel and create these events.

The process for adding standard and custom events using Google Tag Manager is mostly the same. You create a tag that includes the unique script for the event and you add a trigger that defines when this event will fire.

Here’s a simple example of a Complete Registration standard event tag in GTM (without parameters to keep it simple)…

And here’s a simple example of a custom event tag for a 2-minute visit…

We define what the tag is that is sent to Meta. In one case, I used a predefined label (Complete Registration). In the other, I used my own.

Examples

There are endless possible examples of custom events because they are whatever it is you define them to be.

Consider this: You’re looking over a potential customer’s shoulder while they visit your website. What are the things you hope they’ll do that fall outside of the standard event definitions?

Yes, you want people to complete a purchase or fill out your form. Dig deeper. What else is important to you?

As a blogger, there’s a long list of actions that I care about that signify quality engagement. Here are some examples…

1. 1-Minute Time on Page. One signal that you’re deeply engaged with my content is the amount of time you spend on a page. I fire events at 1, 2, and 3 minutes.

2. 50% Scroll Depth. You could spend 3 minutes on a page, but it doesn’t mean anything without scrolling. I have an event that fires once you’ve scrolled halfway down a page, but it could be based on another percentage or a specific number of pixels.

3. Embedded YouTube Video Play. One of my favorites. I embed videos at the bottom of many of my blog posts (including this one!), and an event fires when they’re played. This is possible (and easy) because both Google Tag Manager and YouTube are Google products. You can pass the title of the video and amount of time watched using parameters.

4. Internal Link Clicks. Another signal of engagement is someone who views multiple pages of my website while visiting.

5. External Link Clicks. I also include external URLs, where appropriate. But this may be especially useful if you link out to a third-party website for a product that you sell.

6. Referral. I’ve created referral events that fire if someone comes from Google or a Meta property. I’ve found that Google visitors have value since they are often looking for an answer to their question. The Meta referrals are useful because I can compare these events to the reported Outbound Clicks in Ads Manager.

7. Start Embedded Audio Player. I don’t do this as often these days, but I have an embedded audio player at the top of many of my blog posts to play a related podcast episode or audio version of the post. It’s another great signal of deep engagement.

8. Social Share. Ads Manager will tell us how many times our ad was shared to Facebook or Instagram, but I have social share buttons that go other places as well. When people click those buttons, an event is fired.

9. Comments Visibility. This could be seen as an extension of the scroll event. If you scroll so far that the comments are visible, you are (probably) deeply engaged.

10. Combo Event. You can also combine multiple events into a single combo event that only fires when all of those things happen. The classic example is if someone spends one minute AND scrolls at least halfway down a page. But I also have a custom event for anyone who spends 3 minutes, scrolls, and clicks an internal link.

Benefits

Okay, great. We created these events. Now what?

There are three primary things that we can do with this…

1. Enhanced Reporting. One of my favorite things about custom events is the added context that they can provide to reporting. Ads Manager tells us the number of clicks and conversions, but what do you do with this information when you aren’t getting the purchases or leads you were wanting?

Custom events can help verify whether people go to your landing page and are disinterested and leave or if they actually hang around and do other things — even if they didn’t buy.

2. Enhanced Optimization. If you’re a content creator who wants to send quality traffic to your blog posts, you know how challenging that is with Meta ads. If you run Traffic campaigns optimized for link clicks or landing page views, you can bet you’ll get lots of low-quality traffic.

The reason is that Meta thinks that you only care about the traffic. But if you define the event you want, the algorithm can do a better job of sending the actions that make you happy.

3. Enhanced Targeting. Broad targeting is all the rage now, but there’s still room for some remarketing. You can create website custom audiences based on custom events.

You could then either target those people or use it as the starter when using Advantage Custom Audience or Advantage+ Audience.

Get Started

If you want to take custom events further, I have some great resources for you.

1. Custom Event Mastery Training. It’s 24 lessons in all and includes the step-by-step instructions for creating many of the events mentioned in this post as well as how you’d leverage them.

2. Intro to Custom Events. If you want to go slowly, you can subscribe to the first four lessons for free, which walk you through how to get Google Tag Manager set up to use your pixel.

Watch Video

I recorded a video about creating custom events for quality traffic, too. And if you watch the video, a custom event will fire!

Your Turn

Are you using custom events? What are some creative ways you’re using them?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Hidden Advantages of Custom Events to Meta Advertisers appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Meta Conversion Events, Deduplication, and Conflicting Reporting

Jon Loomer — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 18:19:50 +0000

If you dig into your Meta conversion events, you are likely to notice a problem: Conversion event data doesn’t match up. Why?

I’m not talking about your event data matching up with Google Analytics or other third-party reporting tools (these things will never match up). I’m talking about Meta’s own conversion event data not matching up.

You may be surprised to know that this isn’t a bug or a problem. There is a reason for it. And once you understand that reason, your data will make a lot more sense.

Let’s clear this up…

The Conversion Data

First, let’s establish the various pools of conversion data that we’re concerned about here.

1. Standard and custom event data within the Data Sources section of Events Manager
2. Custom conversion mapped to that standard or custom event
3. Ads Manager conversion reporting

These three will almost never match up. For the most astute, it may be obvious why #3 doesn’t match up with #1 or #2.

But, do you understand why the first two won’t match up? The assumption tends to be that Events Manager is over-counting or the custom conversion is restricted by a rule.

That’s not the case…

About Event Deduplication

The primary reason for discrepancies between these three groups is right here: Event deduplication. But it’s not what most people think.

There are actually two different types of deduplication.

1. Browser vs. API Event Deduplication.

In this case, you pass events to Meta from both your browser (using the Meta pixel) and Conversions API. But when you do this, the same event will often get passed from both sources. Instead of counting that event twice, Meta will need to match them up to the same user and deduplicate the events.

This is what most advertisers think of when they hear about event deduplication. But there’s another…

2. Multiple Times From the Same Person.

Meta will also deduplicate events in another scenario.

The above passage comes from Meta’s documentation.

Let’s assume your pixel has sent multiple purchase events from the same person during a short period of time. This might happen if a user refreshes a confirmation page. Or it could happen if you use engagement-based events that can happen multiple times.

In some places, you will see raw event totals prior to deduplication. In others, the data will be cleaned up.

Now, let’s get to what you should expect to see in each of the three locations…

Events Manager Data

The events data that you see in Events Manager is before processing and deduplication of events. It’s the raw total.

In the example above, the event is passed using both the pixel and API. The 80.2k number is likely closer to 40k after deduplicating the browser vs. API events. But it could be even lower than that (it will be) after removing the second form of deduplicated events.

Custom Conversion Mapped to an Event

I created a custom conversion mapped to that same event shown in Events Manager.

Remember that the original number prior to deduplication of any kind was 80.2k. Here, the total number of events is only 18.8k. Why?

You may guess that it’s due to the rule you need to create with custom conversions. It’s not. The rule used will pick up every event fired on the website.

It’s entirely due to deduplication. We can make a couple of logical assumptions…

1. After deduplicating browser and API events, the event total dropped from 80.2k to 40.1k (or so).
2. After deduplicating multiple events from the same user during a short period of time, the event total dropped from 40.1k to 18.8k.

You’re not going to typically see this rate of drop-off due to a user repeatedly performing the same event during a short period of time. But this event is unique in that it can happen many times (and often will).

Ads Manager Reporting

Finally, we have Ads Manager reporting. When you add a column to your report for a specific event, it is very unlikely to match up to Events Manager data or custom conversion data.

The primary reason that it won’t match up with either is that Ads Manager reporting is only for those events that can be attributed to your ads. That’s most obvious.

But even if you are positive that your ads drove 100% of your conversions and they all happened within the Attribution Setting, Ads Manager reporting will be less than Events Manager because it’s after deduplication.

Ads Manager reporting and custom conversion reporting could conceivably be the same if all conversions came from your ads within the Attribution window since both numbers will be after deduplication.

Watch Video

I recorded a video about this, too…

Your Turn

What inconsistencies do you see with your data?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Meta Conversion Events, Deduplication, and Conflicting Reporting appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Meta Ads Attribution Setting: A Complete Guide

Jon Loomer — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 15:38:56 +0000

Attribution is the process of giving credit to an ad for a conversion. It’s the foundation for the ultimate determinant of performance. As a result, you must understand the Meta ads Attribution Setting.

It’s not nearly as straight-forward as many expect it to be. Not only is it variable (you can change how attribution is defined), it controls more than just reporting.

If you’re confused, don’t worry. By the end of this post, it will all make sense…

Conversions

Attribution will only matter if you’re optimizing for any type of conversion that happens away from Facebook. Typically, this might be for a purchase or lead, but it can be for any conversion defined with a standard event, custom event, or custom conversion.

Usually, these conversions happen on a website. Someone visits a product landing page (View Content), adds a product to their cart (Add to Cart), begins entering their payment information (Initiate Checkout), and completes the purchase (Purchase). Or maybe they registered for your newsletter (Complete Registration) or provided contact details to learn more about your product (Lead).

The Attribution Setting does not apply to actions that occur within the Meta family of apps (clicks, Messenger conversations, Instant Form completions, comments, on-Facebook video views, and more).

Campaign Objective

Since a website conversion needs to occur in order for the Attribution Setting to apply, there are only certain campaign objectives that will make this possible.

Only the following three objectives can lead to a website conversion:

Engagement
Leads
Sales

When using the Engagement objective, you would need to select Website as your conversion location, then “Maximum number of conversions” as your performance goal.

The Leads objective applies as well, but only if you select Website as your conversion location and, again, conversions as your goal.

Not surprisingly, the Attribution Setting applies to the Sales objective, but only when Website is your conversion location.

You may expect that the Attribution Setting would apply to the Traffic objective, but it doesn’t since you aren’t able to set a standard event, custom event, or custom conversion as your performance goal.

Ad Set Optimization

Now we have that out of the way, click the See More Options link beneath your performance goal.

You will now see the Attribution Setting…

The default setting, as you can see above, is 7-day click and 1-day view. The first thing to understand is that this setting defines a conversion as one that happens within seven days of clicking on your ad or one day of viewing (and not clicking).

Meta knows who is served your ad. Meta knows who clicks it. Because of the Meta pixel, events, and Conversions API, Meta also knows (mostly) who ultimately converted.

The default Attribution Setting of 7-day click and 1-day view means two things:

Meta will optimize to get you the most conversions within 7 days of clicking and 1-days of viewing as possible
Your results will be reported if they happened within this window

Edit the Attribution Setting

If you click the Edit link, you can also change the Attribution Setting…

As you can see in the image above, you have the following windows that can be adjusted:

Click-Through Window
View-Through Window
Engaged-View Window (For Video Only)

Each window can be adjusted individually.

Click-Through offers the options of 1-day or 7-days.

View-Through offers 1-day or none.

And Engaged-View offers 1-day or none. But note that you can only select 1-day for Engaged View if View-Through is also set to 1-day.

Remember: This will change both how your ad set is optimized for delivery (who will see your ad within your designated audience) and how conversions are reported.

I get that the inclination will be to stick with 7-day click and 1-day view. In theory, that should result in more conversions reported than the other options. But, there are reasons to consider the other options.

If the action you’re optimizing for often happens quickly because it’s free or may be an event defined by a type of website engagement, 1-day click may make sense. This will also prevent you from getting inflated numbers if people return to make take that action multiple times (particularly related to the engagement action).

If the action is a purchase, 7-day click and 1-day view will usually make the most sense. It may take time to make this decision. And the ad may inspire a search that leads to a conversion, even if they never clicked your ad.

You may also consider eliminating the 1-day view if you feel it will unnaturally inflate your results. This can especially be the case if you’re remarketing to people who get your emails or who already visit your website.

And finally, consider including 1-Day Engaged-View whenever promoting a video with a CTA button to a product page. This will help isolate people who watch at least 10 seconds of your skippable video before converting within a day (without clicking).

Base Reporting

It’s critical to remember that the Attribution Setting you use determines how results are reported. There will typically be a column next to Results to remind you what Attribution Setting was used.

Here’s an example where the Attribution Setting was 1-day click…

Compare Attribution Settings

I understand why it may be difficult to go with a 1-day click Attribution Setting and trust that it will give you better results than sticking with 7-day click and 1-day view. Luckily, you can always see how many conversions happened within the other windows.

Of course, many advertisers don’t know this exists. It was even originally taken away due to iOS changes (and then returned).

Click the Columns dropdown menu in Ads Manager and select Compare Attribution Settings.

Here’s the beautiful part: Not only can you select from 1-day click, 7-day click, 1-day view, and 1-day engaged-view, but you can add a column for 28-day click.

Click “Third-Party Reporting” for two more options: View and Click from SKAdNetwork. These are for app ads.

You can then see how your conversions are reported across different windows.

The first column is for how the conversions were reported based on the Attribution Setting. The remaining columns are those you have added from Compare Attribution Settings.

Watch Video

I recorded a video about this, too. Check it out below…

Your Turn

I hope this gives you a much better understanding of the Attribution Setting and how you can benefit from it. How do you use it?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Meta Ads Attribution Setting: A Complete Guide appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Do Not Use URL Equals for Meta Events and Audiences

Jon Loomer — Mon, 10 Apr 2023 16:10:03 +0000

I’ve heard from a handful of advertisers recently who were experiencing issues with their Meta events not firing properly. In each case, the problem was caused by using “URL equals” when setting up events. The solution is simple: Use “URL contains” instead.

In this post, let’s talk about the many times this choice comes up for advertisers. And then I’ll explain why “URL equals” is causing problems and the best practices for using “URL contains.”

When Does This Come Up?

It comes up a lot, frankly…

1. Creating a Custom Conversion.

The default rule for Custom Conversions is based on URL.

2. Creating a Website Custom Audience.

When you create a Website Custom Audience for people who visited specific web pages, you’ll need to make this choice.

3. Creating Standard Events with the Event Setup Tool.

When you create an event based on URL using the Event Setup Tool, the default logic will be “URL equals.”

4. Third-Party Tool Integration.

You’ll see this outside of the Meta-branded tools as well. An example is Google Tag Manager, which is a tool that I use to manage the pixel. When creating a page view trigger, you’ll need to decide between “URL equals” and “URL contains” there as well.

The Problem with URL Equals

If you use “URL Equals,” the event will only fire when the URL equals exactly what you put into the text field.

Here’s an important clarification from Meta:

We only count a conversion when the URL exactly matches what you put in the URL field for your custom conversion. If someone lands on a version of the URL with any additional text beyond what is pasted into the URL field (for example, UTM parameters, http vs. https, or even an extra “/” at the end) we won’t count the conversion.

