How to Install the Facebook Pixel: Wordpress Sites [Step-by-Step Instructions]

You know that Facebook Ads can be a great tool in your business arsenal. You can get your work seen by the right people, let them know about your offerings, grow your list, and even make sales.

What you can’t do is figure out which ads work best for your business if you don’t have the Facebook Pixel in place from the get-go! 

“What exactly is this Facebook Pixel you speak of, Claire?”

It’s so much more simple than it sounds. Basically you put a bit of code in the backend of your website JUST ONE TIME, and it helps you do two really cool things: 

1. Show ads to people who have visited your website in the past (also known as retargeting), and
2. Track conversions with your Facebook ads.

If you learn best via video, check out this super short video I made about how people usually MESS UP Facebook conversion tracking, and then what happens to your money if that mistake is made: 

First let’s think about what the “conversions” in your business are. For most online businesses, conversions are usually when a prospect converts to a customer. In other words, when someone buys something from you.

But you have a lot of other important conversions as well, such as:

• I sign up for your newsletter.
• Instead of just browsing your online store, I actually add something to my cart.
• I opt in to your free or reduced-price trial membership.
• After reading your blog post, I click over to check out the sales page of your product or service.

You get to set the conversions in your business, and usually you add them as “goals” in your Google Analytics account.

For your Facebook ads, however, it’s REALLY easy to see not only which ads are netting you the most conversions, but how much each one of those conversions is costing you.
So it’s time to install this pixel and then set up conversion tracking – you with me?

Start in the Ads Manager by visiting facebook.com/ads/manager. (This is assuming that you already have a Facebook advertising account connected to your regular profile. If you’ve ever boosted a post or run an ad, you have this account.)

Click on the little hamburger menu icon at the top left of your screen, and then scroll over All Tools. A larger menu will pop out to the right. Click on Pixels under Measure & Report.

Click on the green button that says Create a Pixel. Give it a name like “[Your Company Name] Facebook Pixel.” Then click the Create Pixel button.

NOTE: if you don’t see the green Create a Pixel button, it means you’ve already created your Facebook Pixel. But to be certain you’ve installed it in the correct place, click on the button that says Actions and then on View Pixel code. Continue to follow the rest of these directions.  

Scroll down to step 2; you’ll see a box with several lines of code in it; go ahead and copy/paste the code into a doc on your computer so you can access it later.

Can’t find that code? Check out this 25-second Ads Manager tour:

 Now you need to place it in the backend of your website. Below are instructions for Wordpress sites.

Important: if you use Leadpages, you must add this code to all of your Leadpages pages, even if you use the Wordpress plugin. This code does not transfer from your site to any “external” pages like Leadpages, ClickFunnels, or any other page creators.

How to Place the Facebook Pixel on Your Wordpress Site

1. Go into the Plugins section of your Wordpress site and download and install a plugin called Insert Headers and Footers.
2. Then under Settings, click on Insert Headers and Footers.
3. Copy that code again, either from the Ads Manager or from the doc that you saved on your computer, and paste it into the Scripts in Headers box.
4. Click Save.

That’s it! Your Facebook pixel is installed. You do NOT need to install any event codes, unless you have hundreds of products for sale on your site.

To test it, install the free Chrome Pixel Helper extension and then visit your site.

(From now on, you’ll be able to see whether this pixel has been installed on any site. Makes me feel like MacGyver!)

How to Set Up Custom Conversions

Now that the pixel is in place, you want to make sure it can report info about people taking actions on your Facebook ads. The new way (as of late 2015) is with custom conversions).

Custom conversions are RIDICULOUSLY easy to set up:

1. Go back to the Ads Manager and click on the menu at the top left. Hover over All Tools and then select Custom Conversions.

2. Click on the blue Create Custom Conversion button.

3. Insert the url of the page on your site that “marks the conversion.” Usually that means a “thank you” page that people see after signing up for your free content or buying your product. 

Skip the conversion value (unless you’re tracking purchases, in which case you should put the price of your product).

5. Click the Create button, and relax because you are DONE! 

How to Connect Your Custom Conversion to Your Facebook Ads

This is one thing I love about this way to track conversions for your Facebook ads: it’s automatic! You don’t need to “connect” them like you did in the past.

Any and all custom conversions you’ve created will be tracked on every campaign you run so long as you see this option toggled on when creating your ads:

And that, my friend, is it. Let’s recap real quick:

1. Create your Facebook Pixel in the Ads Manager one time only.
2. Install it on your Wordpress site one time only.
3. Create custom conversions whenever you have a new thing that people can sign up for (like a cheatsheet, webinar, interest list, etc.) or product.

Why You MIGHT Want to Get Creative With Your Custom Conversions

Note: you do NOT need to do any of the following, but if you’re reeeeeeally into tracking stuff or you’re serving a client who likes lots of information about their campaigns, read on!

You can also create custom conversions for some more nuanced actions people take while visiting your website. One example is visiting an important page, like a sales page for your product or service. If you have an ecommerce store, another good conversion is adding a product to their cart.

So if you want to go deeper with your tracking, create a custom conversion with the category “View Content.”

Then you could run ads to a blog post of yours that ends with a pitch for your product. When looking at your reports, you could see:

1. How many people clicked over to the blog post;
2. How many of THOSE people clicked from the blog post to your sales page;
3. How many people ended up buying your product as a result of your Facebook ads.

Adding more custom conversions allows you to see the different steps of your funnel, and to find out how many people are making it from one step to the next.

Getting More Advanced With Standard Events

In 2018, tons of my students and a few of my clients were met with a nasty surprise – suddenly their custom conversion tracking simply stopped working. ????

That forced me to start using Standard Events, which is another way to track your conversions. Many people still aren’t using standard events, but I highly recommend you take the extra time to learn about them and get them set up.

Best way to do that? Watch the video below for a Standard Events overview – jump to minute 01:45 to skip over the intro:

Wow, you must love detailed blog posts if you’re all the way down here. Does all that make sense? Let me know what your Facebook Pixel or Custom Conversions questions are in the comments below!

Quick question before you go: are you 100% clear on what ad strategy to use to actually make more sales in your business?

Yes, running ads can help you grow your audience and make more sales, but only if you go into it with a clear understanding of why you’re promoting each thing, and where it fits in the bigger marketing picture.

Discover the specific Facebook and Instagram ads I use every month for my 7 and 8 figure clients in this free masterclass: clairepells.com/5ads