Are you an eCommerce business struggling to drive traffic to your website? Are you using Facebook advertising but unsure if your efforts and money are resulting in real revenue?
You need to be using Facebook Conversion Tracking.
This article will discuss the benefits of Facebook Conversion Tracking for eCommerce businesses and how to use it.
I’ll define all the terms you need to know and tell you exactly what Conversion Tracking is and why it’s crucial for your business.
Then I’ll give you step by step instructions on how you can create and place a Conversion Tracking Pixel with Facebook Power Editor (it’s easier than you might think). And, last but not least, I’ll answer the five most frequently asked Conversion Tracking questions to ensure you’re as well informed as you can possibly be.
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First, let’s define some terms:
- Conversion: A conversion is an action that a person takes on your website such as checking out, registering, adding an item to the shopping cart or viewing a particular page. Virtually any page (or even a window) on your website can represent a conversion.
- Conversion Tracking: The ability to measure your ROI on Facebook Ads by tracking whether your Facebook ads are actually leading to conversions on your website.
- Conversion Pixel: A section of code you get from Facebook and place on any page of your website. A user travelling to that page from Facebook triggers the pixel, and their traffic can be traced back to the ad you’re running on Facebook.
And one more:
Optimized Cost per Impression (oCPM): Optimized CPM is the default option for Facebook ads. When it was first established back in January, Facebook beta tested it and found a 40% lower cost per conversion rate than regular CPM. Ten months later and I’ve been hearing savings closer to 50, 60 and even 85 percent per ad campaign.
With oCPM, Facebook automatically bids your ad for you (because even I am not exactly sure what my CPC should be for a mobile-placed News Feed ad for head phones among 18-35s).
As you can see above, oCPM also allows you to optimize your advertisement based on an action you choose on Facebook ( Facebook likes, Shares, Comments, App downloads), a conversion on your website, or both.
But most importantly, oCPM helps to target your Ad for conversions.
Clicking the ‘Optimize for’ tickbox tells Facebook to choose a subset of individuals within your ad’s Reach who are most likely to convert (perform the action you’ve specified). This optimized targeting is why Facebook advertisers are seeing the 50-60% decreases in cost-per-conversion.
Why is this stuff useful for my eCommerce business?
Are you serious? I’m telling you that with conversion tracking you can positively identify whether or not your business is wasting its time and money with Facebook advertising.
I’m telling you conversion tracking can measure your ad’s Return-on-Investment beyond Likes, Shares and Comments. You can identify exactly which ads generate real-world dollars for your business and which are flops.
Even better, with oCPM Facebook optimizes for the action you want your ad to cause. Looking for sales? Facebook optimizes for that. Leads? Facebook optimizes for that too.
Power Editor
I recommend eCommerce companies optimize their Facebook Ads with Power Editor, a free plugin for Google Chrome.
Power Editor helps businesses manage multiple campaigns or a large number of creatives. The tool makes it easy to create, edit, manage and optimize ads, campaigns, and Page posts in bulk, across a large number of different ad accounts and Pages.
Ad Creator within Facebook now allows you to track your advertisement’s conversion just as Power Editor does, but because of the campaign function (which allows you to view and compare the performance of your ads) I recommend you still use Editor.
The 10 Steps of Facebook Conversion Tracking
1. In your Power Editor tool, click the “Conversion Tracking” tab on the left side column:
2. Click “Create Conversion Pixel” located in the top right corner of the page:
3. Give your conversion pixel a name and select a category from the dropdown menu:
4. Click “Create Pixel”
5. A pop-up box will appear where you can click “View Pixel Code.”
This is the code you will need to integrate into the web page where you want to track conversions:
6. Decide on which page you’re placing your conversion pixel:
For eCommerce companies, you’re going to be using the tracking pixel to determine when your Facebook ad has resulted in a sale, right?
So you’ll place the conversion pixel on the the page customers will see immediately after completing a purchase on your site.