There are so many potential issues that can arise here…

1. Mistyping: If you typed manually and don’t add the closing “/” the event won’t fire.

2. www: Does “www” actually appear in the URL? Whether or not you include it in this rule will matter.

3. SSL: If it’s possible that people can access your website via HTTP in addition to HTTPS, the event won’t always fire.

4. UTM Parameters: Whether manually added or automatically injected, the URL may be transformed so that it does not match your rules.

There are so many potential mistakes that can be made with this that “URL equals” should only be used in specific cases when you know that you want to exclude any variations of the URL (usually for testing purposes).

Best Practices and URL Contains

Meta actually recommends that you use “URL contains.” If you’ve been using “URL equals” in any of the situations outlined above, you are likely losing events.

Before you set these up, follow these steps…

1. Go Through the Conversion Process. Most advertisers will grab the URL for the confirmation page without much thought. But actually go through the process of completing a conversion to reach that confirmation page. Don’t assume what the URL will be.

2. Use “URL Contains.” Yeah, you knew that.

3. Grab the Minimum Portion of URL. Meta recommends using “the minimum portion of the URL needed to distinguish this page from any other pages on your website.” The danger of “URL contains” is that it could potentially include multiple URLs. There’s a rather simple solution for that.

This is not a good use of “URL contains”…

The above rule will capture any URL that has “thank-you” in it. This could conceivably include any confirmation page on your website if you use “thank-you” on those pages.

domain.com/thank-you/
domain.com/product-1-thank-you/
domain.com/blog/why-you-should-say-thank-you/
domain.com/thank-you-for-your-help/

But be careful. Let’s stick with the example of a confirmation page that includes “thank-you” in it. This wouldn’t solve everything either…

For the same reason that this wouldn’t…

In both cases, there could be multiple URLs that contain that text, but with something different before or after.

The solution, in most cases, is this…

By adding the “/” to both sides, you clarify that there can’t be additional text before or after it. The only exception would be if that “thank-you” path could exist on multiple domains or subdomains in which your pixel fires. If that’s the case, you’ll want to include the domain — and maybe more if you run into the issue of subdomains (rare situation).

Watch Video

I recorded a video about this, too. Check it out below…

Your Turn

Do you use “URL contains” when creating your events and audiences based on URL?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Do Not Use URL Equals for Meta Events and Audiences appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Create a Meta Pixel Event that Fires After Scrolling 70% Down a Page

Jon Loomer — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 00:48:25 +0000

Last week, I wrote about how to create a custom event that fires when someone views a page of your website for 60 seconds. Now let’s create an event based on scroll depth.

This is all about finding a way to show Facebook what a quality website visitor is. You can use this for reporting, optimization, and targeting.

The 60-second visit is pretty solid, but it has a weakness: What if someone sits at the top of the page for 60 seconds? That is clearly not a quality visit.

That’s why you should also consider scroll depth. Someone who scrolls through much of your post is likely a quality visitor.

Like with the time on page event, I originally wrote about this three years ago but made it way more complicated than it needed to be.

So today, we’re going to make this super easy. From there, you can add complexity if you want.

Your Base Pixel Code

We’re doing this in Google Tag Manager. If you aren’t already using GTM to manage your pixel, you’ll need to first create a tag that fires the base pixel code by itself.

You’ll do this — and create your events — by creating a new tag. Use the Custom HTML tag type and paste your base pixel code.

After naming it, you’ll need to configure the triggering. Use the Page View trigger and have it fire on all pages.

What is Quality Scroll Depth?

Before we create this event, we should discuss what quality scroll depth looks like. The assumption is that you’ll want to use 100% or something close to it. But, that may not be ideal.

A typical blog post may actually have a lot of content that people don’t read after the article itself. You may have comments, a footer, and maybe some other widgets and ads. The amount of scroll may be variable depending on the length of your article and the amount of comments you have.

So, keep this in mind. It’s possible that 70% is too high a barrier that may not be reached even when people read an entire article. While I use 70% in this example, it could just as easily be 50% or something else.

Scroll Depth – 70% Event

Now let’s create this bad boy.

Create a new tag and name it. I’d name it “Facebook – 70% Scroll,” but name it whatever you want.

You’ll use the Custom HTML tag type again, and use the following code:

The name you use in the code is what appears in your Events Manager, so keep that in mind.

Don’t forget to turn on Tag Sequencing to have the base pixel code tag fire first. This is within the Advanced Settings under the Custom HTML.

Below that, click to configure your trigger and then click the “+” to create a new one. Select the “Scroll Depth” trigger type.

Check “Vertical Scroll Depths” and enter “70” (or whatever percentage that you want). Note that you could have tracked by pixels instead of a percentage.

The trigger will look like this…

When you’re done, your tag will look lik this…

Use the Preview feature to test it out if you need to. Then publish your new tag and trigger.

Use for Reporting

This will be great for providing more context of your results in Ads Manager. While you might be able to simply add a column for your custom event to your report, there seems to be a bug that doesn’t always make this possible.

If that’s the case for you, create a custom conversion that maps to the custom event.

Now you should be able to add your custom conversion to your report as a new column.

Quick Tip: You may want to rank these events in your top eight for Aggregated Event Measurement if you have room. This will assure that the results are more complete.

Use for Optimization

I’ve long complained that Facebook doesn’t provide a built-in way to optimize for quality traffic. Instead, you optimize for landing page views or link clicks, and that almost always results in low-quality clicks.

But, there’s an alternative. While the jury’s out on whether Facebook actually learns from custom event activity, it’s certainly better than low-quality clicks.

Create an Engagement campaign.

Select “Website” as your conversion location within the ad set.

Finally, select “Maximum number of conversions” as your Performance Goal and then your pixel and conversion event.

Scroll Depth will now be the focus of your “Results” column.

Use for Targeting

You can also target the people who scrolled on your website. Create a website custom audience that is based on your events.

If you want, you can actually refine by the exact page that was scrolled.

Watch Video

I recorded a quick video on this, too. Check it out…

Your Turn

Have you ever used a custom event like this one? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Create a Meta Pixel Event that Fires After Scrolling 70% Down a Page appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

How I Use Facebook Custom Conversions for Reporting and Optimization

Jon Loomer — Wed, 13 Apr 2022 18:00:39 +0000

I wrote recently about the role of custom conversions in your Facebook advertising. Today, I want to provide some specific examples of how I use them.

If you aren’t using custom conversions, it’s time to start. There’s really no excuse.

Quick Refresh

First, a very brief reminder about what custom conversions are, in the simplest terms.

It’s important to know that custom conversions should not be used in place of standard and custom events; they should be used in addition to them.

Custom conversions provide granularity for both reporting and optimization. They allow you to map standard and custom events with parameters to better track how many purchases of a specific product, for example, resulted from your ad.

This granularity is the key. You can optimize for and get reporting on standard and custom events generally, but all product purchases are lumped under the same Purchases event. Custom conversions allow you to get access to the details.

Standard and custom events require additional coding. Custom conversions do not.

You can create website custom audiences based on standard and custom events. You can’t do this with custom conversions.

We good? Now, here’s what I do…

Individual Products and Opt-ins

Every time I launch a new paid product, I create a custom conversion for that specific purchase. I should note that I make sure that the Purchase standard event with parameters (“content_name” to provide the name of the product) is firing on the confirmation page first.

Every time I launch a new opt-in, I create a custom conversion for that specific registration. And like with the product, I make sure that the CompleteRegistration standard event with parameters (“content_name” to provide the name of the opt-in) is firing on the confirmation page.

Now, there are a couple of ways to create the custom conversion. Admittedly, I do it kind of old school. I blame this on having been exposed to website custom audiences first. I was comfortable creating audiences based on URLs, so that’s how I created some of my custom conversions.

So, I usually create these particular custom conversions based on the confirmation page URL.

But, the more sophisticated approach is probably to create it based on the Purchase standard event, refining by the “content_name” parameter.

Either one works. Do what makes you happy.

Once I do this, I can then add columns to my reporting for the specific products and opt-ins that I’m promoting.

I can also optimize for them, though I generally optimize for the standard event since it will provide more volume.

Product Groups

Second, I create custom conversions to group products.

For example, I have sold many different training courses over the years. While I create a custom conversion for each individual course purchase, I also create a custom conversion for the general “training” category. This allows me to track purchase results by that category.

You could once again use the URL route here, but you’d need to be sure that all of the confirmation pages within a particular category follow the same structure.

For example…

It probably makes more sense for you to send the “content_category” parameter instead and create the custom conversion based on the Purchase event, refining by parameter.

I can then also optimize for that type of purchase. Here, it could make sense since the type of customer who buys training programs may be very different than those who sign up for a membership or book a one-on-one with me.

For Custom Events

Finally, I create custom conversions for many of my custom events. There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, I’m not sure if this is intentional by Facebook, but I’ve found that some custom events don’t appear in the list for adding columns. It seems like Facebook may only list the custom events you’ve ranked for event configuration.

For example, I have far more active custom events than these three.

But, I can create a custom conversion based on that event and then add a column for that custom conversion. Here is one such example…

Another reason I need to create a custom conversion for some custom events is to provide more detail. For example, the Page Views Per Session custom event fires on every page. I can create a custom conversion to isolate only those who loaded two page views per session (or 3 or 4).

And then I can add a column to reporting to get a better idea of traffic quality sent by my ads.

Your Turn

I hope these examples of how I use custom conversions help. How do you use custom conversions?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How I Use Facebook Custom Conversions for Reporting and Optimization appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Why You Should Use the Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome Extension

Jon Loomer — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 18:00:39 +0000

Some of the most helpful tools are super simple. The Facebook Pixel Helper (is it the Meta Pixel Helper now?) is such a tool.

The Facebook Pixel Helper is a Chrome browser extension. It’s not new. But, it’s extremely valuable for Facebook advertisers, and it’s free.

What is it?

First, you need to use the Chrome browser. If you do, you can add the Facebook Pixel Helper browser extension.

It’s a troubleshooting tool that detects the presence of a pixel on the current URL you’re viewing. It also detects the standard events, custom events, and custom conversions that are firing.

Let me provide a couple of examples of how it can be used…

Managing Clients

Maybe you’re managing a client or are considering a potential client. You don’t have access to their Ads Manager, but you want to get a better sense of what they’re doing.

An example: I host one-on-one sessions. I’m not a hands-on contractor, but more of a short-term (45 minutes) consultant. I don’t have or desire access to your Ads Manager, Events Manager, or Business Manager.

Prior to our session, I have the client complete a questionnaire to tell me more about what they’re doing and what they hope to accomplish. They also provide a list of domains related to their business.

This allows me to poke around a little bit without any direct access. Do they have the pixel installed? What kinds of events are firing? It doesn’t give me a thorough review, but it provides some surface-level context.

Testing Tool

Yes, Facebook has its own testing tools within Events Manager. You can use them, too. And while they may be best for viewing how the pixel is firing across your website, I prefer the Facebook Pixel Helper for testing individual pages.

The extension makes it super easy to immediately see if the pixel fires when the page loads. It also allows me to test whether certain events fire when they’re supposed to, in real-time.

Learning Tool

It’s a great learning tool! When I write about the custom events running on my website, you can actually test them out for yourself.

You’ve already been on this page for a while. You’ve scrolled. You should also click the audio player at the top. Then click the helper to see the exact events that are firing.

Try it!

You can even expand each event to learn more about the parameters used.

Your Turn

Do you use the Facebook Pixel Helper, or do you prefer other testing tools?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Why You Should Use the Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome Extension appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook Ads and the Role of Custom Conversions

Jon Loomer — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 18:00:12 +0000

Do you understand how custom conversions are used for Facebook advertising and how they’re different from standard and custom events? This is an area that is often confused.

The confusing part for many advertisers is that standard events, custom events, and custom conversions can all be used for both reporting and optimization. They each have their own quirks, similarities, advantages, and disadvantages.

Custom conversions, though, have a very specific role.

Let’s clear it up…

Targeting

You can create website custom audiences based on both standard and custom events. You can’t create website custom audiences based on a custom conversion.

When we talk about the role of custom conversions, understand it has nothing to do with targeting audiences.

Coding

One of the nice benefits of custom conversions is that they don’t require extra code to be added to your website. Both standard and custom events require event code (though, technically, you could use the Event Setup Tool to create standard events).

The process of creating a custom conversion is similar to that of a website custom audience. It can be created based on a URL or event fire.

Optimization

Standard events, custom events, and custom conversions can all be used for optimization. The difference is granularity.

For example, you can select the Purchase standard event as your conversion event that would be used for optimization.

You could use a custom event for this same purpose (in my case, one of my custom events is Podcast Play).

Custom conversions, though, allow you to set a more specific conversion event. You could first create a custom conversion based on the purchase of a specific product (or, in this case, category of product).

You could then set that as your conversion event, which could be used for optimization.

Reporting

This level of granularity also carries into reporting. If you add columns for standard and custom events, you will get reporting for those things.

For example, I have columns for Purchases, Registrations, and Searches (standard events) as well as Podcast Play and Quality Visitor (custom events).

This is nice, but sometimes you want details. What products are people purchasing? What are they registering for? What are they searching?

I also add columns for the registration for specific opt-ins and the purchase of specific products. I use custom conversions to accomplish this.

Summary

So, let’s summarize custom conversions and how they differ from standard and custom events:

No code is needed to create custom conversions (unlike standard and custom events)
You can’t create website custom audiences based on custom conversions (unlike standard and custom events)
You can map details of standard and custom events with parameters to add granularity to optimization and reporting

Your Turn

I use custom conversions quite a bit to help understand the specific actions on my websites that occur as a result of my ads. How do you use them?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Ads and the Role of Custom Conversions appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook Event Parameters for Granular Reporting and Targeting

Jon Loomer — Mon, 04 Apr 2022 18:00:36 +0000

You can track events on your website — both standard and custom events — using the Meta pixel and Conversions API. It’s the Facebook event parameters that provide the power of granular reporting and targeting.

Let’s break this down, covering the following:

The role of parameters
An example of parameters
Using parameters for granular reporting
The role of parameters in powerful targeting
How to set up parameters

The Role of Parameters

You can set up conversion events to fire on your website when people perform important actions. Standard events will typically fire on a button click or load of a specific page to notify Facebook that an action like a purchase, registration, search, or lead has occurred. This information can then be used in reporting (conversion attribution), optimization, and targeting.

Thanks to these events, you can know the number of people who purchased anything on your website. That volume can help with optimization to find other people likely to purchase. And you can then target anyone who has purchased anything on your website.

But, it’s the parameters that provide the granularity and details of these purchases and other actions. The parameters send information like the product purchased, the amount spent, and more.

Examples of Parameters

Let’s use the Purchase standard event as an example. You can send the following details of a purchase:

Currency
Value
Conent_name (product name)
content_id (product ID)
Number of items

Collecting value helps an advertiser know if they are achieving a positive ROI.

The product name helps an adveriser know what was actually purchased.

And the number of items are helpful because a single purchase may actually include multiple products.

Of course, these are just a few examples used for the Purchase event. Standard events are structured, and you can only send specific information that Facebook expects as parameters with these events. You have much more flexibility with custom events.

Targeting Based on Parameters

When you create a website custom audience, you have the option of basing it on your events.

Let’s stick with the Purchase event. You can then “refine by” Parameter to isolate purchases by the accompanying parameters.

The parameters that appear will depend on the parameters your event uses.

I could, for example, create an audience that is refined by the value of the purchase.

You can also refine by aggregated value. You could, for example, create an audience of people who have made at least two purchases.

It could also be based on the total amount spent, average amount spent, or minimum amount spent.

I also do this with custom events for quality traffic activity. I send parameters like the scroll depth, amount of time spent on a page, and embedded YouTube video played. I can then create an audience for one of these events and isolate the audience by parameter.

For example, I can segment the YouTube video people watched on my website using parameters.

I can segment the people who played my audio player at least 5 times.

And I can segment the people who viewed a specific blog post on my website for at least two minutes.

How Parameters Contribute to Granular Reporting

These parameters also allow you to drill down in your reporting. Instead of getting reporting for all purchases, you can filter by purchases of a specific product, for example. You’ll do this with custom conversions.

Custom conversions are created a similar way to website custom audiences based on events. First, select the event.

Then, create a rule based on event parameters.

The parameters that appear will depend upon what you are using.

Here’s an example of a custom conversion for a purchase based on the name of the product.

You can and should also include the value of that purchase.

This custom conversion can then be used for both reporting and optimization. You can optimize for the purchase of a specific product, for example. But you can also add columns in your reporting for the purchase of that product.

Setting Up Parameters

How you set up parameters will depend upon how you’re sending events. You may be using partner integrations that automatically send events and parameters. Custom events will require custom coding to decide on the parameters you want and to send them.

The pixel event setup tool can help you set up standard events with some parameters without code.

It’s not a perfect tool and doesn’t provide a ton of flexibility, but it’s an option.

If you want to add code manually, you can use my Pixel Event Generator to help construct your event code with parameters.

Answer some basic questions, and the tool will spit out the exact code you need to use. It’s completely free!

Your Turn

What’s your experience been with event parameters?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Facebook Event Parameters for Granular Reporting and Targeting appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Surprise Facebook Ads Conversions

Jon Loomer — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 18:00:49 +0000

Maybe you’re running a campaign for blog traffic. Maybe you’re promoting free opt-ins. When you measure success, do you also track surprise Facebook ads conversions?

What I mean by that is you may optimize for Landing Page Views, but you should still follow other types of conversions that result from your campaign in Ads Manager. The existence of these surprise conversions may alter your impressions of performance.

Let’s discuss how you can do this and provide an example…

Make Sure You’re Tracking Conversions

This may seem obvious, but make sure that your ad is set up to track conversions. Depending on your campaign objective and optimization, this may not be the case.

Within the “Tracking” section, at the bottom of ad creation, make sure that “Website Events” is checked and your pixel is selected.

You’ll be required to check this and select a pixel when optimizing for a conversion, but it isn’t required for many other situations.

Add Columns

If you’re running a campaign for traffic, engagement, or awareness, the default metrics that you’ll see in Ads Manager will be related to those objectives. While conversions may not have been your goal, they may actually happen. You should want to see them!

Click the “Columns” drop-down and select “Customize Columns.”

You’ll want to add conversion events, so click within the Conversions section on the left. Let’s start with Standard Events.

You can click checkboxes for total, unique, value, cost, and unique cost for any of the standard events. You can also add columns for custom events and custom conversions, but know that unique metrics aren’t available for them.

(SIDE NOTE: I’ve found that “unique” metrics are buggy and often don’t work.)

While you should add any and all conversions that you may find useful to your reporting, prioritize the events that you’ve ranked for your event configuration.

Saved Columns

This is one of the many reasons that I save columns to have a default setup that displays the metrics I care about most, regardless of the objective. I call my saved settings “The Good Stuff,” and you can read about the metrics I follow here.

If you don’t save columns and then set a column configuration as the default, Facebook will apply the Performance configuration as the default. This will hide these surprise conversions.

So, make sure that you go that extra step of setting this configuration as a default and you’ll always see it. You’ll also want to be sure that it applies to any campaign type that you create.

Example

I run a Reach campaign to a very warm audience with the goal of driving traffic to blog posts. If I stuck with Facebook’s default reporting, metrics would be focused on things like Reach and Impressions. By adding columns, I get a fuller picture of how that campaign is performing.

While my goal was traffic, I was able to uncover a lot more. This campaign also led to 143 registrations, 5 purchases, and 126 searches. That certainly alters my impression of the campaign!

Your Turn

What’s been your experience with surprise conversions when you had different goals?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Surprise Facebook Ads Conversions appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Is the Event Setup Tool Worth the Hassle?

Jon Loomer — Tue, 08 Mar 2022 19:00:11 +0000

We need to talk about the Pixel Event Setup Tool. Conceptually, it is a great idea. The Event Setup Tool allows advertisers to add standard events for conversion tracking to their website without code, which is pretty great. But… Should you use it?

I first wrote about the Event Setup Tool when it came out more than three years ago. Here’s the crazy thing: It still has the exact same limitations and bugs that I experienced way back then.

That doesn’t make the tool worthless. It still has value for very specific situations. But, it’s mostly frustrating at this point that it’s not better than it is after all of this time.

Let’s talk about how the Event Setup Tool works and its limitations…

How it Works

Let’s assume you’re not technically savvy. You need to create a standard event, but you either don’t know how or don’t have access to the backend of a website to add the proper code.

If that’s the case, the Event Setup Tool is your solution. Go to Events Manager, click the “Add Events” drop-down, and select “From the Pixel.”

Now you’ll get the following message…

Click “Open Event Setup Tool.”

Now paste in the URL where you’ll want to add standard events and click “Open Website.”

It will open that page of your website, and it will include a floating dialog that looks like this…

All great so far, right?

Events by URL

Let’s assume that you want to fire an event any time someone opens this page. An example would be a CompleteRegistration confirmation. By loading the page, you know that the registration has been completed.

So, you would click “Track a URL.” It will look something like this…

You can use “URL equals” or “URL contains” (you’ll then be able to edit the URL) logic. It’s up to you. You then select an event. We’ll go with CompleteRegistration.

Click “Confirm,” and you’ve successfully set up an event! You’ll just need to click “Finish Setup” and you’re done.

Really easy. I have some reservations about it that I’ll get to in a moment, but this is a pretty darn good option.

Problem: Parameters

Okay, now let’s start talking about the issues with this tool.

Having the ability to create a standard event without code is great. But, Facebook provides very limited opportunities for adding parameters. Parameters pass additional details about the event — like the name of the product.

Well, in the example above, I can’t do that. I created a CompleteRegistration event, but that event will not send details beyond that.

The only way to do that now would be to create a custom conversion based on the URL. Something like this…

And really, this is fine. It’s not the end of the world. But, it limits options for the advertiser. It would be nice if we could simply pass the parameter from the start.

Problem: Track New Button

Maybe it’s a browser issue (I’ve tried both Chrome and Safari), but I know I’m not alone in this. If you try to create an event based on button click, Facebook tries to detect where the button is. Well, the detection is an absolute mess.

Here’s an example…

What in the actual… What is it that I’m supposed to select here??

“Buggy” does not begin to describe this issue. It’s unusable.

Problem: Purchase Value

Another issue is adding the Purchase value for any event. You have a few options for this.

One is that you can have Facebook detect that value from the page. But once again, the tool’s ability to detect that value is absolutely horrendous.

Here’s an example…

Facebook highlights the entire line that includes a dollar amount. If I select that, here’s the value it will try to send…

Yeah, no. That’s not a value at all.

One of the other options is to pass the value from the Initiate Checkout event. That assumes, however, that Facebook was able to properly detect the value on that page (which I doubt it will!).

The final option is “Don’t Include Value.” NO! That’s not what we want either! Can’t we just manually enter it? Why is this so hard?

Of course, we can’t pass the name of the product with parameters either. So, once again, our last option is to create a custom conversion that will include the name of the product and the value.

So, fine. Another workaround. You can make it work. But the point is, it sure would be easier if this all just worked properly in the first place.

It Still Has Potential

Yes, the Event Setup Tool has some value. It has potential. But, it’s had the same potential and limitations for the past three-plus years now. It’s amazing that none of these issues have been corrected or improved in any way during that time.

So for now, this tool is a good option when you can’t get access to the backend of a client website to add code. Or maybe you have no confidence in your ability to add event code to a website. This remains, though imperfect, a stopgap solution.

I just can’t help being left with how disappointing it is that this tool, which has so much potential, isn’t better than it is.

Your Turn

Do you use the Event Setup Tool? Do you run into these same issues, or how do you deal with them?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Is the Event Setup Tool Worth the Hassle? appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

The Facebook Ads Metrics That Matter

Jon Loomer — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 15:57:23 +0000

How did your advertising campaign perform? Part of the battle is knowing which Facebook ads metrics actually matter.

I’m often asked about what I care about. Facebook does a good job of surfacing metrics that are relevant to your objective, but that’s not good enough for me.

You can customize your columns in Ads Manager to include the metrics you care about most. You can also save those settings and make them your default.

Let me walk you through how to do that first. Then I’ll give you an overview of my saved settings that I call “The Good Stuff.”

Customize, Save, and Set as Default

In most cases, the default column preset is “Performance.” This is a preset that Facebook created. If you click that drop-down, select “Customize Columns.”

Then you can add and remove columns as you please. You can also drag and drop columns to prioritize what appears where.

Once you have a set-up you like, you can save it.

Click that drop-down again, scroll down to “Custom” and click the “Save” link.

Give it an amazing name.

Once saved, you can then make that columns preset your default.

If you ever make a change that you want to save, just click into that drop-down again and click “Save.” Name it the same thing as the preset you previously created.

Then click the button to replace the existing preset.

“The Good Stuff”

My default column preset is saved as “The Good Stuff.” Basically, these are all of the main metrics that I care about most, regardless of the objective or optimization. It allows me to easily compare campaigns and ad sets without making changes.

I currently have 30 metrics in this setup. It’s a lot, I guess, but everything I need is there. If there’s ever something I need that isn’t included, I just customize columns.

To make it easier, let’s group the metrics I use by category…

Metrics: Campaign Basics

These metrics aren’t exciting, but they have to be included. Otherwise, you’d start asking questions.

They’re the campaign basics. The staples.

Delivery
Budget
Amount Spent
Results
Cost per Result

Metrics: Reach, Impressions, and Frequency

I want to know how many people I’m reaching and how many times. But, it’s also really important to know how much it’s costing just to show these ads, both by impression and by person reached.

Reach
Impressions
Cost per 1,000 People Reached
Cost Per 1,000 Impressions
Frequency

Metrics: Clicks

Not every click is the same, but I still like to see the reporting on each click type. I also like to see rate and cost metrics related to those clicks.

Link Clicks
Outbound Clicks
Landing Page Views
CPC (Cost Per Link Click)
Cost Per Outbound Click
Cost Per Landing Page View
CTR (Link Click-Through Rate)
Outbound CTR

Metrics: Standard Events

The standard pixel events you care about will differ depending on your website. The main two standard events that matter for my website are purchases and registrations. I could include ViewContent or Search pixel events, but I’m just not prioritizing them.

Registrations Completed
Purchases
Cost Per Registration Completed
Cost Per Purchase
Purchase Conversion Value
Purchase ROAS

Metrics: Custom Events

I’ve created three different custom events. I track quality traffic with the Time on Page and Scroll Depth events. I also have a custom event for embedded YouTube video views, but I just don’t prioritize that event.

Maybe you use different custom events. Maybe you don’t even use custom events. Feel free to track custom conversions, too, if they matter to your business.

Here are my metrics that matter related to custom events:

Time on Page Event
Scroll Depth – 70%
60 Seconds Time on Page AND 70% Scroll Depth
Cost Per Time on Page Event
Cost Per Scroll Depth – 70%
Cost Per 60 Seconds Time on Page AND 70% Scroll Depth

Find What Works for You

There’s a ton of room here for adjustments. I guarantee if you ask me a month from now, I’ll make changes to this. Most likely, that would be due to adding custom conversions to monitor more specific conversions.

But the main point here is finding the metrics that represent “The Good Stuff” for you. Save it. Default it.

It makes the Ads Manager experience so much easier.

Watch Video

Your Turn

What metrics would you include in “The Good Stuff?”

Let me know in the comments below!

The post The Facebook Ads Metrics That Matter appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

8 Ways to Target Quality Website Visitors with Facebook Ads

Jon Loomer — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 18:16:26 +0000

One of an advertiser’s targeting tools is reaching people who have visited their website before. But not all visitors are created equal. So, it’s important that you have strategies to target quality website visitors most likely to act with Facebook ads.

The idea of targeting website visitors is to reach those who are familiar with you and are most likely to act favorably. Of course, those who visit routinely or spend hours on your website are much more valuable than those who visited once.

So, the goal is to isolate the most engaged visitors while eliminating accidental clicks, quick abandons, and even visitors who viewed a single page and never returned.

Keep in mind that this method isn’t for everyone. If you only get a few hundred or few thousand visits per month to your website, limiting the audience further may result in a failure to deliver the ads.

With that in mind, let’s dive in…

1. Time Spent Percentage

Back in 2016, Facebook rolled out an easy way to create an audience of people who spent the most time on your website. It’s easy because it’s built into the website custom audience creation process, and anyone can do it.

When you create a website custom audience, select “Visitors by time spent” with the Events drop-down (“All website visitors” will be selected by default).

You can then select the top 5%, 10%, or 25% of users who spent the most time on your website.

The top 5% would obviously be the most relevant, but also the smallest audience. Keep that and the Retention in mind when creating any of the audiences we’re discussing in this blog post.

Once again, a low retention (1-10 days) will be the most relevant, but it may not give you enough usable volume. These are things you will need to experiment with.

2. Frequency of Page Views

Instead of focusing on the people who spent the most time on your website, you can isolate those who viewed the most pages. This can be especially useful for simply eliminating those who viewed only one page.

This is another option that everyone has. In this case, though, the ability to create such an audience is a bit buried.

