Action Steps for Getting Started With Facebook Retargeting

New to retargeting? The previous post covered the Basic Concepts of Facebook Retargeting. Facebook calls collecting of information about visitors and customers to your Websites creating “Custom Audiences.” You can Promote Posts to these audiences and that is generally called “Retargeting.” Now that we have some of the concepts and keywords to help you get started. Let’s take the next step… We are going to take a brief (very brief) look at each of the six simple steps involved in Facebook Retargeting. We covered this is the previous post, but here are the six simple steps involved If you are interested in installing the Facebook Retargeting Pixel on a Shopify Store click here)

You open up your Ad Manager Account in Facebook and obtain a snippet of JavaScript.

NOTE: There is only One Snippet of JavaScript per Ad Manager Account. It Doesn’t matter how many websites you manage the code is identical. Go to Ads Manager à Tools

NOTE: Where this is seems to change every time I go to the Ads Manager. Look around it will be there somewhere.

Open Pixels Screen

Find the ‘Pixels” menu option where ever it is hiding today.

Open Actions Tab

Click on the “View Pixel Code”

Copy (as in Copy/Paste) the Pixel JavaScript Code

We are going to install this on our website in a place that causes to be part of every page. The script will be run each time a page is viewed.

I use the plugin “Addfunc Head and Footer” It is simple and lightweight. There are lots of them so use the one that works for you.

Search for Addfunc head and footer, install and activate

It will be under the Settings Menu in the left sidebar

Click on Head and Footer

Paste your JavaScript into the Header section

Head and Footer Head

Save your work.

You are done except for Testing.

Chrome as an extension called the Facebook Pixel Helper. Add that (there are lots of instruction if you Google for them.)

Navigate to a page on your website.

Pixel Helper with Green Number

If a Facebook Pixel JavaScript ran you will see a green number in the little icon.

Click For More information

Now, Let’s USE the Pixel Code.

Go back to the Ads Manager

Create a Custom Audience to Get The JavaScript Code

#1 – Click on Tools

#2 – Click on Audiences

#3 – We will create an Audience with this button

Open The Create Audience Drop Down Menu

#1 – Click on Create Audience and then Click on Custom Audience

We are interested in Website Traffic

Choose Website Traffic

Click on Website Traffic

Here is one option. In the Next Screen let’s ask for everyone who visited our site Choose Everyone Who Visits Specific Pages

Data for Everyone Who Visits My Website

#1 – Choose the second option – “People who visit specific web pages

#2 – Enter the domain for your website (leaving off the http:// – some will enter http://www.YourSite) In this case my site is Deals-R.us

#3 – Change to 180 days – the max Facebook will search

#4 – Name the Audience

#4 – Click on the Create Audience Button

You will get a Thank You Screen – click OK Now you will see your new Custom Audience in the list of audiences. Obviously there can’t be any data, your website has not been running with the Pixel code in it.

Conversion Pixels: Note: We have been talking about Custom Audience Pixels in this post. There is another version of the same JavaScript that collects more information about Conversions. We aren’t going that far today. WE ARE DONE!

NOTE: You might be tempted to save this code in a file somewhere. I would NOT. Facebook changes this stuff all the time. If you install this code next week, there might be a better version available that you would miss. Now a very small image (1 pixel x 1 pixel) is displayed when someone views a page on your website. A pixel is one of the tiny dots that make up your screen. Our typical monitors have over 1,000 dots going across each of the virtually invisible rows that make up the picture on our screen. This super tiny image is virtually invisible to the naked eye. This code ends up being called a pixel. It is named after the one pixel by one pixel image that is displayed.

A visitor comes to your website and views a page. The tiny image is displayed on each page they visit.
The image being displayed is not on the website being visited. The website has to go out to another company (like Facebook) and ask for the image. When a website tries to display Facebook’s image, Facebook collects information about the browser and the person viewing the page. For Facebook this means they collect the viewer’s Facebook ID, what page they are viewing and a lot more. All of this information is stored in a HUGE database. Facebook alone must have trillions and trillions of records in their database.
As the owner of the website and a Facebook account you can ask Facebook to search their database and create a “Custom Audience” of everyone who visited a certain page or a certain website.
When you are ready you make a post on one of your Facebook Fan Pages and pay Facebook to ‘Promote The Post” to members of the Custom Audience.

Let’s gp ahead and show step 6 where we are here. We are going to create an ad and send it to a custom audience. There are eight SMALL steps involved here.

You must create a post on a Facebook page that you are an administrator on. This post is your ad.
You start to create an ad in the Facebook Ad Manager.
You select your Facebook Page
You select your post (you can create the post here. This is called a Dark Post, it never actually shows on the Facebook Fan Page.)
You select your Custom Audience as your target
You set your budget
You decide where you want the post to show (Desktop newsfeed, Mobile Newsfeed and/or Desktop sidebar.)
You Submit the Ad for Review.

STEP 1 – Create a Post that Will Be Your Ad (We will do this below as a Dark Post.

Start to Create the Ad

The next step involves picking which Facebook Fan Page you will use to host your post. You must be an administrator of this page. You may need to create a page if your product is not congruent with any of the pages you already have. (I wouldn’t sell baby toys on my Boxer Page.) You have a choice of putting your post on the page before you start there is a small plus sign below that lets you create a post on the fly. This will be a Dark Post – it will never be seen by anyone browsing the Facebook page. (Often a good thing since you don’t want your small pages flooded with nothing by advertisements.)

Pick Your Page and Your Post

#1 – Choose Boost Your Post (the name many change again tomorrow J )

#2 – Pick the Facebook Page from a drop down list of pages.

#3 – Either pick the Post you want to Boost or

#4 – You can create a Dark Post here. (If you create a Dark Post, you will end up having to select it from the drop down – #3 above – anyway.)

#5 – Click Continue

Be Sure to Make a More Descriptive Title for This Ad

Improve the Title

#1 – That title doesn’t give you much help about what the post is about. Fix that.

Now Select the Custom Audience You Want to Target. Select Custom Audience

#1 – Here we see a more descriptive title

#2 – Here we are picking an existing Custom Audience that has several hundred people targeted.

Note: When you create most ads you need to adjust for Gender, Age, Interests, etc. Here you Do Not need to do that. These people have already self-selected themselves into the group. Scroll Down and SET YOUR BUDGET (Not Shown)

Pick Where the Ad Will Display

#1 – Here I turned the Right Side Feed off

#2 – Submit the Ad for Approval

Two More Advanced Steps

Viewed and did not purchase – What you would actually like to do is target those who viewed a sales page and DID NOT buy the product. To do that you start the ad with a custom audience that visted the Sales Page and subtract a Custom Audience that visited a Thank You page after their purchase. That leaves you with the people who did NOT buy. It some situations (like when the purchase is made on Amazon), you can’t tell who actually purchased and in that case the best you can do is target those who visited the page.
Pretty Link – The link I put in the ad is actually sends the people who click to a plugin on my website called Pretty Link. That plugin does tow things a) it counts how many people clicked on the link and b) it redirects the visitors to the actual page I want them to go to. In this case that page link also contained considerable information in the form of parameters. That way I get a relatively short link in my ad and the visitor goes where I really want them to go.

SUMMARY We just walked through the following: