The Facebook pixel is a concept that almost every person running Facebook marketing campaigns for their business has come across. However, not everyone had contact with him. Especially entrepreneurs who are just considering the presence and promotion of a company on Facebook. Conducting effective advertising activities, especially remarketing campaigns, is not so easy, but a better understanding of the issue will certainly help us decide on the most appropriate solution.
Facebook Pixel - What is it and what are the benefits?
A Facebook pixel (you can often meet the spelling - Pixel) is nothing more than a piece of JavaScript code that is placed on your website. It is rightly believed that it revolutionizes the effects of social media marketing on Facebook and gives much greater opportunities to target (target an audience) its ads by taking advantage of the advantages of user information and remarketing campaigns (what are remarketing ads we write later in the text). If you have previously encountered the need to install Google Analytics code on your website, which is the basic monitoring tool, implementing a pixel should not be a problem for you. What are the benefits of installing this tool?
Ability to create remarketing advertising campaigns on Facebook - Facebook Remarketing allows you to target ads exactly to people who have previously visited your website. Thanks to the Facebook pixel and other tools, we can create an ad even to people who have performed a specific action on our site. Later, they will be shown our ads on Facebook and we will be able to encourage them to return to our website. Without a pixel, a similar action would be impossible, and we would not have been given the opportunity to reach said group in this social medium. Remarketing campaigns in Facebook advertising is one of the biggest “discoveries” of Internet advertising of the last decade.
Tracking conversions from Facebook on the site - Pixel not only gives us new advertising opportunities, but also allows us to effectively monitor customers on the website or in the online store. Thanks to it, we will observe exactly how many people who came to our website from Facebook made a purchase or performed another action, desired by us. For example, you can use it to see that twice as many conversions take place on your website using a computer. This will allow you to check the mobile version of your site more thoroughly. You may find that the process of adding a product to the cart in the mobile version was unintuitive, and a small change will contribute to a relatively large increase in sales.
More accurate ad optimization - By installing a piece of code on the site, you get the opportunity to even more accurately track your customers, analyze their interests and optimize ads based on them. By using these options, your ads have a chance to become more relevant.
Facebook Advertising - Why is implementing a tracking pixel so important?
The tracking pixel is usually only superfluous when our goal when creating an ad is to keep the community in a medium like Facebook (and, for example, get users to send messages on messenger). Then the use of data about individuals from a website may not be the first thing on the list of priorities.
Most of the companies and online stores However, it focuses on achieving the greatest possible conversion on its website. This causes that the installation of a pixel can significantly increase the effectiveness of the ads. Even if earlier, Facebook activities were successful, probably due to the lack of knowledge about our customers and not using remarketing, we have passed a large number of sales opportunities through our fingers.
According to the study eMarketer From 2017, Facebook next to Google search is indicated as the best advertising channel for obtaining leads with the highest ROI (return on investment)
With these results, Facebook, being just behind Google, overtook Instagram, LinkedIn, You Tube or Twitter, thus becoming probably the most popular social media portal for running remarketing campaigns.
How to Use Facebook Pixel and Remarketing Campaigns Examples
If you're going to target specific Facebook users, it's important to know what specific goals and actions you want to accomplish with your ads. Let's take a look at the most popular goals we are able to accomplish using remarketing ads using the Facebook pixel. Let's see how remarketing campaigns can really affect your business.
Reduce the amount of abandoned carts
Abandoned shopping carts are today a real and very common problem of online stores or, more broadly speaking, the entire eCommerce industry.
According to the report Baymard Institute on cart abandonment rate, at the end of 2019, the online shopping abandonment rate was more than 69%
Remarketing on Facebook allows you to reach those people who, for various reasons, did not complete the purchase transaction, reminding them that the product they were going to buy is still available and it is not too late to complete the transaction.
Facebook offers so-called “event codes” for detailed actions on your website, so you can create personalized ads and reach users who have added a product to their cart or wish list.
Maintaining interest in the product
In addition to reaching people who abandoned the cart, Facebook's remarketing system allows you to target ads to users who have visited specific product pages but have not placed products in the cart. These users are good remarketing targets because visiting product pages typically indicates both interest and purchase intent.
