People visiting your website have the potential to become some of your hottest leads. The more time they spend on your site, the better, because it improves your chances of converting them first to leads and then to clients.

But what happens when those visitors leave and don’t come back? Unless they give you their email address, there’s no easy way to find them again and remind them of the value you offer.

This is where your Facebook pixel comes in handy. Your website is sometimes the first point of contact you have with your audience, so installing the Facebook pixel helps you use ads to target people who’ve been to your site.

As a way to expand your reach even further, your Facebook pixel lets you target people on Facebook who are similar to the people who’ve visited your site.

As a real estate agent, your business relies on your ability to connect with people and persuade them to choose you. To avoid losing track of potential leads, here’s a look at how to install the Facebook pixel on your website and run targeted ads.

What’s a Facebook pixel anyway?

Your Facebook pixel is a few lines of code, unique to you, that you add to your website to make it easier to track who visits and who converts.

Depending on how you build your website, you can add your Facebook pixel to large platforms like WordPress or niche real estate website-building platforms like Real Estate Webmasters, Boston Logic, and Reliance Network.

The main benefit of installing your Facebook pixel is that you’re able to use the data you collect to create targeted ads. Based on the types of people who visit your site, ads that incorporate this audience allow you to do three things:

• Reach a wider segment of your audience. Use custom audiences and the look-alike audience features when you create Facebook ads so that the people seeing your ads are similar to the people visiting your website. For example, if you typically market condos to first-time millennial buyers, you might find that baby boomers looking to downsize are also visiting your site. You’ll want to make sure your Facebook ads also target this group. We’ll explore this idea more shortly.
• Increase your sales. People who visit your page might have met you at an open house or heard about you through word of mouth. A Facebook ad that reinforces the solutions you offer—like free property assessments or access to staging companies—improves your chances of converting those visitors. This is opposed to people seeing your ad on Facebook for the first time without any background on who you are.
• Gives you access to more data insights to analyze. There are 17 different pixel events, or actions, people can take on your website that the Facebook pixel tracks. For example, if someone subscribes to your newsletter or searches your property listings, your Facebook pixel is triggered, and the action is reported on the Facebook pixel summary page in your Facebook Ads Manager account. This is where you can see how well each event performed.

Another benefit of installing your Facebook pixel is that it lets you use retarget ads that cater to people who’ve been to your site. People visiting your site might not see your standard Facebook ads—perhaps they’re not who you think your ideal customers are—so you miss out on the chance to market to them. Your Facebook pixel helps you identify these people and cater to them specifically.

In just a few steps, you can make your ads more effective and improve your chances of attracting and converting qualified leads. Let’s look at how to create your Facebook pixel, how to install it, and how to run more effective ad campaigns.

How to install your Facebook pixel

Whether you’re using WordPress to market your services and showcase properties or you’re using a more niche website-building tool for real estate, install your Facebook pixel. You can add your Facebook pixel on your own or with the help of a developer. Here’s how to get started—depending on the platform you use.

Create your Facebook pixel

Regardless of which platform you use to create and manage your website, the process of creating your Facebook pixel is the same. Start by logging into your Facebook Ads Manager account, and then click on “Pixels” in the drop-down menu:

The landing page gives a high-level summary of the benefits of using a Facebook pixel. To get your unique code, click on “Create a Pixel”:

Then, name your pixel. Keep in mind that you’re only allowed one pixel per ad account, so make sure you name your pixel something general that relates to your overall business vs. a specific campaign. For example, name your pixel using the following format <Agency Name> Pixel instead of <Campaign Name> Pixel.

When you click “Next,” you have three options for installing your Facebook pixel code:

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For the purposes of this example, choose the second option—manually install the code yourself. You’ll be able to copy and paste the pixel into your site with this option. Manual copy and paste takes you to a new page where you can access your new pixel. The code in Step 2—the base code—is your Facebook pixel code:

[Source]

Install your Facebook pixel on WordPress

There are two ways to install your Facebook pixel on WordPress: manually or with a plug-in.

The manual option:

In WordPress, find the header code to install the pixel code. The code from Step 2 should be between the <head> and the </head> tags. For example: <head> insert pixel code here </head>. Install your Facebook pixel in the header code for every page on your website. This ensures that regardless of where people are on your site, your pixel is tracking their actions.

The location of the header code might differ, depending on how you’ve set up your website and the theme you’re using.

