You can not manage it if you can not measure it. The best factoid ever related to marketing. So how do we measure the performance of our ads? To answer that I ask the question – what is a marketing pixel?
The pixel is simply a tiny (1×1) portion on a screen that someone views. When the screen is loaded, the pixel sends information back to the tracking system you use. Literally, if you expanded your screen 1000 times you notice it is made up of millions of “pixels”. 1 pixel is too small to see with the naked eye but plenty to have some code in it.
Facebook has their Facebook Pixel. My favorite ads software Connectio uses their “power pixel”. My other favorite link tracking system Clickmagick has their pixel.
So, what is a marketing pixel? When you have a website, say a WordPress site, and you want to track anyone that has landed on one of your pages. By putting a tracking pixel on the entire site, you are able to retarget those visitors.
I wrote an article detailing retargeting here.
Let’s say you run an ad in Facebook. The best ads for cold traffic we have found are “engagement” ads. Use some type of a video even if it just moves the image around. The engagement of clicking on the video from a person in their feed shows some type of engagement with your message.
Once this happens, Facebook basically pixels that person. Then you can run a retargeting ad for all of those people that clicked on the video or watched so many seconds of the video.
The same thing can be done for your website. When someone visits your site, the pixel will trigger. You can then retarget them with ads. Since they have been to your site, the traffic is now “warm”.
What do the “Gurus” do for tracking?
Connectio suite has a power pixel. It provides their system more information than the Facebook pixel. You can now retarget with a massive amount of filters. For example, they were on your site for 20 secs AND a certain date or data range. You get the picture. Retargeting is where the gurus win.
It is not complicated but you need to learn the process. Only by doing it will you understand the power of this pixel retargeting.
If you would rather not deal with the technical stuff, my team can actually do it for you. An article on “Done For You” marketing is here.
