The Complete Guide: How to Measure Your Marketing Funnel with Facebook Pixel

This is Part 1 of a 3-series on a guide to improve your sales conversions by understanding how to configure and measure your marketing funnel with Facebook Pixel properly. 

1. Part 1 [You Are Here] – The Complete Guide: How To Measure Your Marketing Funnel With Facebook Pixel
2. Part 2 [Read It Here] – The Complete Guide: How To Properly Install and Use The Facebook Pixel? …coming soon
3. Part 3 [Read It Here] – The Complete Guide: How To Track, Measure And View Your Marketing Performance On Facebook Pixel? …coming soon

Still struggling to use the Facebook Pixel to measure your Marketing Funnel?

Trust me… I get you.

It took me some time to truly understand how to properly set up the Facebook Pixel on my website.

And the bottom line is this:

If you don’t set up your Facebook Pixel properly, you won’t be able to build audiences and conversion ads for your remarketing campaigns.

Also…

…if your pixel is not installed properly, you won’t be able to track conversions.

Leads, registration, purchases, and so on.

If you are selling products online, you want to track how much each sale is costing you… not just the cost of each click.

If you are in the service industry (B2B), you want to track how much each lead is costing you. How much does it cost you to generate each lead?

In this blog post, I will try to go over a marketing funnel for the service (B2B) and eCommerce industry.

Sorry…I won’t cover socialCommerce, mobile apps nor retailers due to time but you should follow the same logic.

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What is a Marketing Funnel?

A Marketing Funnel is basically your consumer’s journey through the whole experience from the first time he is aware of your product to the moment he becomes a loyal customer.

FYI – some refer it as sales funnel, conversion funnel, purchase funnel or customer funnel

There are different variations of a marketing funnel with some using the top to bottom approach as seen below:

And others separate your marketing funnel into four stages as seen below:

1. Awareness – the user is aware of the existence of your product or service
2. Consideration – the user expresses first interest in buying your product or service
3. Conversion (decision) – the lead purchases your product or service
4. Retention – the customer becomes a loyal user by re-purchasing or referring you new users

Pretty straight forward…

right?

Wrong!

Prior to the digital age, customer journeys used to be linear.

The graphs above also show a linear customer journey; however, users no longer interact in a linear way with your content or channels.

According to a recent McKinsey study, people tend to use 6 different interactions through your different channels before making a decision purchase.

Crazy right?

http://www.business2community.com/ecommerce/omnichannel-customer-lifecycle-will-take-lead-ecommerce-2016-01453080#70067ODGtq1iy207.97

And it makes sense.

Think about all the steps you take in order to buy a product online and leave your contact info:

You check Facebook. 

Then a website.

You go back doing your thing.

Come back to Facebook.

Ask friends.

You add the product to the cart.

Go back to Facebook.

And finally… you make a purchase. 

What’s the key in all of these different interactions?

Users need different messages and content at every stage of your funnel.

A user who visited your homepage and left needs a completely different information than someone who got to your checkout page but never completed the purchase.

Think about it!

Someone who visited your homepage and left was probably not interested in your product or didn’t see any immediate value in your company.

Someone who got to the checkout page probably just needs a reminder or content to build confidence for them to finalize the purchase.

And this is why knowing how to use the Facebook pixel with your marketing funnel is fundamental.

It’s the basis for tracking, measuring and remarketing your users.

How does a Marketing Funnel look like for an eCommerce?

For time-purposes, I will simplify a bit the funnel so that it’s easier to explain.

The bottom line is that users will never have a linear experience; however, if you set it up correctly, it will be easier to track and remarket them.

An eCommerce website has 7 basic steps:

1. Homepage: This is the main page where people can search for products, navigate your site or go directly to specific products.
2. View Categories: These are all the product categories you have on your site. For example, if I specialize in the electronics industry, I could have a “tablets” or “smartphones” category.
3. View Products: These are all your products in your online store.
4. Add To Cart: This is a specific action that people make within the product category or product page to add products to the shopping cart.
5. Register (optional): Not all eCommerce require this step (and you shouldn’t) but some ask for you to register before you can finalize payments.
6. Check Out: Your site where people enter their credit card info, billing and shipping address in order to complete their purchase.
7. Complete Purchase: Finally… you’ve made a sale. Your customers got to the confirmation page for their order.

Yes I know!

There are variations to this funnel. It’s not linear.

Sometimes people don’t enter through the homepage. Sometimes they go directly to specific pages.

Regardless, this exercise should give you an overview in order to better understand and install the Facebook pixel.

How does a Marketing Funnel look like for a Service Company?

A service company (real estate, software developers, B2B, etc.) has a shorter marketing funnel:

A service company has 5 basic steps:

1. Homepage: This is your main page with navigation to lead magnets, product pages, your team and many others.
2. Blog: Your blog home page has a list of blogs people can read.
3. Blog Posts: Each blog post you promote as your content strategy.
4. Landing Page or Squeeze Page: This can be your lead magnet, product page or registration page for people to leave contact info.
5. Thank You Page: This is the final step after people sign up.

