Google Analytics is a powerful tool that shows all kinds of data relating to your website. Facebook is a powerful social media tool, a platform on which many brands pay for ads. But did you know you can marry the two and find how who your Facebook ads are reaching via your Google Analytics dashboard?

The story behind the stats

It is important to understand the story behind the stats. For example, if you clearly knew your ads were reaching the right people and they were responsible for a constant stream of traffic to your site, you’d be happy to continue paying. But, if they weren’t reaching the right people and not seeing a return on your investment, what needs to change?

Google Analytics is a powerful monitoring tool by which you can see what is working and, just as important what isn’t. Facebook pixel is a means by which you can optimize your ads, and by connecting the two, you have an even more powerful analytical tool with much more information.

Why bother with Facebook ads?

Facebook is a huge, global social media platform. Of the millions of daily users, a large portion is your customers. The business has no physical boundaries in the digital world, and so someone from another county or country can access your website and order online.

You’ll need to make sure organic or natural growth on Facebook is supported. And that means making sure you are consistently posting to your business page. You should be encouraging your followers to like and share, as well as comment and engage with your brand.

As well as paid for adverts, you can also promote posts, another great way of boosting your visibility on this busy social media platform.

You can also tell Facebook what you want to achieve with paid promotions and ads, something that is important as part of your overall online marketing strategy. Even though it is a global platform, there is a growing emphasis on localized ads so that customers who are local to you can find you.

Like all forms of online advertising, the stronger the marketing strategy backing it, the higher the chances of success. But, posting an online ad on Facebook can feel like throwing leaflets into the wind blind. How do you know where they are going to land? Is the right person going to pick them up? When they do pick a leaflet up what do they do with it? How long do they spend looking at it?

With Facebook pixel and Google Analytics, you no longer have to guess because you can track what people do when they see your ad on Facebook and what they do if they visit your website.

What is Facebook pixel?

Facebook pixel is a code you place on your website. It collects data and monitors conversion from your Facebook ads. This allows you to optimize ads and build a targeted audience, great for future ad campaigns. For example, you can remarket to people who have already taken action on your website, such as put things in their basket or liked a product or commented.

It works by placing cookies that trigger to track users when they interact with your Facebook ad and your website.

There used to be different kinds of pixels. Some could track conversions and so on, but now there is one pixel that does it all.

Facebook pixel provides you with important information, all of which can be used by your online marketing team to better target your ads. It means your money spent on ads yields a better return. You don’t have to wait until you start advertising on Facebook to start using the pixel. In fact, the earlier you begin before an ad campaign, the more information you’ll have to create a targeted, successful campaign.

Linking Facebook pixel with Google Analytics

It can look complex, but setting up and dovetailing Facebook pixel with Google Analytics is relatively straightforward…

You’ll need to import data sources into the Google Data Studio

Google Data Studio is a free tool that allows you to import data and create visual reports, giving you a holistic view of your campaigns. As it is a Google product, you won’t need to spend hours connecting the source – Google Analytics – with the reporting platform, Google Data Studio.

Google Analytics up and running!

Google Analytics is used when connected to your website – you do this by inserting a piece of code into the background of your website. This code tracks what people do when they find your website, how long they spend on it, and what pages they looked at. By adding Facebook pixel, you get to see what people do when they find your website through a Facebook advert.

How to generate a Facebook pixel code

This is done in the events manager page. The code generated is unique to your business. Setting Google as the ‘tag manager’, the code is then copied and pasted from Facebook into your Google platform.

Codes can be added for specific actions such as ‘add to cart’ code which allows you to track how many people who found your site through Facebook and added items to their basket and, the most important it, completed their purchase.

Sounds a bit complicated…?

It can be if you are not too sure about coding, how the back-end of your website works, or even how Google Analytics works. It’s also essential to be able to interpret the data and what both the analytics are actually telling you.

It is vital data because it is on this information that your Facebook ad campaign manager can tweak and modify ads so that they yield even better results. Outsourcing management of your online marketing campaigns is another means by which you get the best from your Facebook ads.

Customers change, and so your adverts shouldn’t stay the same. And that’s why understanding analytics is essential and why connecting Facebook pixel with Google Analytics is paramount to success.