An In-Depth Guide to Adding Facebook Pixel to Shopify

If you own a Shopify store and intend to run Facebook ads, then learning how to add a Facebook pixel to Shopify is extremely crucial because it’s a significant determinant of the success of your Ads.

Doing this would help you track your products, orders, and activities on your Shopify website, all in one place, and get the most from Facebook. It also helps determine and optimize your target audience for your ads. 

The process of installing a Facebook Pixel might seem complicated and definitely not fun, but we’ll be showing you a straightforward way to do this, even without any prior knowledge.

Stick to the end and follow all the steps, and you’re well on your way to adding a Facebook Pixel to your Shopify website.

We’ll also give some helpful tips for you to maximize your Facebook Pixels, so let’s get started!

What Is a Facebook Pixel and Why Is It Necessary?

A Facebook Pixel is a piece of code added to a site to help analyze and track how Facebook users interact with your website. It shows information about the actions carried out by visitors to your website. These interactions are called “events,” and some of them are:

  • Lead - indicating that someone has signed up for a freebie or submitted their mail.
  • Add to Cart - indicating that someone has added a product in your online store to the cart.
  • Initiate Checkout - indicating that someone has started the checkout procedure.
  • Add Payment Info - indicating that a person's payment information has been added to your website.
  • Purchase- indicating that someone has bought something from your store.

Why Add a Facebook Pixel?

  1. Tracking all of these events helps you properly target your audience, and place your ads in front of the right people. You don't have to waste time and money showing your ads to people who do not need your product.
  2. It also helps you determine how well your ad is performing and discover what needs to be adjusted or improved.
  3. It helps to keep in touch with visitors to your site. Since a person has visited your website, you must do everything you can to avoid losing them. You have to run retargeting campaigns, which is only possible with Facebook Pixels. These people already know about your store and what you sell, so you must keep reminding them about your store and the items that have caught their fancy.
  4. It enables you to create lookalike audiences. Since you already have information on the people who visited your online store, you can use the information to target new potential customers. These people are Facebook users with similar characteristics to those who visited your website and performed an action on it. This feature helps you find the right people with whom you have higher chances of conversions.
  5. It helps you to figure out what really works. Analyzing your ad performance and insights would allow you to discover what truly works and what doesn't. It provides all the necessary information you need and allows you to use this info to run higher-performing ads in the future.

Steps on Adding Facebook Pixel to Your Shopify Store

Step 1: Create a Facebook Business Page

  • Log in to your Facebook profile.
  • Select Create, and choose 'Page' at the top of the Home Page.
  • Give your page a name and fill in the Description field with the necessary information. Make sure not to skip any, or you risk getting your account blocked.

Step 2: Create a Facebook Business Manager and Ad Account

  • Type in Facebook Business Manager on Google, or type in business.facebook.com/overview.
  • Click on it and select Create an account.
  • Enter your business name, email, and other necessary details.
  • Click on Submit.
  • To create an Ad account, go to Business Settings on the left-hand side of the Business Manager.
  • On the left menu, go to 'Accounts' and click on 'Ad Accounts.'
  • Click on the blue “Add” button to show a drop-down menu.
  • Click 'Create a new ad account' and fill in all the details.
  • Manage the Ad account and assign it to your business page.

Step 3: Creating a Facebook Pixel

  • Go to data sources and click on Pixels. 
  • Click on 'Create Pixel' and give your pixel a name.
  • Input your Shopify website URL and set up a pixel.

Step 4: Connecting Pixel to Shopify

  • Click on 'set up with partner integration' on Shopify.
  • Select  'Connect your Shopify Account to Facebook'.
  • Go to Shopify, then click on 'Online stores'.
  • Go to 'Preferences', click on 'Facebook pixel', and Click on 'Set up Facebook'.
  • Add Facebook Sales Channel to the platform, fill in all necessary information and connect your Facebook account to get started.
  • Select your Business Manager Account and connect it to Shopify.
  • Confirm Domain Verification.
  • Click 'Add your ad account' and accept all terms and conditions.
  • Connect your Facebook Business Page.
  • Click on data sharing, and go for 'Maximum,' as this is the best choice.
  • Select your Pixel and connect it
  • Select target country. 
  • Accept all terms and conditions.
  • Click on 'Complete Set-up'.

How to Confirm That Your Facebook Pixel Is up and Running

To confirm your pixel is working:

  • Go to Facebook Business Manager, and click on 'Events Manager'.
  • Click on the pixel you created and click on test events.
  • Fill in the website URL under 'Test Browser Events', then open the website.
  • Make sure to turn off your Ad-block. Navigate the website's different activities, such as 'Search', 'Add to Cart,' 'Initiate Checkout', 'Add Payment Info' etc., to see if your pixel is picking them all up.
  • Go back to Facebook Business Manager, and your Test Events should reflect all the activities on your page.

3 Tips to Get the Best From Your Facebook Pixel

1. Make sure you have sufficient events on your Pixel

Once you set up your Facebook Pixel on your Shopify website, you're all excited and pumped and ready to put it to work, but easy there.

You have to ensure that you have enough Events on your Pixel. This is because, without enough pixel events, you would not be able to gather as much data as you need. 

For instance, 8 out of 15 people add an item to the cart when visiting your online store. That's about a 53% conversion rate. However, these numbers are not significant enough to help you make any campaign decisions for your next ad campaign.

So how many Pixel events should you get? 

You should have about 500 events per week to help you get started and provide statistically accurate results, thus providing better conversion optimization. 

2. Create custom audiences and lookalike audiences

Creating a custom audience has been made incredibly easy with Pixels. It helps you locate people who have visited your website, browsed a specific section of your website, or spent a considerable amount of time on your Shopify store. It helps you to run Retargeting Campaigns and create a Lookalike Audience.

Your custom audience could either be people who added items to the cart and then abandoned them, or people who have visited your Shopify store in the last 30 days.

Lookalike audiences are similar to people who have bought from you or engaged with your website in one way or another. You'll have to choose your audience size when building a Lookalike Audience. The more specific your Lookalike Audience will be, the lower the percentage to be selected.

We recommend beginning with 1% to target customers who are most likely to purchase from you. Then, steadily raise the percentage after realizing that you need a larger number of people in your marketing funnel. You'll reach a wider range of potential clients even though your Lookalike Audience would not be as accurate.

We suggest creating different lookalike audiences and testing each one to see which gives you the most results.

3. Run dynamic product ads

Dynamic product ads help you to run specific and personalized ads. 

You can retarget past website visitors who were exploring your online store or even adding products to the cart, but somehow got distracted along the way, and convince them to finish their purchase.

They are a great option for new Shopify sellers who just began to run ads, because it doesn't require much work, and it is a proven method of boosting conversions.

Create and upload your product catalog to your Facebook Business Manager to run dynamic ads. Ensure that all the items you want to run ads for are included in the product catalog, as well as the name, category, product, and image URL, amongst others.

Then, ensure that the appropriate people see the dynamic ads, and your Facebook pixel events will be matched with the items in your catalog.

Conclusion

So there you have it! This might be a lot to take in, but ensure to take it one at a time, and you'll be done before you realize it.

When installed, Facebook Pixels would tremendously benefit your business, so the process, even though it might seem complicated, is very well worth it.

Once you have everything set up and running, you'll begin to get the hang of how Facebook Ads work, and you'll become an expert before you know it, ultimately boosting your Shopify store and raking in profits for your business.