Facebook ads using a pixel keep everyone interested and in touch with the product, all those who have previously viewed the product in the online store. By targeting users who have clicked on certain products and excluding those who have reached the “Complete Order” page, you can keep in touch with users who were not yet ready to convert, but may be ready today or in the near future.
A similar strategy can be used to link Facebook or Instagram posts to an ad that uses remarketing. This allows you to show ads to people who have clicked on a link in your social media post. This adds leads to your sales funnel, even if they haven't visited your website or store yet.
Facebook acquired Instagram apps in 2012, creating a common advertising ecosystem. From the Facebook Ads Manager, we can also create promotional campaigns on Instagram. But not only that, we can actually advertise on a total of four platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network.
Offer additional promotions to convince customers to make a purchase
Customers who engage with your unique content but don't convert can also be a great target audience for Facebook remarketing. Let's find out how to use remarketing campaigns targeting recipients who have already had contact with your brand
This group of users has already shared their data to access your valuable content, such as webinars, live or downloadable ebooks. These users have voluntarily entered your marketing path, which increases the likelihood that they will react when you offer them an extra incentive. Special promotions for recipients who have shared their contact details may include popular products or be directed to those users who have never made a purchase on your website before.
Often such a user still needs your attention to make purchases in the online store. In this case, you can create ads that offer, for example, a free trial period to maintain the engagement of the user who may soon become your customer.
Achieving a goal based on a specific behavior or specific characteristics of consumers
If you want to attract the attention of cart abandoners in an even more personalized way, the Facebook tracking pixel allows you to show targeted ads based on user behavior.
For example, you can use Facebook remarketing to reach users based on the device they used, completed activities, and many other criteria available in Facebook Ad Manager.
Setting up custom audience groups to further and further segment and personalize your message and advertising message for potential customers is a great opportunity to further and further define your target audience.
Custom Audience Groups in Facebook Remarketing
Facebook's Custom Audience tool is used to show remarketing ads to people who have already shown interest in your product or brand.
You or your marketing team, can create a custom audience based on the data generated by the Facebook pixel. The data we can “extract” using a pixel include:
- Your current customers (customer data file)
- Website traffic (all users or specific users of the site)
- Activity in mobile apps
- Social media activity (Facebook, Messenger and Instagram)
Each of these target groups has its own capabilities and requires you to create your own marketing strategy for Facebook activities.
Current customers
When setting up a new remarketing campaign on Facebook, customers who have already made a purchase are the ideal target audience to start such activities.
A study conducted by a software manufacturer, a company Adobe showed that returning customers - accounting for 8% of all customers - are responsible for 41% of online store revenue
Regular, returning customers also spend almost five times more on a single visit than others. You can win back some of these customers or increase your turnover on active users with targeted Facebook ads.
Your remarketing campaign may promote complementary products to previous purchases (up selling) or offer discounts and promotions for related products (cross selling).
Remarketing campaigns that target your current customers are a great tool to build loyalty and grow your brand's fan base. By creating special Christmas discounts only for your current customers, you build loyalty and increase the likelihood that such a person will show off a gift from the company in front of friends, for example on social media.
Website traffic
If you consider Facebook remarketing as a tool to advertise your business, you probably already have some marketing experience and your site or store has an established position and history.
This means that the website generates constant traffic, which you can try to use on Facebook. It is quite obvious that potential customers will not generate the conversion as your customers who have already made a purchase, however remarketing among these audiences can turn out to be much cheaper than traditional forms of advertising such as display.
They have already shown interest in your offer, which makes them a higher value advertising target than someone who does not know your brand or the products you offer.
To reach these users, select “Site Traffic” in the Custom Audience Builder and enter the URL of the page you want to base your remarketing on.
The Facebook pixel records when a user visits the selected website and, if possible, connects to that user's Facebook profile on which your remarketing ads will be displayed.
To attract attention with such advertising, use generic advertising slogans that focus on new products, benefits and discount codes.
Mobile App Activity
If you have an iOS or Android app, you can target remarketing based on specific behaviors and actions that users have performed in the app installed on their smartphone.
To set up remarketing linked to a mobile app, you need to register your app on Facebook and select the actions or events that will show your ads. These can be predefined or custom events, from the first launch of the application to adding payment information and making purchases. The possibilities are really many.