You can generally find your header-code section in your settings:

If you’re having trouble finding your header code, another option is to install a header-code plug-in and then install your Facebook pixel there:

The plug-in option:

There are hundreds of Facebook pixel plug-ins to choose from. Simply find one with a good rating, lots of active installs, and compatibility with the version of WordPress you’re using:

Once you choose which plug-in to use, install and activate it. Once complete, the next step is to enter your Facebook pixel ID and connect it to your Facebook Ads Manager account. The plug-in takes care of the rest of the pixel setup. In this example, we’re using the PixelYourSite plug-in:

To find your Facebook pixel ID, head over to your Facebook Ads Manager account and click on “Pixels” in the drop-down menu. Now that you’ve set up your pixel, the ID is visible on the landing page:

As you can see, your pixel’s event-tracking data is visible within your Ads Manager accounts. However, some plug-ins also let you track events from your WordPress site.

To track events in your plug-in, simply add the events you’d like to track. For example, as a real estate agent, choose events like

• Schedule, for when people schedule appointments on your website;
• Search, for when people search through your property listings;
• Subscribe, for when people join your email list; or
• ViewContent, for when people access your blog pages.

Install your Facebook pixel on website-build platforms

Instead of using WordPress to manage your real estate website, you might choose to use niche building sites like Real Estate Webmasters, Boston Logic, and Reliance Network. The benefits of using sites like these include access to design templates specific to real estate, listing management, IDX search, and more.

Even if your site is managed by a broker, your Facebook pixel can still be added to the site to give you access to tracking data.

Using Boston Logic as an example, once your pixel is set up, all you have to do is insert a few digits from your Facebook pixel code into the pixel platform Boston Logic has created:

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Once the codes are entered on this particular platform, you’ll be able to track one event: Page Views. This is useful because in addition to seeing how traffic to your site changes over time, you can also see which web pages drive the most traffic and which devices visitors are using.

When you analyze this information, you can tailor your ads to target specific people. For example, you might find that your “free quotes” page receives the most traffic from mobile users during the summer months. Run Facebook ads between June and August that display on mobile and promote your quote service. That way, you cater to the needs of your audience during a time when they’re in need of this information.

If you don’t have access to manually install your Facebook pixel, you can choose to email install instructions to a developer during pixel setup. Or you can choose manual setup and then copy and paste the code into a document that you email to your broker or developer.

Test your Facebook pixel

The last step of setup, regardless of how the pixel is added, is to test that your Facebook pixel is working. If you use Chrome, download the Facebook Pixel Helper extension.

If pixel events are active on a site, the icon will be blue, with the number of events highlighted in green:

When you click on the pixel extension, you’ll see which pixel events are active. Here’s Boston Logic’s Facebook pixel event summary:

Once you’re sure your pixel is active and working, you can begin to track events and create ads based on your analysis. Now let’s look at how to use your Facebook pixel to create ads.

How to use your Facebook pixel once it’s installed

Remember, the purpose of installing a Facebook pixel is to create more effective ads. To do this, start by setting up a campaign using your Facebook Ads Manager account.

The first step in creating an ad is to set a campaign objective. Let’s say the pixel event you choose to track is “View Content,” because you want people who view your properties to reach out to you with questions. Choose traffic or lead generation as your campaign objective.

When you set up your audience specs for your ad, click on “Create New” to create a custom audience:

A custom audience lets you target people who’ve already spent time on property-listings pages of your website. When you choose this option, click on “Website Traffic” to use your Facebook pixel to target the right audience:

The next page is where you specify which visitors you want to target in your custom audience:

A look-alike audience lets you target people on Facebook who are similar to people who’ve spent time on the listings pages of your website.

To use this option, you have to create custom audiences and then select which audience you want to compare Facebook users to:

Next, specify which countries and regions you want your look-alike audience to focus on.

The last step is to choose the audience size of your look-alike audience. You can choose between 1% to 10% of the total population of the location you choose who match your custom audience. One percent represents people who closely match your custom audience.

Both of these types of audiences are used to create retargeting ads because they target people who’ve already interacted with your real estate company. These are people you’re most likely to convert, because they already know who you are and what you offer.

By using your Facebook pixel to retarget them, you’re reminding them of the specific value you offer—like specialized services, access to in-demand locations, or a high customer-satisfaction rating—as a way to convert them into clients for your business.

To further improve your chances of converting this audience, use the “Optimization for Ad Delivery” option.

Depending on the campaign objective you choose—we chose lead generation—Facebook will show your ads to the people most likely to follow through on the action you’re looking for.

For example, if you’re looking for people to submit an email address so you can nurture them and add them to your sales funnel, Facebook will show your ads to people most likely to submit an email address. You’ll have to set a bid cap for this strategy, but if you want to target as many people in your custom audience as possible, set the cap as high as you can.

Install your Facebook pixel to grow your business

As you can see, your Facebook pixel is a game changer because it makes it easier for you to find your target audience and create ads that influence their behavior.

It takes time to find what works when you use this retargeting strategy, so experiment with different pixel events and ad objectives. Even experiment with your ad copy, images, and type—for example, single image, carousel, video, and more—until you find the combination that helps you achieve your goals.