When creating your website custom audience, select the PageView event.

The PageView event fires on every page load that includes the Facebook pixel. Unlike standard and custom events, PageView is built into the base pixel code (you don’t need to add it).

With PageView selected, click “Refine by” and select “Aggregated Value.”

By default, Facebook will use a frequency greater than or equal to “2.” That’s a great place to start!

Feel free to experiment with frequencies greater than “2” as well as increasing and decreasing the retention. If you can get the volume, this is a great way to isolate your highly-engaged website visitors.

3. Performed One of Multiple Standard Events

There are several standard events that, if performed, would signify a high-quality visitor. What those events are may depend on your website and the events that occur.

Following are events that could signify a quality visit:

Purchase
CompleteRegistration
Lead
Contact
Search

You can create individual website custom audiences for any or all of these events. Here’s an example of a website custom audience for a Purchase event during the past 30 days…

Then include those audiences in your targeting to reach anyone who has performed any of those events.

You could also technically combine multiple events into the same audience. When creating the audience for all Purchase events, for example, click the “Include More People” button.

Then add another event (or events) so it looks like this…

I personally prefer the individual event audience method so that each audience can be used more flexibly.

Read this post for more info about creating website custom audiences based on pixel events.

4. Page Scroll Custom Event

I use Google Tag Manager to manage my Facebook pixel and one reason is the ease of creating custom events. One of the custom events I’ve created tracks when people scroll a certain distance in a blog post. The idea here is that if you don’t scroll, you weren’t a high-quality visitor. But if you scroll a specified depth (70, 80, 90, or 100%), you were engaged.

I’m not going to go through all of the details of setting this up here, but I did write a blog post about it!

Once you create the event, you can create a website custom audience based on it.

5. Time on Page Custom Event

Time on Page is another custom event I set up using Google Tag Manager. Understand that this is slightly different from Facebook’s built-in Time Spent audience. The Time on Page event gives us a bit more flexibility.

Facebook’s Time on Page event uses three rigid groups of percentages. The Time on Page event fires at intervals that you determine.

In this case, you can isolate people who have spent a specific amount of time on any post, rather than separating only those who spent the most time on your website overall. At minimum, you can cut out the quick abandons and, for example, focus only on those who spent at least 30 seconds on a page.

Once again, I won’t go into all of the details of setting this up here. You can read a blog post I wrote for that!

Once you create this event, you can create a website custom audience based on it.

These days, I only fire a Time on Page event at 60 seconds.

6. Page Views Per Session and Per User Custom Events

Something else I’ve experimented with is the Page Views Per Session and Page Views Per User custom events. Using cookies, an event will fire each time you view a new page. That cookie will either be session-based or time-based. In the case of the per-user event, the cookie will last up to two years to track the total number of pages you view.

Now, this works a whole lot like the PageViews frequency approach we discussed before. I haven’t yet determined whether the extra work to set these up is worth it over simply using PageView frequency. There are some advantages to this approach, like the ability to create a custom conversion to optimize and track for these events.

If you’re interested in setting these up, check out this blog post by DigiShuffle (#10 and #12).

Once again, you’ll be able to create website custom audiences based on either of the events.

7. Mix and Match Audiences

Once you have all of these options, the question may be, “Which one is best for targeting quality website visitors?” Well, you can test that. But there’s also nothing stopping you from including two or more of these audiences within the same ad set.

This is the best way to get you volume while eliminating the most glaring characteristics of a low-quality visit. The other way to increase volume, of course, is to increase the retention (max of 180 days).

8. Quality Visit Conversion Optimization

If you use any of the custom events I’ve mentioned in this blog post, you can do more than just target people who perform them. You can also have Facebook optimize for that type of event.

To do that, you’ll first need to create a custom conversion for that event.

Then, run a Conversions campaign. Optimize for conversions and select that custom conversion as your conversion event.

Facebook will then optimize for and report on that event occurring.

Your Turn

These are the methods that I use for targeting quality website visitors. How about you?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post 8 Ways to Target Quality Website Visitors with Facebook Ads appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Create a Custom Facebook Event for a Watched YouTube Video in Google Tag Manager

Jon Loomer — Wed, 20 Oct 2021 17:43:10 +0000

Imagine you have an important YouTube video embedded on a page of your website. If someone watches that video, it will tell you that they are a potential lead. You can create a custom Facebook event to track, optimize, and retarget them with Facebook ads.

The original inspiration for this approach came from this blog post. I made some alterations. Feel free to make your own alterations to fit your needs.

First, know that I use Google Tag Manager to manage my Facebook pixel. One of the reasons I do that is because of the ease of creating custom events like this one.

For more on using Google Tag Manager for creating custom events, check out the following blog posts:

Configure the Video Variables in Google Tag Manager

First, you’ll need to tell Google Tag Manager the actions related to a video you will want to track.

Go into “Variables” on the left.

Click the “Configure” button at the top right for the built-in variables. Then make sure the Video Title, Video Current Time, and Video Percent boxes are all checked (you can select others to fit your needs, too).

Create a Video Trigger

Now, go into Triggers on the left.

Click to create a new one. Name it and click the edit icon at the top right.

Select “YouTube Video” under User Engagement trigger types.

I’ve chosen to capture when the video starts, completes, and is 50% completed.

Again, use what you want here. I found that adding too many captures created errors for short videos.

Click to add JavaScript API support and enable the trigger on “Window Load.” I found that leaving it on the default of DOM Ready resulted in not always firing.

Create a Tag

Go into Tags on the left.

Click to create a new one. Name it and click the edit icon at the top right.

You’ll want to select “Custom HTML.”

Paste the following code within the HTML area (don’t forget the opening and closing SCRIPT tags):

fbq('trackCustom','VideoWatched',{'Title':{{Video Title}},'Video Percent':{{Video Percent}},'Video Time':{{Video Current Time}}})

It will look like this…

Under Advanced Settings, click the box in Tag Sequencing to fire a tag before this one fires. You’ll want to select your Base Pixel Code tag (you should have created this earlier, assuming the pixel is already running on your website).

This assures that your base pixel code will fire before the event code. Otherwise, the event code will not work.

Under Triggering, click the edit icon at the top right.

Select the Video Trigger we created earlier.

Test it with the Facebook Pixel Helper

After all of the steps above are done, submit your changes. Then go to an embedded YouTube video on a page of your website.

To test it, I use the Facebook Pixel Helper Chrome plugin. Watch the video tutorial below that explains how to set this up.

Then check the Facebook Pixel Helper to make sure that the events you created are firing. You should see multiple “VideoWatched” events (assuming you set it up to capture multiple stages).

Here is the final time it fired, showing the video was completed…

Create Custom Conversions for Tracking and Optimization

You’ll want to use these events for both tracking and optimization purposes. Within your Events Manager, click to view your Custom Conversions.

Click to create a new one. Select the VideoWatched custom event.

If you want to get granular, you can create rules to isolate time, percent, or video title parameters.

You can then do any of the following:

Add this custom conversion to your configured events list and optimize for it
Optimize for this as a non-configured event
Add columns to your reporting to include this event

Create Website Custom Audiences for Targeting

You can also target people who completed these events. Go into your Audiences page and click to create a new Custom Audience.

Select Website…

Select your pixel. Within the Events drop-down, select the VideoWatched event under the “From Your Events” section.

Refine by “URL/Parameter.”

Just like when you were creating a Custom Conversion, select a parameter and refine accordingly.

You will now be able to target this very specific group.

Your Turn

Have you experimented with custom events for people who watched your embedded YouTube videos? How have you — or how would you use them?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Create a Custom Facebook Event for a Watched YouTube Video in Google Tag Manager appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

How to Optimize For and Track Facebook Custom Events

Jon Loomer — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 21:03:13 +0000

Thanks to a recent update, advertisers can now optimize for and track Facebook custom events — without needing to first create a custom conversion.

If this doesn’t make sense to you, allow me to explain…

What are Custom Events?

First, when we speak of “events” in this context, I’m referring to pixel events. Publishers who install the Facebook pixel (a unique snippet of code) to their website can track and optimize for specific events that occur on their website using Facebook ads.

There are two kinds of events:

1. Standard: Facebook has predefined events that they can easily recognize for tracking and optimization purposes. Examples include Purchase, CompleteRegistration, VieContent, and Search (among many others).

2. Custom: Maybe you have events that can’t be defined within “standard” constraints. You can use custom code to define “custom” events so that Facebook can track these as well. An example of a custom event on my website is the “Time on Page” event.

This allows me to send an event when someone has spent 60 seconds or more on a page. (You can read more about how I created this custom event here.)

The Problem (Before)

Once you create a custom event, you can create an audience of people who have performed it for targeting purposes. Here’s an example using the custom event I created for Time on Page.

After that, however, custom events had some weaknesses. You could optimize for standard events when creating a conversions campaign. You could also track standard event conversions by adding a column (if you didn’t define it as the conversion event in the ad set). But custom events needed another step.

In order to optimize for or track a custom event, you needed to first map that event to a custom conversion (since you could optimize for and track custom conversions, but not custom events).

What This Update Means

Mapping a custom event to a custom conversion in order to optimize for or track it seemed like a completely unnecessary step. And it was.

With this update, you will now be able to select a custom event when choosing your conversion event within the ad set.

Facebook doesn’t do a very good job of differentiating between what’s a standard event, custom event, or custom conversion during this process, but there’s one indicator. Standard and custom events don’t have rules, whereas custom conversions do. You should recognize all standard events. If you are uncertain whether an event is a custom event or custom conversion, hover over it to see if rules were set up for it.

Here’s a custom conversion where rules were set up…

And here’s a custom event, showing no rules…

If you select a custom event as a conversion event, it will be tracked in the “Results” column. But, you can also now add a column for a custom event now.

Click to customize columns…

On the left, you’ll see a “Conversions” section that includes standard events, custom conversions, and custom events.

You can then add a column for that custom event, regardless of whether you define it as your conversion event.

iOS 14 Considerations

Something to consider here is that you currently cannot configure your eight ranked events to include custom events, only standard events and custom conversions. Ranked events will result in more complete reporting, assuming you have a substantial audience using iOS devices.

My assumption is that Facebook will eventually allow us to add custom events as our ranked events, but until then this is something to keep in mind.

Your Turn

Have you started optimizing for and tracking custom events?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Optimize For and Track Facebook Custom Events appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Where Are My Client’s Hidden Facebook Events?

Jon Loomer — Mon, 15 Mar 2021 01:57:41 +0000

As advertisers configure their Facebook web events in preparation for iOS 14, we’ve been hearing from many experiencing hidden Facebook events. These can’t be seen (obviously), configured, or optimized for.

As you can see in the example above, hidden events are grayed out and won’t allow you to see or configure them.

This typically happens for agencies who are managing ads for a client. The explanation is often quite simple: You don’t have access to all of the events.

Let me explain…

Why this Happens

The “Hidden” message will occur because you do not have access to all of the eight configured events for a given domain. This may be a surprise for an agency that has been given access to a client’s pixel via Business Manager. But, understand that pixel configurations are often complicated.

Maybe your client has only one pixel. Maybe your client only configured standard events with selecting the eight that can be used for optimization.

But, there are two very common reasons why it won’t be that simple, leading to “Hidden” events.

Multiple Pixels

Your client may have multiple pixels on their website. And they may have configured specific events for each pixel.

One point of annoyance with the 8-event limit is that you can’t simply configure eight standard events for a domain and say they apply to all pixels on the domain. This would be ideal for ecommerce sites with dozens, hundreds, or thousands of sellers and pixels on the website. But, that’s not possible.

When configuring events, you have to first select the pixel.

So, technically, you could have eight different purchase events for eight different pixels. You would then have no room to configure any other events.

This may happen for bigger companies that have multiple locations or distinct departments that use their own pixels. And because they all fall under the same domain, they need to be included within the same group of eight configured events.

If this is the case, your client needs to make sure that you have access to all pixels that have events configured for their domain. This is done within their Business Manager.

They need to go to “Pixels” under “Data Sources.”

After selecting a pixel that has been configured with events, click on Partners to see with whom that pixel has already been shared. If no partners are listed, you’ll need to share it!

After clicking “Assign Partners,” enter the partner’s (agency’s) Business ID and determine the level of access they require.

Once you have access to the pixel, you should see its events within Event Configuration. When that’s the case, you’ll also be able to optimize for those events.

Share Custom Conversions

This is a big one. Honestly, it’s somewhat annoying. Custom conversions are not automatically shared with the pixel. So, if custom conversions are used for event configuration, they will be “Hidden” if they haven’t been shared.

As an agency that has access to a client’s pixel, you can create your own custom conversions. But, you do not automatically get access to any custom conversions that the client created. And if there are some that are needed (especially for optimization), you’ll need access.

While you can certainly recreate a custom conversion for reporting purposes, it won’t help you for optimization. Your recreated custom conversion won’t be the original that was configured as one of the domain’s eight events that can be used for optimization.

Custom conversions can also be shared from Business Manager.

Custom conversions exist both on an ad account-level and business-level. If the custom conversions in question don’t appear in this list in Business Manager, they are only currently used at an ad account-level. They’ll need to first be added to Business Manager.

Click the drop-down and select to add a custom conversion.

You will need to enter the custom conversion ID. Then select the ad accounts connected to your Business Manager that need access to the custom conversion.

Finally, determine the level of access that is needed.

For more information on sharing custom conversions, read this post.

Your Turn

This should solve the majority of issues with “Hidden” events. Still having issues?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Where Are My Client’s Hidden Facebook Events? appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

How to Share Facebook Custom Conversions

Jon Loomer — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 20:58:44 +0000

If you want an agency or consultant to have access to your Facebook custom conversions for optimization and reporting — or if you are an agency or consultant who needs access — the individual custom conversions must be shared with a partner.

In the spirit of “no simple concept should ever be simple on Facebook,” this is a much more complicated task than it needs to be. How your custom conversions are set up will determine how you can share them.

Why Share a Custom Conversion?

If your client, partner, or separate ad account created a custom conversion for a domain you are managing ads for, you may want access to that custom conversion for…

Optimization.

Reporting.

And it becomes even more important with iOS 14 and Aggregated Event Measurement. It’s not enough to have access to a client’s pixel. You may see “hidden” configured events because you don’t have access to them. That may be because some of the configured events are custom conversions that have not been shared with you.

Ad Account-Level vs. Business-Level

How you share or get access to custom conversions depends upon how they were created. There are two ways to create a custom conversion…

1. Ad Account-Level: Created from the Custom Conversions page in Events Manager for and by a specific ad account.

Go to Events Manager from your shortcuts menu and then select the Custom Conversions icon on the left.

Any custom conversion created by an ad account from this page cannot be shared with a partner or ad account (at least from this location — we’ll get to that in a minute). If you expand a single custom conversion, you’ll notice that the “Share” button is grayed out.

2. Business-Level: Created from within Business Manager.

You can also create a business-level custom conversion from within Business Manager. This section is found under “Data Sources.”

From there, you can add or create a new custom conversion.

Share an Ad Account-Level Custom Conversion

If you’ve created an ad account-level custom conversion, you will not be able to share it from the Custom Conversions page within Events Manager (the “Share” button will be grayed out, as mentioned above). But, you can still share it by first adding it to Business Manager.

Go to that same Custom Conversions section of Business Manager discussed above…

Instead of creating a custom conversion, select the option for “adding” one.

You will then need to enter the ID for the custom conversion you want to add. This can be found with the custom conversion.

Once you add the custom conversion, refresh the page in Business Manager and it should appear.

You can grant access to individual ad accounts or lines of business already connected to your Business Manager by clicking “Add Assets.”

Or you can share it with a partner and control how the custom conversion can be used by clicking “Assign Partners.”

Partial access for optimization and reporting should be enough in most situations.

If your partner doesn’t know where to find their Business ID, have them click on Business Info at the bottom left of their Business Manager.

Note that even once an ad account-level custom conversion is added to Business Manager, you still won’t be able to share it from the Custom Conversions page within Events Manager. This is the only way to do it.

Share a Business-Level Custom Conversion

If you created a custom conversion from within Business Manager, you will have more freedom to share it.

First, you will be able to share business-level custom conversions from within the Custom Conversions page of Events Manager.

You will be able to share with a partner or ad account.

Sharing with a partner looks just like it does when doing so from Business Manager.

Or you can share with any of the ad accounts connected to your Business Manager.

This can also be done from Business Manager, though it’s likely easier from Events Manager (only since you’re more likely to be in Events Manager). You can assign partners or assets just as we did with “added” custom conversions above.

Recap

It’s REALLY easy to get lost in the weeds and confused about this, so let’s summarize…

An ad account-level custom conversion is created from the Custom Conversions page of Events Manager for a specific ad account. It’s probably how you create your custom conversions. If a client or partner shares a pixel with you, it doesn’t include the custom conversions. If you want access to those custom conversions, they’ll need to first be added to Business Manager and then shared.

A business-level custom conversion is created from within Business Manager and isn’t associated with a specific ad account. It can then be shared with individual assets (ad accounts or lines of business) or partners.

This is likely to become a bigger issue as domain owners begin configuring their events related to Aggregated Event Management and include custom conversions within those events.

Your Turn

Are you still having issues with sharing custom conversions?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post How to Share Facebook Custom Conversions appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

ERROR: “This event hasn’t been set up on any of your domains”

Jon Loomer — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 21:53:27 +0000

Have you recently seen an error like this in Facebook Ads Manager?

This event hasn’t been set up on any of your domains. Once Apple begins enforcing their new iOS 14 requirements, ad sets optimizing for **EVENT NAME** will be paused unless you change your available events in Events Manager.

Here’s an example…

One of Facebook’s reactions to the iOS 14 data tracking prompt is to impose a limit of eight events for optimization. That limit is the source of this error.

You are probably seeing it for one of these two reasons:

You attempted to optimize for an event that falls outside of your primary eight
You tried to set up a conversions campaign and have not yet configured your eight events

If none of this makes sense, keep reading. Let’s talk about the 8-event limit and what it is, how to configure your events, and some outstanding questions.

Understanding the 8-Event Limit

Once the iOS 14 tracking prompt goes live, Facebook will execute an 8-event limitation on optimization. This means that you will only be allowed to optimize for one of eight different events per domain.

When I say “optimize,” I’m referring to the conversion event you select within your ad set when optimizing for some type of website event…

Keep in mind that this limitation applies “per domain.” You can have a single pixel on multiple domains and optimize for eight different events on each domain. You can have multiple pixels on the same domain, but you are still limited to the same eight events.

While Facebook hasn’t been entirely clear, it’s assumed that you will be able to continue to include events outside of the primary eight within your reports (when customizing columns) and for custom audience targeting. Of course, reporting will be incomplete for users who opt out of the iOS 14 tracking prompt, though Facebook says they will perform modeling to attempt to fill in the blanks.

Now that you have a better understanding of the 8-event limit, let’s talk about configuring your eight events…

Navigate to Web Event Configurations

Within Events Manager, you will see a tab for Aggregated Event Measurement. Click on that…

Once you click on the “Configure Web Events” button, you’ll be sent to the Web Event Configurations page…

Domain Verification

Web events on this page will be organized by domain. You’ll notice that the second column will include one of three messages.

“Domain Verified”…

“Owned by another business”…

Or “Verify Domain”…

Note that you cannot configure your events until you verify your domain. If you don’t own that domain, you will not be able to verify it — or configure the events on that domain.

If you haven’t yet verified your domain (and you’re able because you own it), click the button to start that process. You will then be redirected to the Domains section of your Business Settings.

You essentially need to add code or a file to the backend settings of your website — settings that only the website owner or admin will be able to access.

You’ll have three options:

DNS Verification
HTML File Upload
Meta-tag Verification

I personally prefer the Meta-tag Verification option since it’s closest to the process for adding a pixel to my website (which I know how to do). Simply add that code to the header of your website’s homepage and then click to verify.

For more info on domain verification, read this blog post.

Configure Your Eight Events

If your domain is verified, expand the entry for that domain in Web Event Configurations to view the events currently assigned to it.

Facebook will attempt to choose and rank your events for you, but you can (and likely should) edit this. Note that the list will start only with the current standard events Facebook finds on your website. You can remove and move events, and you can also add custom conversions.

Click to edit your list. First, you’re going to get a warning…

Prior to the iOS 14 tracking prompt going live, this is no big deal. But it could be a very big deal later. Keep in mind that changes can and will result in your ad sets pausing.

Now, let’s edit your events…

The ranking matters. When a user opts out of iOS 14 tracking, Aggregated Event Measurement will come into play. At that point, Facebook will only receive a user’s highest-ranked event in a given visit.

You can order your events any way you want, but it would certainly make sense to have your Purchase event be the highest rank. It would be nonsensical to want Facebook to receive a ViewContent event but not Purchase, for example. This would happen if you rank ViewContent highest.

An example of how you might order it with standard events:

Purchase
Add Payment Info
Initiate Checkout
Add to Cart
Lead
Complete Registration
Search
View Content

This is only an example. A registration may be worth more to your business than an add to cart. Also, note that you may not even have all of these events on your website.

Of course, if you want to use Value Optimization, that will take up four events by itself…

It’s possible, though, that you won’t even be able to optimize for value since you may not qualify.

Including Custom Conversions

Maybe you can fill up your events using standard events. Regardless, you may want to include Custom Conversions in your list.

There are a few reasons you may want to include Custom Conversions. Doing so allows you to optimize for…

Custom Events that you find important
The purchase of a specific product
The purchase of a category of product

There are other reasons as well, but standard events are based on very general actions. Custom Conversions give you more granularity.

To include a Custom Conversion, click the first drop-down that otherwise selects your pixel and scroll down to the bottom to select “Custom Conversion.” Then select the specific Custom Conversion in the drop-down to the right.

Here is my final, ranked list of eight events…

My website only makes use of Purchase, View Content, and Complete Registration standard events. However, I use a custom event for tracking quality web traffic by time (and scroll depth, for that matter). So, I included Custom Conversions for 60-second visits so that I can optimize for high-quality visits (typically for blog posts).

I created custom conversions based on categories of product as well, mainly because I had slots available. Since optimizing for specific products will create an issue of needing to edit my list often, these categories will (or should) remain unchanged. That also provides some volume for optimization purposes, rather than optimizing for the purchase of a single product.

Addressing the Error

Let’s return to the original issue of the error you may be seeing…

For now, this isn’t a problem. But once the tracking prompt goes live, the eight events will be enforced. At that point, you will not be able to optimize for an event outside of your primary eight. Any ad sets currently running that are optimized for an event outside of those eight will be turned off. And any change to your primary eight will result in a temporary pause.

This is going to create all sorts of problems and frustration for advertisers. It’s important that you plan ahead while you can. The more evergreen your eight-event configuration, the less likely you are to need to edit it later.

Fewer headaches, happy advertiser!

Many Open Questions

I covered a lot here, but know that the 8-event limit per domain opens up a ton of questions. One of the most common is something along these lines…

“What about using a third-party website to sell products? I provide them my pixel, but I am not able to configure these events because I don’t own — and can’t verify — the domain. So, I can’t optimize for these events. What do I do?”

It’s a question that I haven’t seen Facebook address yet. It’s not clear if they have a solution in mind, but this example does seem to present a big problem.

I’ll address this, and many other, related questions in separate blog posts and within my training.

Your Turn

Have you configured your eight events yet? What issues are you running into?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post ERROR: “This event hasn’t been set up on any of your domains” appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook Pixel Events and Custom Conversions: Best Practices

Jon Loomer — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 02:08:04 +0000

Meta pixel events and custom conversions are important tools that can amplify your marketing and advertising efforts. Given some crossover between the two, it may be challenging to understand the difference between them as well as when and how to use each. This post is meant to provide some clarity.

First, if you haven’t read my guides on how Facebook pixel events and custom conversions work, I encourage you to do so:

Throughout this post, we’ll discuss how to utilize each (if at all) in the following processes:

Conversion tracking in Ads Manager
Conversion optimization
Targeting
Dynamic ads

When we’re done, I’ll walk through exactly how I use Facebook pixel events and custom conversions.

Conversion Optimization

If you want to get the best results, you’ll want to take advantage of Facebook optimization. When creating an ad set, Facebook will optimize for your performance goal. This means that they’ll show your ads to people within your audience most likely to perform that action.

If you optimize for a conversion, Facebook will optimize for the specific conversion event that you define for Facebook at the top of the ad set.

You can select a standard event, custom event, or custom conversion.

First, know that there’s certainly value in setting your conversion event as any registration, purchase, or some other standard event. That creates volume that may help with optimization.

But, maybe you want to set a goal that is more specific, like the precise product that you want to sell. Know that you can still do that with custom conversions.

You can do this either by creating a custom conversion based on a standard event and parameter…

…or by product purchase thank you page URL (either using the standard event or not)…

You can also map a custom event to a custom conversion.

Conversion Tracking in Ads Manager

When running Facebook ads with the goal of a conversion, you will want to be able to measure success. To accomplish this, you’ll need to define your conversion goal so that Facebook can report on how many of those events occur as a result of someone seeing or clicking your ad.

First, know that when optimizing for conversions, Facebook will report on the goal conversion that you set in the step above as your default “Result.”

Know that when you hover over the number in that Results column (while optimizing for some type of conversion), Facebook will report on all custom conversion events that resulted from someone seeing or clicking on your ad.

But, maybe you want to see how many conversions happened when you weren’t optimizing for a conversion. You still can. This can be incredibly valuable.

Click to customize columns.

You can add columns of Total, Value, or Cost for any standard event or custom conversion.

We’re back to the same problem we faced with optimization! No ability to select a standard event based on parameters or a custom event.

If you’re reading closely, you probably know the answer. Map your standard event with parameters or custom event to a custom conversion. Do that and you can add a column to your Ads Manager for reporting.

Targeting

You can’t simply target a pixel event or custom conversion. But you can create a website custom audience that’s based on a pixel event (not a custom conversion) and target it within your ad set.

This is where it gets interesting and potentially complex. The audiences you can create are only limited by the number of pixel events (standard and custom) and parameters you use.

When you create a website custom audience, you will have the ability to select “From your events.”

You will be able to select from both standard and custom pixel events here — whatever events are active on your website.

First, you can choose to create an audience based on an event without refining by parameters. This could give you volume for more targeting power.

For example, here’s an audience of all purchases…

But, you can also refine by URL/PARAMETER or aggregated value.

So, you could create a website custom audience based on an event that occurred on a particular page (purchase event by confirmation URL) or based on product name using parameters.

You could create an audience of all purchases with a value of more than $100.00.

If you refine by Aggregated Value, you could even create an audience of all people who made at least two purchases during a given time period.

Or you can create an audience of people whose sum of all purchases over a given period of time is greater than or equal to $500.

Once again, your possibilities for targeting are only limited by how much you use pixel events. This is where putting in the work to use standard events with parameters as well as custom events really pays off.

Dynamic Ads

If you have an e-commerce company and want to benefit from Dynamic Ads, it’s a must that you use standard events with parameters (custom events and custom conversions don’t apply).

The ability to target Dynamic Ads based on the above categories relies on your diligent use of standard pixel events and parameters. That is how Facebook knows that someone viewed, added to cart, or purchased a particular product.

Summary

I created the following matrix to try and summarize how standard events (with and without parameters), custom events, and custom conversions can be used.

An important point: While you can’t technically track and optimize for standard events by parameters or custom events (with or without parameters), you still have options. All you need to do is first map that event to a custom conversion.

Can you get away with using ONLY pixel events and not custom conversions? Only if you have no interest in defining the specific conversion (product name and other details) for the purpose of optimization and tracking. Not a great idea.

Can you get away with using ONLY custom conversions and not standard or pixel events? First, not if you run an e-commerce website and want to utilize Dynamic Ads. But otherwise, you’d need to have the smallest of websites with a minimum number of conversion types to consider this approach.

Best Practices and What I Do

Note that this post isn’t meant to instruct you on which pixel events, parameters, and custom conversions to create. That’s going to vary from business to business. Instead, I hope this provides clarity on how each is used. But, I would like to explain how I use them.

For every product I launch, I create a standard event in Google Tag Manager and use the parameters to define the product, currency, and value.

I create a custom conversion for that product to isolate it for optimization and tracking in Ads Manager. Note that I create my custom conversions for product purchases and registrations based on confirmation page (mainly because it’s easier and my website is set up to do it this way).

I create a website custom audience for that purchase, but again I base it on the confirmation page URL.

You may not be able to create your purchase custom conversions or website custom audiences based on URL if you don’t have a unique confirmation page for each product purchase. That’s where you’d instead base those on pixel events and parameters.

I still use standard event parameters so that I can create some of those unique website custom audiences I discussed earlier. Otherwise, you could make the argument that standard event parameters are less necessary for a website like mine.

This same process applies for all of my free opt-in products. I create custom conversions and website custom audiences based on the confirmation page URL, and I add standard events with parameters.

I also create custom events based on time on page and scroll depth to measure, optimize for, and target high-quality visits.

The pixel events and custom conversions you use will depend on your business. But this is what I do.

