If you’re running Facebook ads to drive traffic to your blog, then learning how to install Facebook pixel on WordPress is pretty much essential.
Why?
Partly it’s because Pixel can be used as a powerful analytics tool that tracks click-throughs and conversions generated from your ads and provides insightful reports that can help you fine-tune your next round of ads.
However, it’s also because Pixel can prove to be an invaluable tool for creating targeted ads aimed at your existing users.
If a user visits content on your site about Subject A or Product B and then leaves your site, Pixel gives you the opportunity to later send them ads about Subject A or Product B and drive them back to your site.
So far, so good, but how do you install Facebook Pixel on your WordPress site?
The answer is that there are two methods, one requiring a simple bit of cutting and pasting of some code, the other being done with a plugin.
I’ll show you both methods below.
How to Install Facebook Pixel on WordPress: Your Complete Step-by-Step Guide
It’s a complete guide from installation to partner integration. Read carefully to know the entire step-by-step guide.
Method 1: Installing Facebook Pixel Manually
1. Go to Facebook Business Suite Events Manager
You can access this simply by going to https://www.facebook.com/events_manager2
If you’re reading this guide, then I’m assuming that you haven’t installed any Facebook Pixels before, in which case your events manager dashboard should look like the one above.
2. Connect to New Data Source
To carry out this next step, hover your mouse over the green circle with the white ‘+’ symbol, which you’ll find at the top of your left-hand menu just underneath your Facebook username.
This brings up an option labeled “Connect data sources.” Select this, and you’ll be presented with a pop-up featuring four options:
- Web
- App
- Offline
- CRM.
Of these, select the first one, labeled ‘Web.’
3. Name and Create Your Pixel
This next step is nice and simple; just give your Pixel a name and select ‘Create Pixel’ before allowing Facebook to do its magic.
4. Add Your Domain Name
Up next, we have another quick and easy step. Simply enter your domain name, click “Tick” followed by “next,” and your Pixel is ready to be integrated with your website.
5. Choose Manual Installation
On the following screen, select the “Install Code Manually” option.
6. Copy the Code
Choosing the “Install Code Mannually” option will present you with a few lines of base code, which you can copy to your computer’s clipboard simply by pressing the green “Copy Code” button.
You might want to paste a copy of this code into a blank .txt document so that you don’t lose it while going through the next step in the process.
7. Add a Headers and Footers Plugin to WordPress
The next step is to add the code you just copied to the header part of your website. There are multiple ways that you can do this, including going to Appearance – Editor from your WordPress dashboard menu and manually pasting it into the code.
However, I tend to find that doing this can mess up your website’s source code if you’re not absolutely meticulous about where you place it.
With that in mind, I prefer to use one of the countless free plugins available for adding code to your website’s header and footer.
My personal favorite is the free Insert Headers and Footers plugin from WPBeginner.
To install it, simply go to Plugins – Add New from your WordPress dashboard and search for “Insert header and Footer.” The plugin I want you to install is the first one in the results, as shown in the image below.
8. Add the Code to Your Header
Once you’ve activated and installed the plugin, open it up by going to Settings – Insert Headers and Footers.
Here, you’ll see three boxes – one to place scripts in your website header, another to put them in the body of your website, and a third for the footer.
Today, it’s the top one, “Scripts in Header,” that you and I need to install Facebook Pixel on our WordPress site.
For this step, simply take the code you copied in Step 6 and paste it into that header box, then scroll down and select save.
With that out of the way, you’re done. Facebook PIxel is successfully installed on your WordPress website, and you can move ahead to configuring some of the more advanced options on there.
2. Install Facebook Pixel Using Partner Integration
So, you’ve seen one way to install Pixel, but here’s another.
Follow steps 1 – 4 of the previous method to set up a basic Pixel, only this time, when you’re presented with the option of either manual installation or partner integration, select “Use Partner.”
1. Choose WordPress
On the next screen, you’ll be presented with a huge list of platforms that integrate with Facebook. Scroll down to the bottom and select WordPress.
2. Install the Facebook Pixel Plugin
Once you’ve selected WordPress from inside Facebook, you’ll be instructed to go back to your WordPress installation and install the official Facebook Pixel plugin.
You can find this by going to Plugins – Add New from your WordPress dashboard and searching for ‘Facebook Pixel.’
The result you want is the one labeled “Facebook for WordPress as shown in the image above.
3. Go to Facebook for WordPress
With the plugin installed and activated, go to Settings – Facebook and click the blue “Get Started” button in order to connect your website to Facebook.
This will take you through a quick set-up wizard, which gives you the opportunity to configure how you’re going to use this new plugin and what data you’re OK with sending to Facebook.
4. Verify Your Website
Once you’ve set a connection between Facebook and your website, it’s time to check that everything is working properly.
To do this, go back to the Facebook business page you had opened earlier and click ‘Next’ to go past those instructions for installing the Pixel plugin.
This brings up the verification window. All you have to do here is to enter your web address and click the green ‘Send Traffic’ button.
This will open up your website in a new tab as well as show you a new screen that shows you that test traffic is being sent to your website to figure out whether everything is working or not.
This may take a few minutes, but once you’re done, you’re done.
All you need to do from here is set up any unique events you want to track, hit the confirm button, and you’re good to go.
Managing Facebook Pixel: A Final Word of Advice
So, there you have it:
Two quick and easy ways to install Facebook Pixel on WordPress.
Whether you decide to use the official plugin or go down the route of generating a snippet of code and adding it to your website header, I hope I’ve reassured you that there really is nothing to it when it comes to adding pixels to your site.
Before I wrap up, however, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also tell you about the Facebook Pixel Helper extension for Google Chrome.
Install this, and you’ll always be able to check whether your Pixel is working and operating as it should.
As long as it is, you’ve got everything you need to help you truly optimize the way Facebook ads work for you in promoting your WordPress blog.
Not that social media ads are the only way to get the word out about your work. If you’re deep in the marketing process of growing your site, here are my top suggestions to drive more traffic to your blog.