If you find Facebook advertising confusing, you’re not alone. It’s a powerful platform for reaching new customers, but its numerous tools can feel overwhelming. One of its most confusing features is the Meta pixel—an essential element of any successful Facebook ad strategy.
This guide explains what the Meta pixel is, how to set it up, and different ways to use it to refine your ad targeting, boost conversions, and improve your return on investment (ROI) .
What is the Meta pixel (formerly Facebook pixel)?
The Meta pixel is an analytics tool that measures how effectively your Facebook ad campaigns drive actions on your website. You can find it in your Meta ads manager. In February 2022, Facebook rebranded the pixel from “the Facebook pixel” to “the Meta pixel,” which now supports both Facebook and Instagram advertising.
Pixels are common across most advertising platforms. They’re used to track visitors on your website so you can advertise to them later, a strategy known as sequential retargeting.
When you create a Meta pixel, you get a unique Meta Pixel ID—essentially a string of numbers assigned to your website. That pixel code tracks user activity on your site, including page views, add-to-cart events, purchases, and more. You can then see how your ads perform and refine them to reach more people likely to take meaningful actions—like purchasing a product or signing up for a newsletter.
How does the Meta pixel work?
Facebook advertising used to require separate pixels—one for retargeting past website visitors (custom audience pixel) and another for tracking specific website conversions, like sales.
Today, the Meta pixel combines these functions into a single tool. Once installed on your website, the Meta pixel collects data on how visitors interact with your site after seeing an ad—helping you optimize campaigns, refine messaging, and track conversions.
The Meta pixel works in six steps:
- Install the pixel. Start by adding a snippet of tracking code to your website.
- Collect insights. You’ll begin receiving insights about site visitor demographics, what device they’re using, and traffic sources.
- Review behaviors. See how people act on your website—whether they explore a specific product page, add an item to their cart, or leave without purchasing.
- Build audiences. Use pixel data to create Facebook Custom Audiences (for retargeting), lookalike audiences (to reach similar customers), and more personalized ads.
- Optimize bidding. Adjust ad spend to target users most likely to take a specific action—like making a purchase—to keep costs efficient.
- Analyze events. Assess conversion events to fine-tune your Facebook ads strategy over time.
How to set up the Meta pixel
- Create your pixel
- Name your pixel
- Check for partner integration
- Choose how you connect your website
- Set up Conversion API
To track activity across your entire site, install the Meta pixel in the head section of your index page so it loads on every section of your website. No matter which page a visitor loads, the pixel will fire and record their activity.
Here’s how to set up the Meta pixel:
1. Create your pixel
Log in to the Meta Business Suite and go to Events Manager. Clickto “Connect a new data source,” then select “Web” as your data source.
2. Name your pixel
After choosing “Web” as your data source, click “Connect.” Then name your pixel.
3. Check for partner integration
Next, you’ll be asked to check for a partner integration. Enter your website URL and click “Check” to see if your platform supports automatic setup.
4. Choose how to connect your website
If your platform supports integration, select how to connect your website to Facebook. Meta recommends “Conversions API and Meta pixel” for the best tracking and optimization.
5. Set up Conversions API
Choose how you want to set up Conversions API. The easiest way is through partner integration. Choose “Set up with partner integration” and click “Next.”
Select Shopify, then follow the prompts to connect your Shopify store to Facebook.
For more information on connecting the Meta pixel to your Shopify store, read our help guide. You can also download the Meta Pixel Helper to verify installation and troubleshoot issues.
The Meta pixel’s targeting options
The Meta pixel offers four key functions to help you maximize return on investment from Facebook ads:
1. Custom audiences from your website
Custom audiences from your website allow you to retarget website visitors who have interacted with your site. Once the Meta pixel is installed, it tracks user behaviors—like page visits and time spent on site—helping you refine your ad targeting across Facebook and Instagram.
The pixel tracks activities including:
- Pages visited
- Page not visited
- Date of visit
- Scroll depth
- Time spent on a page
Using this data, you can advertise to highly targeted groups or create lookalike audiences to reach potential new customers. You can also exclude specific groups, so you don’t keep targeting users who have already converted or are not highly engaged.
