Last Updated on December 9, 2024

What is the Meta Pixel?

The Meta pixel is a snippet of code placed on your website that helps you measure ad effectiveness. It is the rough equivalent of a Google Tag or Google Analytics tracking code. The main two benefits of the pixel are the ability to:

  • Track custom events on your website, such as form submissions or button clicks
  • Create custom or lookalike audiences based on actions taken by website visitors

Setting up the Meta Pixel

Getting the Meta Pixel in place is a pretty straightforward process.

  1. Open Meta Ads Manager
  2. Navigate to “Events Manager” from the main navigation
  3. Click “Data Sources”
  4. Click the green “+ Connect Data” button
    1. Select your data source. For us, this will probably be “Web” 95% of the time
    2. Name your pixel
    3. Click “Save”
  5. At this point, you can either “Connect with a partner” (Shopify, WordPress, WooCommerce, etc.) or “Connect manually”
    • The “Connect with a partner” option will probably be easier in most cases. That being said, I have tried the “Meta Pixel for WordPress” plugin and it is really buggy and hard to get working (apparently a recent update to the plugin has been causing issues). Barring issues like that, though, the partner connections are very straightforward and easy to set up

 

    • When selecting the “Connect manually” option, you will be given the choice between “Meta Pixel and Conversions API” (read more about this in the next section) or “Pixel Only”. For now, choose “Pixel Only”. This gives you a snippet of code. There are several ways you can implement it:

OPTION 1 – GTM (RECOMMENDED)

Add the code snippet to your site using GTM. To do this, GTM will, of course, need to be implemented on the site.

  1. From the GTM account, click Tags > New
  2. Click Tag Configuration > “Discover more tag types in the Community Template Gallery”
  3. Search for “Facebook” and select “Facebook Pixel”
  4. From there, you will need to enter your Pixel ID (found in Events Manager > Data Sources > Pixel ID)
  5. Keep the Standard event as PageView
  6. Set the trigger to All Pages

OPTION 2 – Sitewide Header:

Add the code snippet to your sitewide header. This option is very straightforward as well, but you will need to be mindful of any pages on your site that might have the sitewide header disabled. You will need to add the pixel to each of those pages individually as well

Meta Conversions API — Should You Use It?

The Meta Conversions API is meant to collect more accurate user and interaction information. It does this by utilizing server data in addition to client-side data.

 

If you are going with Manual Setup, this process is very involved. In fact, when setting it up, Meta’s default “setup” is a button that “sends instructions on setting up the API to a developer”. Manual setup requires server access, lots of setup, and potentially a third-party tool. For now, if we’re going with manual setup, let’s default to setting up “Pixel Only” (not using the API).

 

If you are using a Partner Connection it’s much easier. With WordPress, for example, after connecting Meta and WordPress, all you have to do is check a box to enable API. Depending on what type of partner connection you are going with, API setup should be very doable.