Are Pixels Dead?

It’s 2013, and Facebook announces the pixel. Well, two pixels actually. One for helping you to create custom audiences (retargeting pixel) and one for tracking conversions on your website (conversion pixel). This was a game changer for social advertising because now you could provide real proof on the success of your campaigns. 

Then eight years later, all of this came to an end. By now, Apple has required all applications to provide “tracking transparency”. This one question: 

And, when given an option about tracking, most people said “Ask App not to Track”—78% of iOS 15 users opted out. (Morning Brew)

 

The resulting shift has been cataclysmic for the tech industry, costing Facebook, Twitter, Snap, and YouTube $17.8 billion in lost revenue already this year. (Lotame)

The question being - Is there still value in pixels? Here are some ways tracking still works and possible alternatives for conversion tracking.

Ways in which tracking still works:

1. Android

We all have that one friend or colleague who loves their android phone. We all get that “WTF” feeling when that green bubble pops up. But, it’s important to remember that a fair majority of web traffic comes from mobile devices and there are a ton of android users in the US. 

Android accounts for 46% of US mobile phones (statists.com)

But it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. Those with the highest amount of disposable income are on iOS. iPhone and iPad users accounted for 78% of mobile purchases, while Android users accounted for only 22% of purchases on BlackFriday and CyberMonday. (VentureBeat.com)

2. Desktop Users

We all know one family member still logging onto their Yahoo account, searching for things on Bing and logging into their Facebook on their computer running Windows XP . But yes, surprisingly there are still a fraction of users accessing Facebook via desktop computers in 2022. Although the amount of users accessing the site through internet browsers is decreasing, it is still a numbers game that plays in your favor… given there are over 182 million Facebook users in the US alone. 

So enough with the fringe examples, how can we track sales today? 

1. Unique Coupon Codes

I will admit, this isn’t the easiest process, but it is well worth the work for the ability to track. Bulk creating coupon codes and applying these to your campaigns will drastically increase your ability to track success of your campaigns. 

The easy way is to create a bulk set of coupon codes. You can use apps such as https://apps.shopify.com/bulk-discount-generator to create them. Then, upload these codes to a spreadsheet and start delineating them to specific campaigns running on social. (Facebook, Instagram, Snap..etc)

This will allow you to track sales via the coupon code. I typically review these on a bi-weekly basis but depending on your budget you could likely review monthly. 

Downside? This requires you to provide an offer for every campaign. To be honest, this has never been too much of an issue given the most important campaigns to track are typically those with offers. (Ex. New Customer Acquisition Campaigns.)

2. UTM Parameters

May seem a bit old school, but UTM Parameters are still a great way to track who is coming to your site (and via what campaign). But not just campaign, what Platform, Campaign, Ad Set, Creative…etc. If created properly, these unique URLs truly help when trying to determine what campaigns have provided you with the most traffic, leads or conversions. 

There are countless options for creating them, but here is one of the oldest and the best. 

https://ga-dev-tools.web.app/campaign-url-builder/

Creating these unique URLs for each ad within your social campaign will allow you to confirm any results seen within the ads manager of the respective platform. Furthermore, you can run Google Analytics reports or use Shopify’s own reporting system to quickly and easily confirm any data. 

New to UTM? Here is a great guide by HootSuite. 

3. Ghost Products

Finally, the best  way to ensure you are getting results from your social campaign is to duplicate an existing product on your store and keep it off the storefront of your Shopify store. 

Don’t list this product under any categories and simply drive only paid advertising traffic to these pages. This will allow you to confirm that all sales for this product are coming from your campaigns, not from general web traffic. 

Tip: You can power this up by combining ghost products with unique coupon codes. Further this by enabling a coupon code that brings your ghost product to the actual retail price. This will help with unintended purchases.

For example, say you have a variety pack that you want to sell for $15. Create a ghost product of the variety pack and list it for $30 (double the price) and provide a 50% off coupon code. This way, if someone does find your ghost product via search on Shopify, they’re unlikely to purchase it given it is double the price. 

Now go and grow. 

J