There are also some variations to the funnel with webinars, lead magnets, and other content marketing strategies.

However, the steps are very similar.

You are probably thinking… “But you have additional stages after the thank you page step.”

And there are!

But you won’t be using the Facebook Pixel to track those.

After that point, you will be automating relationship building sequences through your CRM, email marketing software or Facebook Messenger bot.

And I won’t be covering those in this guide.

So what does all of this has to do with Facebook Pixel?

A lot.

You need to understand and stage your funnel in order to learn how to properly configure your Facebook pixel.

As a matter of fact, this is the basis to all of Facebook marketing (branding, awareness, direct marketing, and so on).

Understanding how your marketing funnel works, it will be easier to implement strategies and quite frankly… to pass your next certification exam.

Next, I will cover everything related to the Facebook pixel and how to properly set it up.

What is Facebook Pixel?

Facebook defines its Facebook pixel as:

The Facebook pixel is an analytics tool that allows you to measure the effectiveness of your advertising by understanding the actions people take on your website.

Get it?

In other words:

I would define Facebook pixel as a snippet of code that you install on your website.

That snippet of code basically tracks users as they visit your website so that you can track which websites they visited and actions they took on your website. 

It’s basically this snippet of code Facebook gives you to install on your website:

I will cover in the next blog psot how to properly install this PageView pixel.

What are the benefits of using Facebook Pixel?

1. Track Conversions

The Facebook pixel will allow you to measure your direct marketing efforts. In other words, how many people at taking specific actions on your website from your Facebook ads.

You can track how much conversions or specific actions are costing you.

For example, how much a lead, purchase or any other event is costing you on your website.

2. Remarket Audiences

Pixel tracking data allows you to build audiences and remarket dynamic ads based on what specific websites or URL’s users visited.

You can be super granular here. For example, people who viewed specific content or got to a specific stage in your funnel.

You will be able to build audiences based on actions (events) users took on your website as well. For example, you could build an audience on users who clicked on the “Add To Cart” button.

3. Learn about your Website traffic

You can build audiences based on people who visited your website and analyze it on the Audience Insight tool.

This will allow you to better understand the people that are actually visiting and interacting with your website.

4. Create Lookalike Audiences

This is key!

Facebook pixel allows you to build lookalike audiences based on people that visited your website. In our experience, Facebook will always do a better job of finding new potential segments.

Building a lookalike audiences is a first place to start.

5. Run your Marketing Funnel

And last but not least…

It allows you to run your ads throughout your marketing funnel. This is probably one of the best and most important aspects of the Facebook pixel.

This is probably one of the best and most important aspects of the Facebook pixel.

You can send a different type of ads with various content (video, slide images, static image and so on) depending on where your user left your website.

People who left the checkout page will see a completely different add than people who saw a product but didn’t even add the product to your shopping cart.

Where do you find your Facebook Pixel?

There are two ways in which you can access your Facebook Pixel:

1. Through the “Business Manager Settings” on the upper left corner in your Facebook Business. Once there, go to the “Pixels” and you will be able to access your pixels.

2. Through the Main Menu under “Assets” go to “Pixels” and you should be able to access them.

Just remember, you need to be using Facebook Business in order to access the Facebook pixel.

What are Events in Facebook Pixel?

Events are basically specific actions that users took on your website.

For example, when someone downloaded a lead magnet or finalized an online purchase.

There are 9 standard events pre-built on Facebook:

1. View content

• When users view specific pages on your website.
• You want to use this metric for your blog, about us page, and product detail pages.
• Standard Event Code: fbq(‘track’, ‘ViewContent’);

2. Search

• Someone uses the search function on your website to find products.
• All eCommerce sites should be using this in their search field.
• Standard Event Code: fbq(‘track’, ‘Search’);

3. AddToCart

• When someone adds a product to your shopping cart.
• You want to be using this event for eCommerce on the “Add To Cart” button.
• Standard Event Code: fbq(‘track’, ‘AddToCart’)

4. AddToWishlist

• Someone adds a product to a wishlist on your site.
• If you have a website where users can select products and add to wishlist.
• Standard Event Code: fbq(‘track’, ‘AddToWishlist’);

5. InitiateCheckout

• When a person starts the checkout process on your website.
• All online commerce sites or online sellers should have this at their checkout URL.
• Standard Event Code: fbq(‘track’, ‘InitiateCheckout’);

6. AddPaymentInfo

• When payment information is added to a user.
• Not all eCommerce have this in place, but sometimes you can save your payment info in a separate URL.
• Standard Event Code: fbq(‘track’, ‘AddPaymentInfo’);