Learn More About the Facebook Pixel

Want to master the Facebook pixel? Take your learning a step further with the Facebook Pixel Masterclass, a video series covering advanced topics related to the pixel. We’ll go into detail related to pixel events, custom conversions, tracking, optimization, and targeting.

Or, if you aren’t ready for the advanced topics, check out my Facebook Pixel Basics free video series (this is also included within Facebook Pixel Masterclass). You can register by clicking the link below…

[GET THE VIDEO SERIES]

It includes eight lessons covering what the pixel is, why it’s important, how it works, how to add it to your website, and how to test that it’s working.

Enjoy!

Register For Facebook Pixel Basics Free Video Series

The post Facebook Pixel Events and Custom Conversions: Best Practices appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook Custom Conversions: The Ultimate Guide

Jon Loomer — Wed, 09 Sep 2020 04:10:15 +0000

[NOTE: This post has been updated and completely rewritten from its original publication.]

You have the Facebook pixel. You may even be using pixel events with parameters. But if you aren’t using custom conversions, you’re doing it wrong.

Let’s walk through what custom conversions are, how to create them, and how you might use them.

What Are Custom Conversions?

Custom conversions are a way for advertisers to define a conversion event for the purpose of tracking and optimization. Most frequently, they are used for the tracking and optimization of very specific conversions.

Without custom conversions, you can only track and optimize for standard and custom pixel events. For example, you can track and optimize for all purchases or all registrations. You wouldn’t be able to track how many purchases of a specific product occurred or optimize for the purchase of a specific product with events.

Without custom conversions, you may not be able to get Ads Manager reporting for custom events (it’s possible this is a bug that not everyone deals with). Only a couple of my custom events show up among metrics that can be used for adding columns to my reports. If I map those events to custom conversions, I can then include them in reporting.

While custom conversions and pixel events have similarities, they aren’t the same. Events and custom conversions can both be used for tracking and optimization. But really, their similarities mostly stop there.

Pixel events typically require additional code, while custom conversions do not. Website Custom Audiences can be created based on pixel events, but not custom conversions.

Pixel events and custom conversions work in tandem. You can’t get the most out of pixel events without also using custom conversions. In a separate post, we’ll talk more about best practices, and how you should use standard events, custom events, and custom conversions together.

How to Create Custom Conversions: Basics

Within the Business Tools menu on the left, select Events Manager.

After selecting your pixel, click the menu item for Custom Conversions on the left side of Events Manager.

Click the “Create Custom Conversion” button and you’ll get a pop-over like this…

Let’s first cover the items that will always apply, no matter how you set up your custom conversions.

Name your custom conversion something descriptive so that you know exactly what it’s for. You can use the description field as well if necessary, but it’s optional (I can’t say I’ve ever used it).

Select your data source for the conversion event. This will typically be your pixel, but it could also be an offline event or app event. For the purpose of this tutorial, I’m focusing on the pixel. If you have multiple pixels, make sure you select the right one! If I’m going to screw up this process, this is where it usually happens.

At the bottom, you can enter a conversion value. This isn’t required and will be set to $0.00 if you don’t enter anything. But you should enter something if the conversion is anything with a monetary value.

When creating a custom conversion, you’ll need to select a conversion event. You’ll choose from standard events, custom events, and custom conversions. Let’s walk through each of them.

How to Create Custom Conversions: Standard Events

The options that appear under Standard Events will rely on the events Facebook finds on your website. Let’s use a common one: Purchase.

We now need to create our rules for defining this conversion. We’ll have options of URL, Referring Domain, and Event Parameters.

Let’s talk through use cases for each…

URL: Likely most common with this option. You want to track and optimize for the purchase of a specific product. Maybe you aren’t using event parameters and you have a unique confirmation page for each product. If so, using this makes sense.

REFERRING DOMAIN: Maybe you simply want to track how many of your sales were referred by Google. You could create this custom conversion and then add a column to your Ads Manager reporting.

PARAMETERS: If you use event parameters with your purchase events, you could create a custom conversion for a specific product. This is a good solution if you don’t have unique confirmation pages by product. This way, you can still track and optimize for the specific product purchase.

How to Create Custom Conversions: Custom Events

First, let’s select our custom event.

Since you aren’t basing this custom conversion on a standard event, Facebook needs to better understand what the event is. By default, Facebook will automatically choose a standard event to categorize your custom conversion based on information they have on your business.

Personally, I have doubts about Facebook doing this automatically. Based on information Facebook has on my business? Why does that matter? Shouldn’t it be specific to the conversion itself?

While this is the default, you can also customize it and select a standard event that you believe best represents the conversion event.

The rules you use and parameters available will depend upon the custom event — and the options are essentially limitless. But here’s an example using my Time on Page custom event and related parameters for 30 seconds.

How to Create Custom Conversions: All URL Traffic

The final type of custom conversion you can create based on pixel activity is for All URL Traffic. Such a conversion is defined by the URL, referring domain, or UTM parameters.

Once again, you’ll need to choose a standard event that most closely represents the conversion event you’re focused on.

One of the most common reasons you might use this is for a conversion confirmation page, but you don’t otherwise use pixel events. You could instead simply create a custom conversion for the confirmation URL.

The event parameters that are used here are actually pulled from your UTM parameters (if you use them). So, there are potentially creative custom conversions you could create if UTM parameters are part of your tracking strategy.

How to Optimize for a Custom Conversion

As discussed, one of the primary values of custom conversions is ad set optimization. Let’s talk about how that’s done.

When creating your campaign, select an objective that would allow for using the Website conversion location. Objective examples include Sales, Leads, and Engagement.

Within the Conversion Location section of the ad set at the top, set it to “Website” and select your pixel.

You can then select from a list of standard events, custom events, and custom conversions. The custom conversions will be labeled as such.

Make sure that within Optimization & Delivery, you are optimizing for conversions. By doing this, you not only optimize for a conversion but for the conversion you defined at the top.

How to Track and View Reported Conversions

If you set a custom conversion as the conversion event at the top of your ad set in the step above, Facebook will automatically report on it within the “Results” column.

However, you may not set that custom conversion as your conversion event — if you have that option at all (which you won’t when optimizing for an action that isn’t a conversion). You can still add a column to view your custom conversions.

Click the Columns drop-down and select the option to customize columns.

On the left, click on Custom Conversions and find the custom conversion you want to track. You can add columns for Total, Value, and Cost.

Also, a little known tip: To see all conversions of any type that resulted from your ad when optimizing for conversions, hover over the number in the Results column.

What’s great about both of these options is that they allow you to uncover hidden conversions that may not have been your priority or goal when running your ads — but they happened anyway! For example, someone may have clicked your ad promoting a blog post, but while there they decided to make a purchase. This is how you find those purchases.

How I Use Custom Conversions

I create custom conversions for all of my custom pixel events, which allows me to track and optimize for those events.

I also create a custom conversion for every product I sell and free registration I offer. In each case, the rules of these custom conversions use URL rules based on the thank you page. These are what I use for tracking and optimization when promoting those products.

Of course, what I do is not necessarily right for you. Hopefully, this post has inspired ideas of how custom conversions can be most beneficial to your business.

The post Facebook Custom Conversions: The Ultimate Guide appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Facebook Pixel Events: An Introduction

Jon Loomer — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 19:48:32 +0000

The Facebook pixel allows advertisers to better track, optimize, and target. These are the three most critical aspects of advertising, leading to the success or failure of your efforts. To make the most of the pixel, you need to utilize the Facebook pixel and events on your website. Not only must you utilize events, but you must do it right.

This post is your introduction to Facebook pixel events. It will help you better understand what pixel events are and how to use them.

First: The Base Facebook Pixel Code

If this is your first exposure to the Facebook pixel and events, know that pixel events can’t live independently. You must first have your base Facebook pixel code installed on every page of your website.

The base pixel code is what identifies the data as being connected to your ad account.

If you haven’t done this yet, read this post that outlines three primary methods to get the base pixel code added to your website — including what I do.

What Pixel Events Are

The base Facebook pixel code is what alerts Facebook that someone loaded a page on a website connected to a particular ad account. If you only have the base pixel code, your website sends page views, and nothing more.

If you use pixel events, you can define actions that occur on your website. The most common events we think of might be purchases, registrations, or leads. When using events, Facebook knows when these actions occur.

You notify Facebook of these actions with the addition of a pixel event. Most often, these pixel events fire when specific pages with their related code loads (though they could fire on button clicks or other custom actions).

For example: A visitor hits a landing page for a product (View Content event fires by visiting this page). They add the product to their cart but haven’t completed the purchase yet (Add to Cart event fires). They then submit their payment info and complete the purchase, redirecting to a confirmation page (Purchase event fires).

Sending this information to Facebook helps in three primary ways…

1. TRACKING: You’re able to connect your advertising to actual sales that occurred on your website because Facebook associates a person who saw or clicked your ad with a conversion.

2. OPTIMIZATION: Since Facebook knows who has converted on your website, you can optimize to reach other users similar to them.

3. TARGETING: You can target the specific people who performed these events.

Standard Events

At the time of publication of this blog post, there are 17 predefined standard Facebook pixel events (18 if you include Page View, which is included within the base pixel code). Facebook is likely to add more, as they already have during the evolution of pixel events.

Add Payment Info
Add to Cart
Add to Wishlist
Complete Registration
Contact
Customize Product
Donate
Find Location
Initiate Checkout
Lead
Purchase
Schedule
Search
Start Trial
Submit Application
Subscribe
View Content

Here’s a grid that includes all of the standard events, what they mean, and the code for implementation (with parameters, as necessary).

Standard events are helpful for a couple of reasons. First, the predefined code makes it easier for publishers to add events to their website.

Second, an event utilized on websites around the world means more data for optimization. If a person has shown to make online purchases on other websites, they may also be more likely, combined with other factors, to purchase on yours.

Custom Events

If you have an event that falls outside of the 17 standard events, you can create a custom event. This, of course, will be a bit more technical. While most often used for targeting (you can create a Website Custom Audience based on standard and custom events), you can still track or optimize for custom events if mapped to a custom conversion.

We’ll go into more detail on custom conversions in a separate post. However, you can read about two custom events that I have created for my website (and how you can create them, too):

Parameters

So far, we’ve discussed how to notify Facebook when a conversion occurs. Facebook may know, for example, that someone completed a purchase. But, how do we provide details of that conversion? That’s where parameters come in.

Parameters provide details like currency, value, quantity of items purchased, and the actual name of the product purchased or acted on.

It looks like this…

Only certain parameter are valid for each conversion event. In most cases, parameters are optional. The exception is the Purchase event, which requires currency and value.

More details can be found here on which parameters are available for each event.

Adding Events to Your Website

Event code needs to be added after the opening BODY tag. There are three primary ways to add events to your website:

Manually
Partner Integration
Event Setup Tool

Ideally, you can utilize partner integration that makes this easier, particularly for standard events. For example, if you have an e-commerce website on Shopify, much of the work is likely done for you.

You could use the Event Setup Tool, which is Facebook’s codeless method for adding pixel events. As of this writing, the Pixel Event Setup Tool is far from perfect (generally related to bugginess and a lack of parameter flexibility).

If given the option (and no partner integration), I prefer to set up events manually. Unfortunately, Facebook scrapped their tool that seamlessly provided the code you’d need when creating events. My team created a new option for you, called the Pixel Event Generator. Try it out!

Some Notes on Tracking, Optimization, and Targeting

I want to add some clarification regarding tracking, optimization, and targeting related to pixel events…

TRACKING: You can add columns for standard events within Ads Manager, but not custom events. Also, you can’t add separate columns based on parameters. For custom events and specific products, you’ll need to map your events to custom conversions for tracking purposes.

OPTIMIZATION: Like tracking, you can optimize for a standard event, but not custom events. Optimization would be for the aggregate of all purchases, for example, rather than the purchase of a specific product. Once again, you could optimize for a custom event or specific product purchase by first mapping the event to a custom conversion.

TARGETING: Understand that you can’t just drop a name of a pixel event in your ad set targeting. You need to first create a Website Custom Audience and select the pixel event. You would then use that audience for your targeting.

We’ll get into more details on these topics in separate blog posts.

Facebook Analytics and Attribution

One final point. Know that the pixel and events aren’t only helpful for advertising. They also help with analysis of organic content. When using Facebook Analytics and Facebook Attribution, you can measure your performance, regardless of whether the source of traffic came from an ad.

These are two very deep topics on their own that will be discussed separately.

The post Facebook Pixel Events: An Introduction appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

The Importance of the Facebook Pixel

Jon Loomer — Wed, 02 Sep 2020 15:50:40 +0000

[NOTE: This post has been updated and completely rewritten from an original publication.]

The Facebook pixel isn’t new. And yet, I still hear from advertisers, publishers, and businesses who aren’t currently using the Facebook pixel — or aren’t using it to its full potential. Excuses range from confusion and intimidation to ignorance regarding whether it’s needed at all.

Is the Facebook pixel needed? Heck yeah, it is. For every reason imaginable.

Without the Facebook pixel, you’re limiting yourself from the most popular targeting options. You aren’t able to accurately track conversions (how in the world do you without the pixel?). You can’t optimize for conversions. You can’t do any of the fun stuff.

You know… the fun stuff that leads to measurable results?

If you’re not familiar with the Facebook pixel, it’s a snippet of code unique to your ad account that should be placed between the HEAD tags of every page of your website .

It looks like this (here’s where to find yours)…

Once it’s there, magic can happen. Without it, no magic.

The Facebook pixel allows you to utilize the following…

1. Targeting with Website Custom Audiences

Everything on this list is important, but I would have a fraction of the success I’m having with Facebook ads without Website Custom Audiences. They are amazing.

When the pixel is on your website, Facebook knows when someone visits. They know what page they visited and when. As a result, you can create some pretty amazing audiences.

All of your website visitors during the past 1-180 days
People who visited a particular page or group of pages
People who visited a particular page but not others
People who were within the top 5%, 10%, or 25% of most time spent on your site
People who executed certain events

I target all of my website visitors for volume.

I target people who read posts on my website related to the Facebook pixel (like this one) when promoting my Facebook Pixel Masterclass video series.

I exclude people who already registered for the Facebook Pixel Basics free video series when I promote it.

I target those who spend the most time on my website to cater to quality visitors.

Or I can reach the highest quality visitors by targeting people based on scroll depth, utilizing a custom event.

I also target all people who registered on my website by targeting the CompleteRegistration standard event.

We can go on and on. Do you see how much I love using Website Custom Audiences? Not possible without the pixel.