When advertising on Facebook, you can’t target a specific individual visitor. Instead, you build custom audiences based on shared behaviors, including:
- People who visited your website in the past 24 hours
- People who visited in the past 180 days but have not returned in 30 days
- People who viewed a specific landing page on your website
- People who visited one specific page on your website but not another specific page
You can define time frames between one and 180 days and combine conditions for specific groups. Once an audience is created, you can choose when to advertise to it, select specific ads, or save the audience for future campaigns.
2. Custom conversions
A custom conversion tracks when a user completes a specific action on your website. It’s created by selecting a completion page and naming the conversion. Typically, the completion page is some kind of thank-you page—for example:
- “Thank you for shopping. Your order is on the way.”
- “Thanks for signing up. You’ll receive your first email from us shortly.”
- “Thanks for your comment. Here’s your free download.”
You can create custom conversions independently of your Facebook ads, then choose when to use them in the future.
Because the tracking pixel fires on every page of your site, it can track when someone visits a completion page—especially if they arrived via a Facebook ad.
Assigning categories and values
When setting up a custom conversion, you can choose a category to define the type of action tracked and add a monetary value. For example, if you create a custom conversion that tracks visitors to an ebook download page, you can assign the cost of the ebook to your custom conversion. This allows you to determine if your ad campaigns are profitable. If you charge $20 for your ebook, but you’re spending $25 per conversion on Facebook ads, you’ll probably want to adjust your campaign.
The custom conversion categories include:
- Add Payment Info
- Add to Cart
- Add to Wishlist
- Complete Registration
- Initiate Checkout
- Lead
- Purchase
- Search
- View Content
Once created, custom conversions track across all your ads—whether you optimize for them or not. You can generate reports to monitor conversion rates.
Create up to 100 custom conversions per ad account, and delete them anytime if not longer needed.
3. Standard and custom events
Events are actions people take on your site. The Meta pixel tracks two types of events:
- A standard event, or predefined actions recognized by Meta across ad products.
- Custom events, or an action you define—often used to track events not typically covered by Meta.
Meta pixel standard events
There are 17 standard Meta pixel events you can use by copying and pasting a simple event code to your website:
- Add payment info. For adding payment information during checkout.
- Add to cart. For adding an item to a shopping cart.
- Add to wishlist. For adding an item to a wishlist.
- Complete registration. For signing up for an event or email subscription.
- Contact. For getting in touch with your business.
- Customize product. For customizing a product on your website, like choosing a color.
- Donate. For allowing a visitor to donate to your business.
- Find location. For helping to find one of your locations.
- Initiate checkout. For starting the checkout process by clicking a Checkout button.
- Lead. For allowing a visitor to identify themselves as a lead on your website, such as submitting a form or starting a trial.
- Purchase. For when a visitor completes a purchase and ends up on a Thank You landing page or confirmation page.
- Schedule. For booking an appointment with your business.
- Search. For searching for something on your website or app.
- Start trial. For beginning a trial of a product or service you offer.
- Submit application. For submitting an application for a product, service, or program.
- Subscribe. For signing up for a paid product or service.
- View content. For when a visitor visits a landing or product page you care about.
Event parameters
Standard events support parameters, which let you include additional information about an event, such as:
- Product IDs
- Categories
- Number of products purchased
- Content type
- Conversion value
Say you want to track events like scroll depth on specific pages on your website, instead of all pages. You can create custom parameters to segment audiences based on their engagement levels, allowing you to further define any Custom Audiences you create.
Custom events
Custom events are user-defined actions that aren’t tied to specific URLs. They require adding extra code snippets to relevant pages and are used to collect more data than a standard event can provide. For example, you can track actions like video plays or specific button clicks using custom events.
4. Dynamic ads
If you run an ecommerce site, the Meta pixel allows you to create dynamic ads. These ads—also referred to as catalog sales in your ads account—automatically show products from your catalog based on your target audience’s behavior.
