Here we go again… yet another announcement from Facebook (well the day ends in ‘y’)
“Facebook Pixel to be removed” – well that was something I wasn’t expecting! A little bit of digging and it wasn’t quite the full story.
Firstly, what is the pixel and why should you care?
The pixel is a small bit of code easily added to a company website and it tracks who has visited the website and what actions have been taken while they were there. From a business perspective, this allows for some clever targeting with Facebook advertising. Facebook can match this information with its user base and with it you can target pretty accurately;
? Those who have visited your website previously (a warm audience)
? Those who have viewed a specific product or page on your website
? Those who have added your product to cart but not purchased
? Those who have purchased
? …and even more sophisticated targeting can allow you to build an audience of your ideal client by creating a lookalike audience
So for a business, this is a really powerful tool, ensuring you spend your ad budget wisely and don’t waste it on cold audiences.
But what was the Facebook announcement all about then?
Back to the Facebook announcement which is allowing users to remove themselves from “off-Facebook” activities for ad targeting which includes (but not limited to) turning off the Facebook pixel (note: only for the purposes of ad targeting, it will still be tracking activity) So this is a nod to controlling who and how you are targeted with ads on Facebook. It won’t stop you receiving ads, just probably serve you ads which are less relevant to you.
Back to businesses who are advertising on Facebook, should you be worried? NO…
? ?? Those who turn this off are probably likely to be the audience that would not have engaged with advertising anyway.
?♀️ Many simply won’t turn off this feature, either because they don’t know about it or probably because Facebook just won’t make it that obvious.
? Facebook is still about making money, advertising is how they make their money, they will have thought long and hard about the effects and it’s unlikely to make a major dent in yours (or their) effectiveness.
This feature is due in 2nd half of 2019 – link to the full announcement.