2. Optimization for Ad Delivery

When you create a Facebook advertising campaign, you provide an intended audience who will see your ads. Of course, not everyone will see your ads. And, in most cases, you don’t want everyone to see your ads.

Why? Because Facebook has smart systems that help you show your ads to the right people within your audience. It’s called optimization.

When you have Facebook optimize for an action, your ad will be shown to people within your targeted audience who are most likely to perform that action. Not everyone will see your ad. Facebook won’t even try to show it to everyone. They are helping you save money by avoiding those who simply don’t perform the action you want.

Facebook can do this because of the ridiculous amount of activity data they have on users. People spend an insane amount of time on Facebook clicking, engaging, and converting. That data is used to help you get the most out of your ads.

If you’re not using the Facebook pixel? You’ll be limited to optimizing for lighter actions like link clicks, impressions, engagement, and reach. But once you have the pixel, you can optimize for an actual conversion.

3. Conversion Tracking with Events and Custom Conversions

If you utilize the Facebook pixel, you can define a conversion using pixel events and custom conversions. This allows Facebook to know when a conversion happens so that your ad reports can reflect them. Otherwise, how do you know if your ads were working?

When editing your ad set while using the an objective that allows for a website conversion location, you can tell Facebook which specific conversion you want to get — your goal for success. You can select from standard events, custom events, and custom conversions.

By selecting a standard event, like a general “Purchase,” Facebook will report on all purchases that happen as a result of someone seeing or clicking on your ad (regardless of what product they purchased).

Or you can ask Facebook to track the purchase of a very specific product by selecting a custom conversion (assuming you created it previously).

This way, these conversions will automatically be reported for you within the “Results” column.

No matter what conversion you are tracking or action you are optimizing for, also know that you can customize your reports to see how many conversions resulted from someone seeing or clicking on your ad. Click to Customize Columns…

From there, you’ll see standard events and custom conversions in the menu on the left.

By adding these columns to your report, you may be surprised by what you discover. When you may have optimized for Landing Page Views or Engagement, Facebook will report on those metrics to help you determine whether the campaign was a success. But, you may have actually received some conversions that you didn’t even know about!

4. Dynamic Ads

If you have a big e-commerce site, you need the pixel. It’s a must.

But even if you’re using it, you may not be taking advantage of Dynamic Ads…

If you have hundreds or thousands of products, it may not be reasonable to create individual ads based on the specific pages people visited and actions they took. But with the pixel, you can create dynamic ad templates…

This way, what appears in the ad will depend upon user behavior. Again, thanks to the Facebook pixel.

The Total Package: RESULTS

The bottom line is this: If you don’t have the Facebook pixel on your website, you have an uphill battle. Your targeting is second-rate. Tracking your results is damn near impossible. You can’t optimize for the action you actually want.

And that’s bad. I want you to have success. And without the pixel, you’re making it extremely difficult for yourself.

Facebook Pixel Basics Video Series

I created a free video series that covers all of the important basics of the Facebook pixel called, naturally, Facebook Pixel Basics. You can register by clicking the link below…

[GET THE VIDEO SERIES]

It includes eight lessons covering what the pixel is, why it’s important, how it works, how to add it to your website, and how to test that it’s working.

Enjoy!

Register For Facebook Pixel Basics Free Video Series

The post The Importance of the Facebook Pixel appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Create the Ultimate Facebook Pixel Event for Quality Traffic: Time and Scroll

Jon Loomer — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 19:24:49 +0000

During the past couple of weeks, I’ve walked you through how to create custom Facebook pixel events that allow you to track, optimize for, and target visits based on time spent on a page and scroll depth. Today, we’ll take that a step further and combine the two.

The reason for this is simple. While both time on a page and scroll depth are good indicators by themselves of visit quality, they each have a weakness. You can spend three minutes staring at the title without scrolling (or simply load the page and walk away). You can scroll through a post in 10 seconds and not spend any time reading it.

Several people asked me whether the two can be combined, and I have good news: They can!

Today, we’re going to isolate that ultra-valuable audience of people who scroll at least 70% of a blog post AND spend at least two minutes reading it. If you read either of the past two weeks’ posts, portions of this post will be repetitive. But I want to be sure that, if you missed those posts, you know how to set up the base pixel in Google Tag Manager and test the events.

Add the Base Facebook Pixel

I assume you have the base Facebook pixel code already installed on your website. Just in case, let’s walk through this anyway.

We’re doing this within Google Tag Manager. While there are likely ways to do it elsewhere, the variables and triggers provided by GTM make it easier to execute.

1. Create a tag and name it “Facebook – Base Pixel.”

2. Choose “Custom HTML” as the tag type under Tag Configuration.

3. Paste your base pixel code in its entirety within the HTML text box. Below is an example, but you should use your own code unique to your ad account.

4. Under Triggering, we want our base pixel code to execute on all pages of our website.

Create Variables

There are a couple of variables that we created during the past two weeks that we’ll use here. If you haven’t created them yet, let’s do that now. We need the pixel to record the percentage scroll depth and time on a page, so we add variables in Google Tag Manager.

1. Create a variable called “DLV – gtm.timerEventNumber” using the Data Layer Variable type. Use the data layer variable name “gtm.timerEventNumber.”

2. Create a variable called “DLV – gtm.timerInterval” using the Data Layer Variable type. Use the data layer variable name “gtm.timerInterval.”

3. Create a variable called “DLV – gtm.scrollThreshold” using the Data Layer Variable type. Use the data layer variable name “gtm.scrollThreshold.”

Create Scroll Depth Trigger

We want Facebook to fire an event as a visitor progresses on a page related to scroll depth.

1. Create a new trigger in Google Tag Manager and name it “Blog – Scroll to 50%.”

2. Select the “Scroll Depth” trigger type.

3. For vertical scroll depths, use percentages of 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100.

4. Enable this trigger on “Window Load (gtm.load).”

5. Set to page path contains “/blog/”. I’ve decided to focus only on blog posts, but this is again optional. You could skip this step and it would execute on any page.

Create a Timer Trigger

We want Facebook to fire an event for every 30 seconds a visitor is on a page.

1. Create a new trigger in Google Tag Manager and name it “Blog – 30, 60, 90, 120, 180 seconds.”

2. Select the “Timer” trigger type.

3. For interval, use 30000 milliseconds (30 seconds). You can use a different interval if you please.

4. Set a limit of 6. Again, this is optional, but in my case I wanted to record events at 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 seconds.

5. Set to page path contains “/blog/”. I’ve decided to focus only on blog posts, but this is again optional. You could skip this step and it would execute on any page.

Create a Trigger to Combine Scroll Depth and Time Spent

We want Facebook to fire an event when a visitor spends at least 120 seconds and scrolls at least 70% of the way through a blog post.

1. Create a new trigger in Google Tag Manager and name it “Blog post – 120+ seconds AND 70% scroll.”

2. Select the “Custom Event” trigger type.

3. Enter “^gtm\.(timer|scrollDepth)$” for the event name and check the box for using Regex Matching.

4. Select to have the trigger fire on “Some Custom Events.”

5. Fire the trigger when DLV – gtm.timerEventNumber is greater than or equal to 4. Since we’re using intervals of 30 seconds, this equals 120 seconds.

6. Fire the trigger when DLV – gtm.scrollThreshold is greater than or equal to 70.

Create a Tag

Now, we are going to create a new tag in Google Tag Manager that will reference the trigger and variables we just made.

1. Create a new tag and name it “Facebook – Blog – 120+ Seconds AND 70% Scroll.” Names are up to you, of course.

2. Use the Custom HTML tag type.

3. Paste the following code within the HTML text box…

It should look like this…

4. Under Advanced Settings > Tag Sequencing, check the box next to “Facebook – Blog – 120+ Seconds AND 70% Scroll fires.”

5. Select the “Facebook – Base Pixel” tag under setup.

6. Under Triggering, select the trigger that we created previously.

Test Your Event

Let’s make sure this event is working. Within your Events Manager, select your pixel and click on Test Events on the left.

Open a separate window or tab and go to a page of your website where this event should trigger. Scroll through the entirety of that page, and it should appear within this window.

You can also use the Facebook Pixel Helper to test in this same way.

Create Custom Conversions

I’ve created a custom conversion for this event. We’ll need this for tracking and optimization.

1. Instead of “All URL Traffic,” select “Blog Tracking” under Custom Events.

2. Click to Add a Rule.

3. Instead of “URL,” select “Event Parameters.”

4. Select “Time and depth” as your custom parameter.

5. Enter “120” next to “Contains.” I’ve only created one custom parameter under this event, so this rule should pick it up.

6. Name it, select a category (probably “Other”), and set a value (probably leave it blank).

You can test these custom conversions just as you tested your event. You should also start to see activity within your list of custom conversions. Note that the activity will be lower than what you were seeing with time on page and scroll depth alone. These are now the best of the best visits!

Add Columns in Ad Reports

This is information you should monitor within your ad reports, particularly when you drive traffic to blog posts. To do that, click to Customize Columns…

And then find your new Custom Conversion and check the boxes to add it to your report.

Optimize for High-Quality Traffic

If you would normally run campaigns to promote blog posts, let’s do it a little differently.

First, use the Conversions objective rather than Traffic.

When you set Optimization for Ad Delivery at the ad set level, select the custom conversion you’ve created.

By setting up campaigns this way, Facebook will attempt to show your ads to people most likely to spend at least two minutes and scroll at least 70% on a blog post.

Create Website Custom Audiences

We can now create audiences based on the new event we’ve created…

This lets you focus on targeting those who actually READ your blog post — beyond those pesky Blog Post Title scanners and quick scrollers.

Your Turn

This approach has changed my Facebook advertising. It gives me a much clearer view of the quality of visitor I’m driving and allows me to optimize for that type of visitor. This isolated audience also gives me an option for targeting of a small, value-packed group.

Are you doing something similar? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Create the Ultimate Facebook Pixel Event for Quality Traffic: Time and Scroll appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Create Facebook Pixel Events for Scroll Depth

Jon Loomer — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 03:06:24 +0000

A week ago, we discussed how to create Facebook pixel events for time spent on a page. This week, let’s create Facebook pixel events for scroll depth.

If you read last week’s post, portions of this post will be repetitive. But I want to be sure that, if you missed that post, you know how to set up the base pixel in Google Tag Manager and test the events.

I’ll go through even more detail in my upcoming Facebook Pixel Masterclass (the first lesson is free).

The Problem: Low-Quality Traffic

As discussed a week ago, the foundation of my marketing strategy is driving traffic to my website. I use organic content, email updates, and Facebook ads to send a constant pipeline of people to my site. That starts my funnel, where I hope to get them on my email list (usually via a free offer) before making a single-product sale and, hopefully, ongoing membership.

The quality of this funnel is reliant on the quality of that initial traffic. If my website is flooded by low-quality visits (typically reflected by a quick exit), my other efforts will fall apart.

I had become increasingly skeptical of results I was seeing from Traffic campaigns promoting blog posts using Landing Page Views optimization. I would occasionally see runs of too-good-to-be-true results. After digging further, the culprits were typically source country or placement (Audience Network almost always sends low-quality traffic).

Why does this happen? Simple: Facebook cares about volume and costs without care regarding quality. They don’t hide from this fact, either…

When optimizing for Landing Page Views (after clicking the ad, the website and Facebook pixel load), Facebook will try to get you the most LPVs for the lowest cost. It doesn’t matter whether those are three-second or three-hour views. Facebook doesn’t care.

This may not matter when it comes to sales. A $100 sale is a $100 sale. But there is a huge variance in the quality of a Landing Page View.

The Solution: Facebook Pixel Event for Scroll Depth

Scroll depth means how far down the page someone scrolls when viewing a page. While time on a page is a good indicator of quality, a visitor could theoretically spend three minutes staring at the title, and that’s not a high-quality visitor. We need another indicator of visit quality. Logging visits that result in viewing most or all of a post is a good option.

We want Facebook to track, report, optimize for, and even target based on how far someone scrolls on a page of our website. We can force Facebook to care about the quality of the traffic they are sending.

By creating a Facebook pixel event to create a log of visits based on 10-percent multiples (50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100 percent), we can then do the following specific things:

Create Custom Conversions based on these events
Add columns to our ad reports for number and cost of these events to get a clearer view of ability to drive quality traffic
Optimize for any of these specific events to focus on targeting and driving high-quality visits
Create website custom audiences of those who performed these events for high-quality targeting

A member of my team did this for me using Google Tag Manager. I am going to walk through the specific steps so that you can do it, too.

Add the Base Facebook Pixel

I assume you have the base Facebook pixel code already installed on your website. Just in case, let’s walk through this anyway.

We’re doing this within Google Tag Manager. While there are likely ways to do it elsewhere, the variables and triggers provided by GTM make it easier to execute.

1. Create a tag and name it “Facebook – Base Pixel.”

2. Choose “Custom HTML” as the tag type under Tag Configuration.

3. Paste your base pixel code in its entirety within the HTML text box. Below is an example, but you should use your own code unique to your ad account.

4. Under Triggering, we want our base pixel code to execute on all pages of our website.

Note that I won’t have the events we’re going to create execute on every page (that’s up to you). But the base pixel absolutely should.

Create a Trigger

We want Facebook to fire an event as a visitor progresses on a page related to scroll depth.

1. Create a new trigger in Google Tag Manager and name it “Blog – Scroll to 50%.”

2. Select the “Scroll Depth” trigger type.

3. For vertical scroll depths, use percentages of 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100.

4. Enable this trigger on “Window Load (gtm.load).”

5. Set to page path contains “/blog/”. I’ve decided to focus only on blog posts, but this is again optional. You could skip this step and it would execute on any page.

Create Variable

We need the pixel to record the percentage scroll depth, so we add a variable in Google Tag Manager.

Create a variable called “DLV – gtm.scrollThreshold” using the Data Layer Variable type. Use the data layer variable name “gtm.scrollThreshold.”

Create a Tag

Now, we are going to create a new tag in Google Tag Manager that will reference the trigger and variable we just made.

1. Create a new tag and name it “Facebook – Blog – Scroll 50%-100%.” Names are up to you, of course.

2. Use the Custom HTML tag type.

3. Paste the following code within the HTML text box…

It should look like this…

4. Under Advanced Settings > Tag Sequencing, check the box next to “Fire a tag before Facebook – Blog – Scroll 50%-100% fires.”

5. Select the “Facebook – Base Pixel” tag under setup.

6. Under Triggering, select the trigger that we created previously.

Test Your Event

Let’s make sure this event is working. Within your Events Manager, select your pixel and click on Test Events on the left.

Open a separate window or tab and go to a page of your website where this event should trigger. Scroll through the entirety of that page, and it should appear within this window.