7. Purchase

•  Someone completes a purchase on your website.
• If you are selling products online, this should be placed on the last step of your sales process.
• Standard Event Code: fbq(‘track’, ‘Purchase’, {value: ‘0.00’, currency: ‘USD’});

8. Lead

• Someone signs up for a trial or otherwise identifies themselves as a lead on your site.
• If you have lead magnets, an eBook or free products for users to sign up; you want to be using this event.
• Standard Event Code: fbq(‘track’, ‘Lead’);

9. CompleteRegistration

• Someone completes a registration form on your site, such as for a subscription or sign up for a product or service.
• I barely use this event but it can be interchangeably used with the “Lead” event.
• Standard Event Code: fqb(‘track’,’CompeteRegistration’);

You can use all of those events on your website.

Well….

How the heck do I use these events on my website?

Great question and keep reading. This is what this guide is all about.

First, you need to understand parameters!

What are Parameters in Facebook Pixel?

Parameters are different than events.

Your parameters are basically descriptions or tags that add an additional layer of data or information to your events.

How is this helpful?

Let’s say you have two different landing pages for two completely different products:

1. Product #1: Free Study Guide
2. Product #2: 1-Day Before Exam Checklist

If you were to only place a “Lead” event on the both confirmation pages once users register, how do you know which users downloaded which product?

In this case, your snippet of Facebook pixel event code would look like this:

fbq(‘track’, ‘Lead’);

However, if you were to build an audience based on “Leads”, you would get all users who downloaded both “Product #1” and “Product #2”.

And we just want an audience for Product #1.

This is were parameters come into play!

Facebook Pixel Parameters add an additional layer to describe your events.

So in this case, I could add ‘product_name’ as a parameter in order to describe my content:

1. Product #1: Free Study Guide => product_name: ‘free_study_guide’
2. Product #2: 1-Day Before Exam Checklist => product_name: ‘before_exam_checklist’

How do you add those parameters to you Facebook pixel event?

Quite easy!

Product #1 Facebook pixel code would look like this:

<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘Lead’), {
product_name: ‘free_study_guide’,
});
</script>

Product #2 Facebook pixel code would look like this:

<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘Lead’), {
product_name: ‘before_exam_checklist’,
});
</script>

The ‘product_name‘ parameter will help me later build better audiences.

Why?

Because now I can build a “Lead” event audiences and specify for the ‘product_name‘ parameter.

So if I wanted to build an audience of all users who downloaded Product #2, I would just specific “Lead” event with product_name parameter as “before_exam_checklist”.

Pretty cool… right!

I will show you how to build these type of audiences later on the guide.

So how do you use these events and parameters for your business?

What events should I use for a service (B2B) Company?

I will start with a service (B2B) company first.

If we follow the same funnel as explained above, you basically have 5 different stages of your funnel:

Homepage > Blog > Blog post > Landing Page > Thank You Page

In this case, we will only need two specific events:

1. ViewContent event
2. Lead event

However, we will be using the parameters in order to define what pages users visited and the type of content that they interacted with.

In order to explain this process better, I’ve written a Google Worksheet with the Facebook pixel events, Facebook pixel code and explanation of each parameter.

The following table explains what event goes on which page and the description of each parameter:

You can download the table in the yellow box above for a more detailed explanation. You can copy the document for your personal use 🙂

What events should I use for an eCommerce?

For an eCommerce is a bit more complex.

More stages require more events.

If we follow the marketing funnel explained above, you basically have 7 different stages:

Homepage > View Category > View Product > Add To Cart > Register > Check Out > Complete Purchase

Keep in mind that the events don’t have to happen in a linear sequence; however, for simplification, we will assume that users do go through all of them.

In this case, we will only need five specific events:

1. ViewContent event
2. AddToCart event
3. InitiateCheckout event
4. AddPaymentInfo event
5. Purchase event

You will also use parameters not just to categorize what products people saw…

but also what products users added to your shopping cart, how much were they worth and how much did they end up buying dynamically.

In the table below you can see all the different events and parameters you will need to use:

You can download the table in the yellow box above for a more detailed explanation. You can copy the document for your personal use 🙂

Conclusion

The Facebook Pixel is one of the most powerful tools you can use on Facebook.

However, just like any other tool… what matters the most is that you organize and understand how your marketing funnel works.

If you are able to diagram and define your customer journey first, it will be much easier to understand how to make use of the Facebook pixel, events, parameters and all the different tools that come along with it.

To be honest, I was planning on writing one blog post on this topic Facebook pixel.

However, I got a lot of questions on the Facebook group and messenger so I decided to split the topic into three.

In the 2nd blog post, I will focus on how to properly install and use the Facebook pixel to your advantage.

And on the 3rd blog post, I will focus on how to properly measure and use Facebook Analytics tool to measure your marketing efforts with the Facebook pixel.

Also don’t forget to join our community 🙂

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