Activity in social media
Converting users who have visited a fanpage or reacted to your actions on social media works very similar to that of a website. Simply all user reactions to your posts such as likes or comments are saved and this data can then be used in a remarketing campaign.
There are many ways to use such a strategy. An example is the tuxedo and suit rental campaign, for those people who responded to a post about novelties in the autumn/winter season in the wedding dress industry.
How to get the most out of remarketing campaigns on Facebook?
A recent survey by Small Business Trends found that more than 60% of business owners believe their Facebook ads don't reach their ideal audience.
While this may largely be related to a misunderstanding of the Facebook platform, there are several opportunities to reach the right users and improve conversion rates.
Make sure your ad creations are shown to the right people
The most effective way to reach the ideal target audience is to continually refine and test these groups.
The user interface in Facebook's remarketing system emphasizes demographic data, which is both the most reliable and the broadest information available. But demographics alone won't let you reach your ideal audience.
Audience targeting tools available in Ad Manager, such as interests and exclusions, can make your target audience highly specific and thus reduce “budget burn” to irrelevant impressions.
You can also increase the likelihood that your Facebook ads will reach people interested in them by creating a separate ad campaign for each stage of the sales funnel. These actions, however, require a deeper marketing strategy.
Target ads to those who buy the most
Facebook's custom audience settings allow you to reach the users who have shown the most interest in your brand.
For example, you can create a remarketing campaign to target blog readers using the “page traffic” parameters described above.
However, you can distinguish the audience of your blog with a high ROI (return on investment) by making certain changes, such as:
- Targeting ads to users who have viewed more than one blog post
- Targeting ads to users who viewed your blog post and landing page
- Targeting ads to users who viewed your post and your pricing page (indicating interest in the product)
Similar ad parameters can be set for users who have engaged with your content on a more intense level. The possibilities are really many, and a lot depends on the business you run and the industry in which you sell.
Use Lookalike Audiences on Facebook
You've learned how to create custom audiences based on existing information or data gleaned from the Facebook pixel, from your website or mobile app.
If you want to further increase the number of people interested in your ad, you can create groups of similar audiences using the Lookalike option.
The idea of how this tool works is very simple and boils down to acquiring new audiences who may be interested in advertising or fanpage, because they resemble people who have already taken an interest in the message or performed a specific action, such as a purchase in a store. With the help of advanced algorithms and data on individual users, Facebook selects the people who most closely match the established pattern.
In this case, not only the demographics or interests of individual users are analyzed, but also their behavior on the social network. All in order to select from a huge number of users those who are really interested in the advertising message and can provide a satisfactory conversion.
Audiences filtered with lookalike can be “overlaid” on custom audience settings to find a new group of leads.
For example, suppose you import a list of users who have downloaded your ebook (most often it is a database of email addresses) to create your own audience. Facebook can generate a group of similar audiences who share characteristics and interests with your customers' existing data.
Choose the right time and duration of your remarketing campaign
We mentioned above that one of the benefits of remarketing on Facebook is the ability to sustain a brand or product in the awareness of customers. For your campaign to be effective, it's important to be in the right place at a time when your ad isn't running too early or too late.
The timing of the campaign is customizable and should be thought out. If your product's sales cycle is short, Facebook suggests showing remarketing ads to people who visit your store or profile in the last 15 to 30 days.
It should be mentioned here that it is necessary to exclude those people who have already made a purchase. We've all seen remarketing campaigns that try to promote products we've already bought before. To avoid this, set up your campaign to skip users who have recently made a purchase.
Most B2C (retail) remarketing campaigns exclude recent buyers for a period of one to two weeks, unless you knowingly plan to cross-sell or up-sell.
Facebook Pixel and FB Remarketing Campaigns - Summary
If we summarize all the above considerations and advice, the installation of the Facebook pixel is undoubtedly profitable, and from a technical point of view it should not cause trouble. However, running campaigns based on this tool, such as remarketing, is no longer so simple and requires some knowledge and experience.
If you expect good results when planning your company's marketing activities, you should constantly improve your knowledge and competence. It is also worth outsourcing this type of activities to an agency that has access to qualified specialists.
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