Remember though, you can place the pixel on any page to which you’re looking to drive traffic:
- The page customers see right after your – to determine how successful your ad and landing page integration is
- A contest’s‘enter here’ button or a ‘thanks for entering!’ page if you’re running a promotion
- The ‘Entry/Sale Confirmed’ window that pops up after a customer clicks through a contest page or completes a desired action
Remember : The conversion pixel should not go on a product or landing page. It should go on the page directly following the page which drives an action or purchase.
7. Place your code within the and tags of your page:
8. Head back to your ad creative page within Power Editor and create your ad
If you’re wondering about optimizing your Facebook advertisements, I’ve been on a bit of a Facebook Ad bender these past couple weeks. I recommend reading my recent articles:
- How to Create a Targeted Facebook Ad Audience Using Power Editor
- 4 Ways to Combat Facebook Ad Fatigue
- 6 Facebook Ad Image Best Practices that will Send your Click-through-Rate to the Moon
9. Click ‘Track conversions on my website for this ad’
You’ll notice that at this stage the conversion pixel still shows as “Inactive.” This means it’s in your page, but hasn’t been triggered yet.
Your pixel will be “unverified” until you’ve placed it within the code of your page and refreshed it. It will change to ‘Active’ once you’ve placed the pixel’s code within your page and someone has triggered it.
10. Track your conversions!
Top Tip from Facebook:
Facebook conversion measurement is the only solution that can report when a user views an ad on one device (e.g. mobile phone) but converts on another (desktop computer), which is useful for cross-platform ad campaigns.
5 Frequently Asked Conversion Tracking Questions
1. How are conversions reported in my Ads Manager?
Given that eCommerce companies will almost exclusively be tracking check-outs, you’ll see those check-outs as “Actions” within Power Editor. For example, you may see that a particular ad resulted in ten total actions.
If you are tracking more than one action you will only see the total number of actions brought about by your ad.
I’d recommend creating different ads within a campaign (only available with Power Editor). Even if those ads have the exact same creative you can change the conversion your pixel will track. This will dispel any confusion brought about by Facebook reporting total actions instead of specific actions.
2. Can I use the same tracking pixel with multiple advertisements and campaigns?
Yes! When you click “Track conversions on my website for this ad” within the Creative tab of Power Editor, simply choose the same tracking pixel you created before.
3. How long does Facebook track my ad’s pixel?
Facebook tracks conversions in two categories, clicks on an ad and views of an ad. They track in three time-periods: 24 hours, 7 days, and 28 days.
4. I’m already paying for a third-party conversion tracking service. Can Facebook’s pixel work with it?
Yes you can. However, because the specifics of this are pretty technical I’ll refer you to Facebook(you’ll need a web developer on your side for this one).
5. How do I share my conversion pixel?
Want to use the same conversion pixel with multiple accounts? First off, the person you’re sharing with must have a Facebook account. If they do, follow these steps:
1) Within Power Editor, click on “Conversion Tracking” on the left. You’ll see a ‘Share’ icon appear when you scroll over the “Ad Accounts Shared With” column
2) Click the icon next to the conversion tag you’d like to share:
3) Enter the Ad Account ID and email address of the person you’d like to share your conversion pixel with:
4) Click “Share”
Conclusion
Hopefully you now understand how easy and essential conversion tracking is for your eCommerce business. You’re able to accurately identify your Facebook ad ROI and optimize for it. And with Power Editor you can export your results, show them to your CEO and get a raise. Congrats!
Further Reading:
- The 2016 (Free) Guide to Facebook Ads
- The Science of Keeping your Facebook Fans Engaged
- 4 Ways to Combat Facebook Ad Fatigue
- How to Create a Targeted Facebook Ad Audience Using Power Editor
- 6 Facebook Ad Image Best Practices that will Send your Click-through-Rate to the Moon
- 25 Creative Facebook Contest Ideas You Can Use Today
Wishpond’s Facebook Contest Apps make it easy to create sweepstakes, photo contests, Instagram hashtag contests & more.
Have you tried out conversion tracking with your business? Do you have any questions or comments? Start the conversation below.
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