Analytics

Meta Pixel for Shopify Stores: What is it, How to set up, Best Practices

Use this guide to understand what the Meta Pixel is and what it does for Shopify stores, plus find Meta Pixel setup instructions and best practices.

Meta Pixel for Shopify Stores: What is it, How to set up, Best Practices

Kayle Larkin

Head of Marketing

Understanding the tools at your disposal can be the difference between a successful advertising campaign and a wasted budget.

One commonly misunderstood tool is the Meta Pixel.

This article aims to demystify the Meta Pixel, helping you achieve better conversions and a higher return on investment.

This article covers:

What is the Meta Pixel?

The Meta Pixel is a piece of code embedded in your website that tracks user actions, such as visiting a page, adding an item to their cart, or making a purchase.

Monitoring these actions helps you measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.

The data collected by the Meta Pixel allows you to retarget users who have interacted with your site, optimizing your ads and ensuring they are shown to the right audience.

Additionally, when used alongside the Conversions API, the Meta Pixel creates a more reliable connection that helps reduce advertising costs and improve overall campaign performance.

What does the Meta Pixel do?

The Meta Pixel transmits data from a Shopify store to Meta Ads Manager through the customers’ browsers.

By default, the Meta Pixel uses both first-party and third-party cookie data. Using both first-party and third-party cookies will allow you to reach more customers on Meta technologies and be more accurate in measurement and reporting.

Here’s a simplified explanation of what Meta Pixel does when a customer visits your Shopify store:

  1. The customer clicks an ad on Facebook that drives to your Shopify store.
  2. The Meta Pixel tracks data about the customer’s behaviors and sends the data to the customer’s browser. The customer’s behaviors, also known as events, can include:
    • Searching for a product.
    • Adding an item to cart.
    • Starting a checkout.
    • Purchasing a product.
  3. The customer’s browser sends the event data to Meta so you can see the data in Meta Ads Manager and know what the customer did while visiting your Shopify store.

How to Set Up Meta Pixel

To set up your Meta Pixel, you will need to create a unique pixel for your website, install the pixel on your website, and set up events.

Create a Unique Pixel

To create a Meta pixel open Meta Events Manager and follow these five steps:

  1. Open Meta Events Manager.
  2. Navigate to Connect Data Sources.
  3. Select Web and click the Connect button.
  4. Name your pixel. Your pixel needs a descriptive name so you can identify it in Meta Events Manager. This can be especially helpful if you own multiple websites.
  5. Enter your website URL to find the Shopify partner integration option.

Once you’ve completed those steps, you have successfully created your Meta Pixel. Onto installation!

Install on Your Shopify Website

Once you’ve created your Meta Pixel, the next step is to install it on your website.

There are three main installation options: manual installation, native integration with Shopify, and using Google Tag Manager or a third-party provider like Elevar.

  1. Manual Installation:

To install the Pixel code manually, paste the base code at the bottom of the header section, just above the closing </head> tag, on every page of your website. Your Pixel ID will be included in your base code, and you can use one ID across your whole website.

  1. Native Integration with Shopify:

Shopify offers a native integration with step-by-step guidance for setting up your Meta Pixel.

This makes the process straightforward and ensures your Pixel is properly configured to track visitor interactions on your Shopify store.

  1. Using Google Tag Manager:

Google Tag Manager is particularly useful if you want to have two Facebook Pixels on your Shopify store. You’ll need to set them both up in Google Tag Manager. This method provides flexibility and centralized management for your tracking codes.

  1. Third-Party Provider: Elevar’s Facebook Pixel

This step-by-step guide provides a comprehensive guide on launching your Facebook Pixel and Conversions API (CAPI) integration through Elevar’s server-side destination. It will help you set up your Pixel and CAPI integration effectively using Elevar’s robust tools and features.

Set Up Events

Once your Meta Pixel is installed, you can set up events to track visitors’ actions on your website. It’s important to focus on tracking only the data that helps you measure the performance of your campaigns—less is often more in analytics.

Events are triggers that activate the Pixel when a website visitor performs a particular action. There are three main types of events you can set up:

1. Standard Events:

These are predefined triggers provided by Meta. Standard events cover common actions such as making a purchase, adding an item to a cart, or completing a registration. They are straightforward to implement and provide a solid foundation for tracking basic interactions.

2. Custom Conversions:

Custom conversions allow you to specify the value of different types of conversions. You can use these to track and measure the worth of various actions, helping you understand which conversions are most valuable for your business. This setup is useful for distinguishing between different types of conversions and their respective values.

3. Custom Events:

Custom events provide a higher level of customization for tracking actions unique to your website and not covered by standard events. These are essential for monitoring critical stages in your sales funnel or other important interactions that standard events don’t capture. Custom events require a more advanced setup but offer greater flexibility for precise tracking.

By effectively setting up these events, you can gain deeper insights into how users interact with your site. This will allow you to optimize your marketing strategies and improve your campaign performance.

Best Practices for Using Meta Pixel

Set up your Shopify store for success by following these best practices:

  • Use Meta’s Test Events tool to ensure your standard and custom events are working properly and to help you debug them.
  • Leverage the Diagnostics tab within Events Manager to identify and fix any issues with your events.
  • Use the Meta Pixel Helper to test a pixel for an ad account you’re unable to access.
  • Use both Meta Pixel and the Meta Conversions API on your Shopify store.
  • Connect the Meta CAPI and Meta Pixel using the Elevar server-side destination to capture 100% of your Shopify store’s data.

Questions about the Meta Pixel for Shopify?

Take the guesswork out of your Meta tracking set up! Book a call with us to get it done for you by expert analysts.

Learn how the Elevar Meta integration can help you solve your eCommerce business’s conversion tracking challenges and improve your Facebook ad performance by 20% or more.

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