A Pixel Is Worth A Thousand Clicks
By
Alexi Venneri

Facebook is no longer just a social networking site. It is a review site, a chat tool, an archive, an advertising medium, a business marketplace and much more. Unfortunately many businesses still aren’t capitalizing on the reach and influence of Facebook. Smart businesses are now using Facebook to engage new customers and clients in ways they could never do on any other medium, helping them increase sales and customer satisfaction. The social site’s highly targeted ads work. Sixty-six percent of consumers say they’ve seen an ad for a business on Facebook – and the majority click on the ad from their cell phones. We’ll get to that later.

Every day I hear new success stories from our clients about the huge ROI and very low cost per click – cents, not dollars – to generate new business leads and sales using Facebook ads. Facebook ads are very different from boosted posts. If you’re boosting your posts: STOP. You are wasting money. Facebook ads are TARGETED ad campaigns that reach people who are actually interested in your product and/or service, served up to them in their newsfeed, based on all the things Facebook constantly “learns” from its users. It’s a bit “big brother”, but the ads are relevant to the users of the site, and businesses can now use their media spend to their advantage so they focus their message and their ads on exact targets – not just an age range or general demographic.

Facebook ad targeting is unique and specialized, from zip code to life events. Think marriage and buying a house or car. What makes Facebook’s targeting so good is that the tracking is excellent so you can continually adjust and use the metrics and tools to improve your results. Businesses can immediately see what’s working and what’s not, and make changes to their targeting and to their campaigns including creative.

One of the newest tracking methods is Facebook’s all-in-one “Facebook pixel”. The pixel can retarget website visitors while also tracking actions including leads and sign-ups. When properly installed by your website provider, you can get ad reporting including all website leads generated by Facebook ad campaigns. This means your ability to reach consumers is not just limited to one medium, and the multiplier effect of repeated views of your message across different platforms is a game changer.

By using information gathered from the pixels, you can then create highly targeted and segmented retargeting campaigns. The campaigns retarget people who visited your website by placing your ads in their Facebook newsfeeds. You can even customize the ads and the actions based on what the visitors clicked on your website.

For example, did someone click on a specific page on your website? Place an ad in their Facebook feed that gives them more information or allows you and your business to stay top of mind. Or maybe someone started filling out a website lead form, but stopped – abandoning it mid-process. No problem. The pixels can help track them and offer them another ad format which makes it easier to complete the form, like Facebook’s new Lead Gen ad format.

The Lead Gen ad format is especially helpful for all of the Facebook users checking the site from a mobile device. With a few taps on the mobile device’s screen, the new Lead Gen ads auto-populate with the Facebook user’s information making it easy for them to enter their information, and great for businesses to capture their information and respond.

One of the best aspects about the new pixel is that your website provider doesn’t have to keep making pixel updates as campaigns change. The changes can be handled on the backend saving you and your website team time.

Facebook does a great deal to help businesses be smarter advertisers and marketers. Leveraging partners to help you take advantage of these features is much like using an agency to create campaigns using traditional mediums. Any business spending anything on advertising should consider partnering with a firm that knows how to truly maximize the potential of social media for a fraction of the cost of nearly every other medium.

Alexi Venneri is the co-founder and CEO of Digital Air Strike, a leading social media and digital engagement company. Alexi has more than 20 years of experience in marketing and is a pioneer in digital response, social marketing and online reputation management.