The Mata Ads platform is one of the most powerful digital marketing tools. It can drive traffic, sales, leads, remarketing, you name it. However, to get the most out of Meta Ads, Meta needs to be able to track users and their actions on your website. Using Meta Ads to drive conversions is when Meta Advertising is at its best. You may need to implement custom Meta events using Google Tag Manager to do that.
After you add your Meta pixel to your site, Meta automatically tracks some events. And while Meta does provide a tool to create custom Meta events, There’s a better way to do it: creating custom Meta events using Google Tag Manager.
The Facebook Pixel
The first thing you need to have on your site is the Facebook or Meta Pixel. There are several ways to get that installed on your site. You can use Google Tag Manager, you can hard code it, or if you’re using WordPress, you can download the Google Site Kit plugin.
The pixel is a small chunk of code on your website that sends tracking information about your users to Meta. This tracking code lets marketers target users who have been on their site or have completed some action on their site.
Additionally, the pixel allows you to create events. These can be something as simple as a button click or a purchase. Any conversion on your site can and should be a Meta event. Why? Because you can use Meta’s powerful algorithm to make campaigns that optimize for that event. Meta’s Conversion Campaign is one of its most powerful tools and one that can almost certainly help your business. We can use Google Tag Manager to help get all of that setup.
Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager is a free tool developed by Google. Google Tag Manager allows you to go one step further than Google Analytics(Another free Google Tool) by letting you track the actions people take on your site. Google Analytics, especially Google Analytics 4, already tracks some events, but if you want a more specific event tracked, Google Tag Manager is the tool.
At its simplest, Google Tag Manager consists of Triggers and Tags.
Triggers are predefined events that activate when a person does that event. Common triggers are button clicks, form completions, scroll depth, video views, etc. Most actions taken by a user on your site can be set as a trigger. Tags pieces of data that sends information to Google Analytics, but in this case, Meta about what just happened on your site. So say you wanted to track how often some one fills out a contact form on your site. You would set up a trigger when someone clicks “submit” on the form. And that would fire the tag with information like form name, URL, time, date, and any other predetermined data to Google Analytics or Meta to use in tracking.
This is a brief overview of one way to use Google Tag Manager. Google Tag Manager is a very powerful tool that I would encourage you to familiarize yourself with.
Setting up Custom Meta Events Using Google Tag Manager
Now that we’ve gone through Meta Pixels and Google Tag Manager let’s install the custom Meta event.
First, Meta provides generic code to use for a custom event. The code will look something like this:
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘xxx’);
</script>Don’t be intimidated. There’s not much you’re going to have to do with this. You’ll only need to replace the ‘xxx’ with a recognizable name. For example, if you wanted to track how many people are signing up for your newsletter, you could modify the code like this:
<script>
fbq(‘track’, ‘newsletter_signup’);
</script>Once you have this snippet of code how you want, the next step is to set up a trigger in Google Tag Manager. As we discussed above, the trigger is the action that tells Google tags when to fire.
Under Triggers in Google Tag Manager, click on “new.” You will now be looking at a blank Google Tag Manager trigger. Make sure to give the trigger a name. And then click on the “configure trigger” box. A menu will pop up with several options. Pick the options that correspond to the event you want to track.
To continue the example from earlier, we set up a sample trigger that tracks when someone clicks on a button that says “Subscribe Now!” on the /newsletter page.
Once your trigger is set up, click save and navigate to the Tags section. Click on “New” to start building your tag.
Make sure you give the tag a name, then click on the “Tag Configuration” box. From the menu that pops up, select “Custom HTML.” This option lets us input the Meta code snippet from earlier.
Once you’ve inputted the code, you need to set the trigger. Click on the “Triggering” box below where you inputted the code snippet. From the list, select the trigger we made, and click “save.”
Once you’ve saved the tag, make sure you test the trigger and tag in Google Tag Manager’s preview mode. As a quick tip, I’ve found the best way to do this is to use incognito mode. Once you see the trigger and tag firing in preview mode, publish it!
The custom Meta event will automatically send the data to Meta, and you should begin to see the events appear in Meta in a few hours.
There are many ways to implement tracking. Creating custom Meta events using Google Tag Manager is just one way to make sure your conversions are being tracked. If you think your Meta campaigns could benefit from additional event tracking, we’d be happy to help. Just fill out our contact form, and we’ll be in touch.