Instead of manually creating individual ads for each product, Dynamic ads use a product catalog to show personalized recommendations to potential customers. .
How dynamic ads work:
- The Meta pixel tracks user behavior on your website.
- Dynamic ads then automatically serve relevant products from your catalog based on what users interacted with.
- This eliminates the need to manually create individual ads. It’s a highly efficient ad format option if your business has a large product inventory.
Let’s say a user views a pair of shoes on your website but doesn’t make a purchase. A dynamic ad can later show them the same shoes (or related products) on Facebook or Instagram—encouraging them to complete their purchase.
Why install the Meta pixel?
- Improve ROI of Facebook ad spend
- Take advantage of Facebook conversion tracking
- Run retargeting ads
- Create lookalike campaigns
Despite privacy updates—like IOS restrictions limiting some of its features—the Meta pixel remains a powerful tool for expanding your audience and tracking meaningful interactions.
Improve ROI of Facebook ad spend
Getting your ads in front of your target audience is just the first step in improving your ROI. The next step is getting your ads in front of the people who are more likely to respond positively to your calls to action. The Meta pixel collects user data that will help get your ads seen by these people.
Take advantage of Facebook conversion tracking
The Meta pixel allows you to see how your audience responds to your ads in real time. It tracks how people are interacting with your website, and if your audience is switching between desktop to mobile. With this information, you can identify what’s working, spot drop-off points, and tweak your Facebook ad strategy to drive more meaningful interactions.
Run retargeting ads
The Meta pixel’s retargeting data allows you to show personalized ads to past site visitors based on what they have already shown interest in. If a customer viewed a product, added it to their cart, or put it on their wishlist but didn’t complete the purchase, you can remind them with a tailored ad—increasing the chances they’ll return and convert.
Facebook’s ad library is a good place to find inspiration for your ad campaigns. Here’s a guide to the cost of running Facebook ads and the latest Facebook ad sizes.
Create lookalike audiences
The Meta pixel lets you find new customers who resemble people who are already engaging with your website and paid social ads. This will help you expand your customer base and maybe even find unexpected customer demographics.
Optimizing ad spend with Meta pixel Insights
The Meta pixel tracks specific actions like purchases, sign-ups, and downloads, helping you see which campaigns drive real results. If a campaign generates clicks but few conversions, you’ll need to adjust ad creatives, messaging, and audiences.
By comparing campaign performance, you can identify top performers and invest more in the ads that are working.
Impact of algorithm changes on Meta pixel performance
Meta’s algorithm and privacy policy updates can affect how the Meta pixel collects and processes data. If you notice a drop in ad performance, review your tracked events and make sure they align with current platform requirements.
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Meta pixel FAQ
How do I know if I have a Meta pixel?
Log into your Meta Business Suite or Events Manager. If a pixel is set up, you'll see it listed with data about its activity. Alternatively, use the Meta Pixel Helper browser extension to check if it's active on your website.
How do I delete the Meta pixel?
Meta Pixels cannot be deleted, but they can be deactivated. Go to your Events Manager, select the pixel, and remove it from any ads or integrations it's linked to. This stops future tracking without affecting past data.
How much does the Meta pixel cost?
The Meta pixel is free. It's a piece of code that you add to your header code to assist with advertising campaigns.
Is the Facebook pixel discontinued?
No, Facebook pixel code was rebranded as the Meta pixel when Facebook changed its name to Meta. Other changes to the Meta pixel include a seven-day click-through window, a one-day view window, a tracking limit of eight events per pixel, and access to new privacy features like Hide My Email and Private Relay for iOS Facebook users.
What are the benefits of the Meta pixel?
- Improved ROI on Facebook ad spend
- Takes advantage of Facebook conversion tracking
- Runs retargeting ads tailored to site visitors
- Builds lookalike audiences to reach new, similar prospects
How do I get a Meta pixel?
You can create a Meta pixel by following these six steps:
- Go to Events Manager in your Meta Business Suite.
- Click Connect Data Sources and select Web.
- Choose Meta Pixel and click Connect.
- Name your pixel.
- Add your website URL to check for setup options.
- Click Continue.