It's really simple... if you have a website, but don't have a Facebook Pixel installed you are missing out. If you're thinking what's a pixel and why would I want that continue reading.

“The Facebook Pixel is a piece of code placed on your website that allows you to measure the results of your ads, optimize campaigns to get the most actions you care about at the cheapest cost, and build audiences that can be used for improved ad targeting.”

It is essentially an analytics tool.

To better understand this we will look at each of these key points.

Having the Facebook Pixel installed on your website allows Facebook and your website to communicate what actions are being taken, by whom, and as a result of what advertisement. 

Being able to see this cause and effect chain is a crucial part in making informed decisions about what advertising should be run. Without measuring and understanding the results, you will be doing nothing more than throwing money at the wall and praying for a positive return.

Facebook does a lot of the hard work when it comes to measuring results (if your pixel is properly installed) and will give you a detailed analysis on what part of your audience took action on your advertising. With an understanding of this analysis and a good strategy, it will be clear how to adjust your ads for the best return on investment.

Without the Pixel installed, your business will be fighting an uphill battle. Both your time and money will be wasted (especially if you are paying to get people on your website) as you are passing on an opportunity to build one of your greatest assets.

However, with the Pixel installed you will experience exponential improvement in your results. Each time an event occurs on your website (you get a visitor, purchase...so on) your Pixel gets smarter and can better deliver your ads to people who are likely to take those actions.

Let’s look at an example to better understand this:

Advertisements in magazines have been around for a long time. It is obvious that they work because if they did not no business would spend money on them and they would not be around.

Imagine if you could put an advertisement in a magazine, but instead of paying to only be in one specific edition of one magazine and shown to many people that are not interested, it was shown to anyone reading a magazine and only the people that are likely to be interested.

This is what can happen after you install the pixel and get people to take certain actions on your website. Your campaigns optimize. (Even if you did not get a visitor to take the action through paid advertising)

People who do not take the time to install a couple lines of code are saying no thanks to this opportunity. They are also doing the (potential) customers of their great product a disservice by not reaching them.

After so many visitors have taken certain actions on your website you can build audiences that will enable you to reach them again. This should yield cheaper results than when they were initially advertised to (that is, if you got them to your website with paid ads on Facebook)

Audiences can be built from all website visitors, visitors by time spent and people who visited specific pages.

Just like the other two reasons to install your pixel, this has large implications and I cover it more in-depth here.