You can also use the Facebook Pixel Helper to test in this same way.

Create Custom Conversions

I’ve created custom conversions for each of the six interval scroll depth events that should be firing.

1. Instead of “All URL Traffic,” select “Blog Tracking” under Custom Events.

2. Click to Add a Rule.

3. Instead of “URL,” select “Event Parameters.”

4. Select “Scroll Depth” as your custom parameter.

5. Enter “50%” next to “Equals.”

6. Name it, select a category (probably “Other”), and set a value (probably leave it blank).

7. Repeat for 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100%.

You can test these custom conversions just as you tested your event. You should also start to see activity within your list of custom conversions.

Add Columns in Ad Reports

This is information you should monitor within your ad reports, particularly when you drive traffic to blog posts. To do that, click to Customize Columns…

And then find your new Custom Conversions and check the boxes to add them to your report.

Optimize for High-Quality Traffic

If you would normally run campaigns to promote blog posts, let’s do it a little differently.

First, use the Conversions objective rather than Traffic.

When you set Optimization for Ad Delivery at the ad set level, select one of the custom conversions you’ve created.

Feel free to experiment with the different time intervals to see if it impacts your results.

By setting up campaigns this way, Facebook will attempt to show your ads to people most likely to scroll at least 70% on a blog post.

Create Website Custom Audiences

We can now create audiences based on these new events we’ve created…

This lets you focus on targeting those who actually READ your blog post — beyond those pesky Blog Post Title scanners.

Your Turn

Are you doing something similar? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Create Facebook Pixel Events for Scroll Depth appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

Create Facebook Pixel Events for Time Spent

Jon Loomer — Tue, 26 May 2020 23:29:00 +0000

In this post, I’m going to walk through how to create a custom Facebook pixel event based on time spent on your website (all pages or a section of your website). That event will help you better track, optimize, and target those who spend the most time on your website.

[READ ABOUT HOW TO CREATE A PIXEL EVENT FOR SCROLL DEPTH.]

This is a big deal. It’s more than simply creating a custom audience of those who spent the most time on your website, as is already easily possible (top 5%, 10%, and 25%). This provides more granularity of those audiences, but two most important capabilities of this approach are through measurement and optimizing for this type of visitor.

The Problem: Low-Quality Traffic

The foundation of my marketing strategy is driving traffic to my website. I use organic content, email updates, and Facebook ads to send a constant pipeline of people to my site. That starts my funnel, where I hope to get them on my email list (usually via a free offer) before making a single-product sale and, hopefully, ongoing membership.

The quality of this funnel is reliant on the quality of that initial traffic. If my website is flooded by low-quality visits (typically reflected by a quick exit), my other efforts will fall apart.

Why does this happen? Simple: Facebook cares about volume and costs without care regarding quality. They don’t hide from this fact, either…

This may not matter when it comes to sales. A $100 sale is a $100 sale. But there is a huge variance in the quality of a Landing Page View.

The Solution: Facebook Pixel Event for Time Spent

We want Facebook to track, report, optimize for, and even target based on the time spent on our website. We can force Facebook to care about the quality of the traffic they are sending.

By creating a Facebook pixel event to create a log of visits based on 30-second multiples (30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 seconds), we can then do the following specific things:

Create Custom Conversions based on these events
Add columns to our ad reports for number and cost of these events to get a clearer view of ability to drive quality traffic
Optimize for any of these specific events to focus on targeting and driving high-quality visits
Create website custom audiences of those who performed these events for high-quality targeting

A member of my team did this for me using Google Tag Manager. I am going to walk through the specific steps so that you can do it, too.

Add the Base Facebook Pixel

I assume you have the base Facebook pixel code already installed on your website. Just in case, let’s walk through this anyway.

We’re doing this within Google Tag Manager. While there are likely ways to do it elsewhere, the variables and triggers provided by GTM make it easier to execute.

1. Create a tag and name it “Facebook – Base Pixel.”

2. Choose “Custom HTML” as the tag type under Tag Configuration.

3. Paste your base pixel code in its entirety within the HTML text box. Below is an example, but you should use your own code unique to your ad account.

4. Under Triggering, we want our base pixel code to execute on all pages of our website.

Note that I won’t have the events we’re going to create execute on every page (that’s up to you). But the base pixel absolutely should.

Create a Trigger

We want Facebook to fire an event for every 30 seconds a visitor is on a page.

1. Create a new trigger in Google Tag Manager and name it “Blog – 30, 60, 90, 120, 180 seconds.”

2. Select the “Timer” trigger type.

3. For interval, use 30000 milliseconds (30 seconds). You can use a different interval if you please.

4. Set a limit of 6. Again, this is optional, but in my case I wanted to record events at 30, 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 seconds.

5. Set to page path contains “/blog/”. I’ve decided to focus only on blog posts, but this is again optional. You could skip this step and it would execute on any page.

Create Variables

We need the pixel to record the event number and interval so that this can be executed in the tag (coming up). So we need to create two variables in Google Tag Manager.

1. Create a variable called “DLV – gtm.timerEventNumber” using the Data Layer Variable type. Use the data layer variable name “gtm.timerEventNumber.”

2. Create a variable called “DLV – gtm.timerInterval” using the Data Layer Variable type. Use the data layer variable name “gtm.timerInterval.”

Create a Tag

Now, we are going to create a new tag in Google Tag Manager that will reference the trigger and variables we just made.

1. Create a new tag and name it “Facebook – Blog – 30 Seconds or more.” Names are up to you, of course.

2. Use the Custom HTML tag type.

3. Paste the following code within the HTML text box…

It should look like this…

4. Under Advanced Settings > Tag Sequencing, check the box next to “Fire a tag before Facebook – Blog – 30 Seconds or more fires.”

5. Select the “Facebook – Base Pixel” tag under setup.

6. Under Triggering, select the trigger that we created previously.

Test Your Event

Let’s make sure this event is working. Within your Events Manager, select your pixel and click on Test Events on the left.

Open a separate window or tab and go to a page of your website where this event should trigger. Wait a while, and it should appear within this window.

You can also use the Facebook Pixel Helper to test in this same way.

Create Custom Conversions

I’ve created custom conversions for each of the six interval timer events that should be firing.

1. Instead of “All URL Traffic,” select “Blog Tracking” under Custom Events.

2. Click to Add a Rule.

3. Instead of “URL,” select “Event Parameters.”

4. Select “Time on page” as your custom parameter.

5. Enter “30 seconds” next to “Equals.”

6. Name it, select a category (probably “Other”), and set a value (probably leave it blank).

7. Repeat for 60, 90, 120, 150, and 180 seconds.

You can test these custom conversions just as you tested your event. You should also start to see activity within your list of custom conversions.

Add Columns in Ad Reports

This is information you should monitor within your ad reports, particularly when you drive traffic to blog posts. To do that, click to Customize Columns…

And then find your new Custom Conversions and check the boxes to add them to your report.

Optimize for High-Quality Traffic

If you would normally run campaigns to promote blog posts, let’s do it a little differently.

First, use the Conversions objective rather than Traffic.

When you set Optimization for Ad Delivery at the ad set level, select one of the custom conversions you’ve created.

Feel free to experiment with the different time intervals to see if it impacts your results.

By setting up campaigns this way, Facebook will attempt to show your ads to people most likely to click and spend 30+ seconds on a blog post.

Create Website Custom Audiences

As you probably know, there are already ways to target some of your highest quality website visitors. You can target based on time spent on your website…

You can also create audiences of people based on number of PageView events…

And we can now create audiences based on these new events we’ve created…

While the Time on Site audience will allow you to reach those who spent the most aggregate time on your website and the PageView audience allows you to target those who viewed the most pages, this lets you focus on those who spent a specific amount of time on any blog post.

Your Turn

Are you doing something similar? What do you think?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post Create Facebook Pixel Events for Time Spent appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.

New Facebook Pixel: Audiences, Custom Conversions and Standard Events

Jon Loomer — Tue, 15 Dec 2015 07:05:15 +0000

The ability to fully understand, appreciate and utilize the new Facebook pixel is what separates the effective marketers from the struggling ones. Most are overwhelmed by the concept and run for the hills. Those who dig in are rewarded…

Look, I don’t blame those who are overwhelmed. The new pixel is confusing, and I’m speaking for the advanced marketers who have figured it out. My goal is to help cut through the confusion to lead you to the reward.

A few posts have been published on this site about the Facebook pixel recently:

Needless to say, even if you read all three of these posts, we’re only scratching the surface.

The pixel is more than just remarketing and website custom audiences. It’s optimization. It’s tracking. And it’s a whole lot more, combining what was once multiple pixels into one.

On Wednesday, December 16, I’ll be hosting a live two-hour workshop on the new Facebook in hopes of exhausting this topic. This workshop is for Power Hitters Club members (my private membership) only. If you aren’t yet a member, there’s still time (as I write this, at least).

If you read this after December 16, know that annual PHC members have access to all past replays. If you want to watch that replay, join us!

Understand that even this post in addition to the other three mentioned above won’t detail everything. But the main thing I’ve yet to do is provide an adequate description explaining the differences between the old pixel and the new one as well as the various ways the pixel is now being used.

So let’s do it…

[Tweet “The Facebook pixel has changed, and marketers are confused. Here’s a breakdown of what you need to know…”]

The Old Pixel(s)

Note the “(s).” In the past, Facebook marketers had multiple pixels:

Website Custom Audience Pixel: A single pixel used across a website or owned properties
Conversion Pixels: Individual pixels used on the success page for each product and opt-in

The old conversion pixel is/was used for tracking and optimizing for conversions. It was required when running campaigns with the Website Conversions objective. In this case, the advertiser would place a conversion-unique pixel on the success page for a single product, allowing Facebook to report and optimize for that conversion.

Know that the conversion pixel will disappear in the second half of 2016. We don’t know when at this point. You don’t necessarily need to do anything right now. But it’s smart to do something sooner than later.

If you have placed Facebook code on a success page that is different from the code on other pages of your site, it is very likely the old Facebook conversion pixel.

Here’s an example:

There is even commented out code at the front indicating that it is “Facebook conversion code.”

To reiterate, you can continue to use this pixel for now. It can exist on your site, even if you start using the new pixel. But you need to know that it won’t work much longer.

The New Pixel: Basics

When Facebook first launched Website Custom Audiences, there were rumblings that the plan was to eventually combine the conversion pixel with the Website Custom Audience pixel. And that just makes sense.

When someone visits a website page where the Facebook pixel exists, the page loads and the pixel fires behind the scenes — alerting Facebook that this particular user visited this particular page.

Here’s an example of the new pixel…

This same code is placed on every page of your website. This is typically done by placing it between the HEAD tags of the template of your site.

This is different, of course, from the old Website Custom Audience pixel because it can be altered based on the action occurring on the page. We’ll get to that later in this post when talking about Standard Events.

Website Custom Audiences

The Facebook pixel is on every page of your site. Now you want to create audiences of people — Website Custom Audiences — based on the specific pages they visited and when.

Remember, you aren’t adding new code now. That pixel is already on your site. Now it’s time to create some rules to isolate people based on their activity on your website.

Within “Audiences” of the “Tools” drop-down in Business Manager, click to create a Custom Audience…

You’ll be creating a Custom Audience for website traffic…

You can choose to create an audience of all of your website visitors during the past 1 to 180 days. Here’s an example of creating an audience for all of my website visitors during the past 30 days…

You can also create audiences of people based on the specific pages they’ve visited during the past 1 to 180 days. This is done by having Facebook isolate pages visited with specific words in the URL.

Here’s an example of a Website Custom Audience of those who visited any page with “facebook-pixel” in the URL during the past 30 days…

That’s just the start, of course. You can do a few other fun things with Website Custom Audiences:

Target people who visited some pages, but not others
Target people who haven’t visited in a certain amount of time
Target people based on other “custom combinations”

That’s all great, but these are other complexities that aren’t all that important to understand right now. Just know that Website Custom Audiences allow you to target people who have visited your website.

Here’s an example of using this audience for targeting in my ad set…

In this case, I’m promoting my post about Custom Conversions, showing it to people who have read posts published in 2015 on my website during the past 180 days. I am also excluding those who have already read the post.

This is done with Website Custom Audiences.

Custom Conversions

The process of creating Custom Conversions is a whole lot like Website Custom Audiences. This is mostly meant to replace your old conversion pixels, but without requiring you to add a new pixel.

Remember: With the old conversion pixels, you needed to add a unique pixel for each product or opt-in to their associated success pages. But with the new Facebook pixel, that pixel only needs to be added to your website once — to every page of your site.

Since the code is already there (right?), this process is extremely easy.

From your Business Manager, click the Tools drop-down and select “Pixels.”

Click “Track Custom Conversions.”

This process is a lot like creating a Website Custom Audience. You’ll want to create an audience of people who visited a specific page that would indicate a conversion is complete. So you’ll want to enter the URL or portion of a URL that would suggest a completed conversion.

So let’s use a theoretical thank-you page for the PHC as an example…

I selected the “Purchase” category, but it could have been one of several others…

Name the Custom Conversion, and you can also assign a conversion value…

One of the differences between Website Custom Audiences and Custom Conversions is that you can optimize for a Custom Conversion when running a campaign with a Website Conversions objective…

There is plenty more you should know about Custom Conversions, including their limitations. You can read the full post on Custom Conversions for more.

Standard Events

This is where it gets confusing for many marketers.

There is yet another way to utilize the Facebook pixel and mark certain pages for conversions — or “events.” It’s a matter of altering the Facebook pixel code that we are placing across the site, depending on the page.

Let’s look at an example…

As you can see here, we are still using the base Facebook pixel code. However, prior to the closing script, we add a single snippet that indicates this is a specific type of event that we want to track. In the example above, that event is an “Add to Cart.”

There are nine different events that you can track or optimize for. Here they are:

One of the primary problems marketers have is understanding how to alter that code if it’s already on every page of their site. There are a couple of plugins you may want to try to help with this:

You could also use Google Tag Manager.

Plenty More

Unfortunately, there are plenty of details that aren’t covered here that you may be needing, but one blog post can’t cover them all.

Some other topics include:

Dynamic conversion values
Dynamic Product Ads
Troubleshooting errors
Using the Pixel Helper
Tracking results

While these topics may not have been covered here, hopefully this gives you a good head start and clears up some of the confusion that I know many marketers have regarding the differences between the new pixel and the old pixel, Website Custom Audiences, Custom Conversions and Standard Events.

Your Turn

Are you using the new Facebook pixel yet? What questions do you have?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post New Facebook Pixel: Audiences, Custom Conversions and Standard Events appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.