You can use the Facebook pixel to track your website visitors' actions. This is called conversion tracking. Tracked conversions appear in the Facebook Ads Manager and the Facebook Analytics dashboard, where they can be used to analyze the effectiveness of your conversion funnel and to calculate your return on ad investment. You can also use tracked conversions to define custom audiences for ad optimization and dynamic ad campaigns. Once you have defined custom audiences, we can use them to identify other Facebook users who are likely to convert and target them with your ads.
There are three ways to track conversions with the pixel:
- standard events, which are visitor actions that we have defined and that you report by calling a pixel function
- custom events, which are visitor actions that you have defined and that you report by calling a pixel function
- custom conversions, which are visitor actions that are tracked automatically by parsing your website's referrer URLs
Requirements The pixel's base code must already be installed on every page where you want to track conversions.
Standard events are predefined visitor actions that correspond to common, conversion-related activities, such as searching for a product, viewing a product, or purchasing a product. Standard events support parameters, which allow you to include an object containing additional information about an event, such as product IDs, categories, and the number of products purchased.
Standard Events You can use the fbq('track') function to track the following standard events. Standard events also support parameter objects with specific object properties, which allow you to include detailed information about an event.
Event Name Event Description Object Properties AddPaymentInfo
When payment information is added in the checkout flow.
A person clicks on a save billing information button. content_category, content_ids, contents, currency, value
None required. AddToCart
When a product is added to the shopping cart.
A person clicks on an add to cart button. content_ids, content_name, content_type, contents, currency, value
None required. Required for Dynamic Ads: content_ids, content_type, and contents
AddToWishlist
When a product is added to a wishlist.
A person clicks on an add to wishlist button. content_name, content_category, content_ids, contents, currency, value
None required. CompleteRegistration
When a registration form is completed.
A person submits a completed subscription or signup form. content_name, currency, status, value
None required. Contact
When a person initiates contact with your business via telephone, SMS, email, chat, etc.
A person submits a question about a product. None required. CustomizeProduct
When a person customizes a product.
A person selects the color of a t-shirt. None required. Donate
When a person donates funds to your organization or cause.
A person adds a donation to the Humane Society to their cart. None required. FindLocation
When a person searches for a location of your store via a website or app, with an intention to visit the physical location.
A person wants to find a specific product in a local store. None required. InitiateCheckout
When a person enters the checkout flow prior to completing the checkout flow.
A person clicks on a checkout button. content_category, content_ids, contents, currency, num_items, value
None required. Lead
When a sign up is completed.
A person clicks on pricing. content_category, content_name, currency, value
None required. PageView
This is the default pixel tracking page visits.
A person lands on your website pages. None required. Purchase
When a purchase is made or checkout flow is completed.
A person has finished the purchase or checkout flow and lands on thank you or confirmation page. content_ids, content_name, content_type, contents, currency, num_items, value
Required: currency and value
Required for Dynamic Ads: content_ids, content_type, and contents
Schedule
When a person books an appointment to visit one of your locations.
A person selects a date and time for a dentist appointment. None required. Search
When a search is made.
A person searches for a product on your website. content_category, content_ids, contents, currency, search_string, value
None required. StartTrial
When a person starts a free trial of a product or service you offer.
A person selects a free week of your game. currency, predicted_ltv, value
None required. SubmitApplication
When a person applies for a product, service, or program you offer.
A person applies for a credit card, educational program, or job. None required. Subscribe
When a person applies to a start a paid subscription for a product or service you offer.
A person subscribes to your streaming service. currency, predicted_ltv, value
None required. ViewContent
When a key page is viewed such as a product page.
A person lands on a product details page. content_ids, content_name, content_type, contents, currency, value
None required. Required for Dynamic Ads: content_ids, content_type, and contents
Custom Events If our predefined standard events aren't suitable for your needs, you can track your own custom events, which also can be used to define custom audiences for ad optimization. Custom events also support parameters, which you can include to provide additional information about each custom event.
Tracking Custom Events You can track custom events by calling the pixel's fbq('trackCustom') function, with your custom event name and (optionally) a JSON object as its parameters. Just like standard events, you can call the fbq('trackCustom') function anywhere between your webpage's opening and closing tags, either when your page loads, or when a visitor performs an action like clicking a button.
For example, let's say you wanted to track visitors who share a promotion in order to get a discount. You could track them using a custom event like this:
fbq('trackCustom', 'ShareDiscount', {promotion: 'share_discount_10%'});
Each time the pixel loads, it automatically calls fbq('track', 'PageView') to track a PageView standard event. PageView standard events record the referrer URL of the page that triggered the function call. You can use these recorded URLs in the Events Manager to define visitor actions that should be tracked.
For example, let's say that you send visitors who subscribe to your mailing list to a thank you page. You could set up a custom conversion that tracks website visitors who have viewed any page that has /thank-you in its URL. Assuming your thank you page is the only page with /thank-you in its URL, and you've installed the pixel on that page, anyone who views it will be tracked using that custom conversion.
Once tracked, custom conversions can be used to optimize your ad campaigns, to define custom audiences, and to further refine custom audiences that rely on standard or custom events.
Since custom conversions rely on complete or partial URLs, you should make sure that you can define visitor actions exclusively based on unique strings in your website URLs.
Custom conversions are created entirely within the Events Manager. Refer to our Advertiser Help document to learn how.
Parameters are optional, JSON-formatted objects that you can include when tracking standard and custom events. They allow you to provide additional information about your website visitors' actions. Once tracked, parameters can be used to further define any custom audiences you create.
To include a parameter object with a standard or custom event, format your parameter data as an object using JSON, then include it as the third function parameter when calling the fbq('track') or fbq('trackCustom') functions.
For example, let's say you wanted to track a visitor who purchased multiple products as a result of your promotion. You could do this:
fbq('track', 'Purchase',
// begin parameter object data
{
value: 115.00,
currency: 'USD',
contents: [
{
id: '301',
quantity: 1,
item_price: 85.00
},
{
id: '401',
quantity: 2,
item_price: 15.00
}],
content_type: 'product'
}
// end parameter object data
);
Note that if you want to use data included in event parameters when defining custom audiences, key values must not contain any spaces.
You can include the following predefined object properties with any custom events, and any standard events that support them. Format your parameter object data using JSON.