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Do you feel like you could have done so much better in 2024? Do you feel like you left so much money on the table? Or maybe your internal team or your agency just wasn't getting it done for you? You were maybe the one that was coming up with all the ideas and then they were doing the implementation. That is not how it's supposed to work. If you're the boss, your internal team or your agency is supposed to direct you and tell you what to do to scale and grow your brand, let me tell you, you are not alone. This is the number one complaint we hear from potential prospect clients who want to work with us potentially. They say their agency or their internal teams have run out of steam and they're the ones who are giving them all the ideas. Well, that's the reason why we put together a very special offer for you for 11 lucky businesses. And quite honestly, ever since we announced this promotion just or four days ago, we've already filled up five of them. We have six of these left. And the reason we're only giving away 11 with 6 left is because my internal team, I have to give them some time off in December and we want to get this done for you before the end of the year. So much so, in fact, my sales team has actually opened up more time to book these calls with you, the business owner, with you, the director of marketing, you, the person that's frustrated with the results that you got in 2024 and you feel like you can do better in the coming year. Well, we are offering 11. Well, now six, because we've already given away five of them. Free business audits for six lucky businesses. And this is not an audit that's done by AI. It is done by actual humans, where they go in and they actually look at your entire business, not just your ad accounts. They look at your tracking, they look at your after the click, they analyze your emails, they analyze all of your ad accounts, everything that you're doing within your business. And we figure out where the holes are. And usually there are plenty of holes and areas of improvement. Yeah, you need an unbiased, unprejudiced viewpoint on how you're going to hit your goals in 2025. And that's what this business audit is for. So if you are interested in being one of the lucky six remaining, there was 11. Now there's six remaining businesses who qualify for this business audit. Head on over to tier11.com2025, fill out the application and we'd love to see how we can help you scale and grow. And oh by the way, you will also get first Mover access to the Tier 11 data suite, which we haven't even launched to the world yet and we'll be doing so in January, so you'll get early access to that. One of the greatest things about the Tier 11 data suite is you know, all those unattributeds, all those unknowns, all those directs inside your Google Analytics, or if you're using Triple Whale or if you're using Hiros, well, this lifts the veil on all of those. Up to 99% of your unattributed and your unknowns in your direct are now going to be known in the knowns that are going into individual channels. Your Google, your meta, your organic, your email. Those are more accurate. That's how great datasuite is. It lifts the veil finally, for data tracking unlike anything we've ever seen, because it uses three martech tools pieced together with an integration that we wrote here at tier 11. And you will get early bird access to that as well. When you fill out the application over at tier11.com forward/2025. Make 2025 the best year yet. Start by planning it right now. Book a call with our team today, fill out the application and let us help you scale smarter, not harder, in the coming year. Hey folks, Ralph here with something that could seriously upgrade your Top of Funnel ad game. If you've been a PT listener for any period of time, you know that we talk about Top of Funnel all the time and how challenging it is for you to get quality Top of Funnel clients or leads or customers and then convert them typically at bottom of Funnel. Well, TV advertising is one of those areas that we haven't discussed here on PT all that much. But our friends over at Ad Critter have figured this stuff out. They do connected TV ads so you can be everywhere without SPE spending millions on super bowl ads. But they pair it with display retargeting so you're hitting the audiences with a complete approach. You reach them, then you remind them and then you collect the revenue. It's a strategy designed to deliver and let me tell you, it really works. We're testing this at tier 11 and so far the results have been very impressive. Now with AdCritter, creating custom audiences are so easy. You don't need to reformat files, you don't need to mess around with complex spreadsheets. You just upload any file in any format and you're ready to go. And the match Rate is awesome. They make it easy to connect with the right people, the actual people that have interacted with your ads in the past and then allow them to naturally flow through your funnel so you can convert them at bottom of funnel. Now the folks at Adcrator, we twisted their arm to get us a great deal for you, the PT listener. They are offering a special deal for y'all and that is you can get a $500 campaign credit, meaning $500 in free money to test out the plaque platform or dollar for dollar matching on any TV campaign. Up to five grand. Imagine the impact of that match. Spend five grand, they'll add another five grand in display. That's a huge opportunity here. Now it's only offered to you, the PT listener. Head over to AdCritter.com PT and check it out.
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You're listening to Perpetual Traffic.
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Hello and welcome to the Perpetual Traffic Podcast. This is your host, Ralph burns. I'm the CEO and founder of Tier 11 alongside my awesome co hosts, Lauren.
B
E. True, founder of Mongoose Media.
A
Yeah, we're so glad you joined us here today. Today's down and dirty episode. Lauren, no rapparte, no witty back and forth to start things off. We're just going to get right into it because in the last episode we keyed in on a question that I think we have not touched on probably 200 episodes. I remember when this first came up. Standard events, custom conversions, how to use the Facebook pixel on your website in order to really optimize your traffic and get out of that muck of mediocrity by doing what everybody else does. And we haven't done this in a while. And heads up, tier 11 team and Mongoose Media team and every other agency and E commerce platform on, well, on the planet.
B
It's not E Commerce, it's Infopreneurs. It's anyone who's got a website. I would say especially if you're not E commerce, you have to be listening to this episode.
A
Yeah, especially because the reason I said E commerce is that we were just talking with Shopify and Shopify does this automatically. So it's like you don't even have.
B
To think most of the time.
A
Most. Well, it's pretty good.
B
Some standard events. Yes.
A
All right, so having said that, let's go through. So if people think, okay, I've got Shopify, I don't have to listen to this episode, but if I'm an info product company, if I'm a service based company, chances are you're probably not doing this Right is my guess. And we even did an audit of some of our sites, some parts of our site, some of our landing pages, and I found that we had made mistakes. So anyway, we're imperfect.
B
We're imperfect.
A
Yes. Still, we're capturing information. We actually do have a Facebook pixel on there. This is primarily having to do with Meta and the metapixel. So three, four years ago, remember when there was this big hubbub about the Facebook pixel being deprecated and then everyone had to migrate over to standard events and custom conversions? So maybe you can take us down the road of past history, set the stage, what changed and then also what you do now in order to really optimize your traffic as much as you possibly can using standard events and custom conversions, for that matter.
B
Okay, going down the history. Oh, I have appeared.
A
Remember back when Power Editor was around? You were probably still in junior high school, actually.
B
Wait, Power Editor for meta?
A
Yeah, it was Power Editor. It was actually. It was like this thing you had to download and then that's how you managed all your ads. Oh, my God, you're, like, so young. It's crazy. So, all right, well, that was a long time ago.
B
I was watching on YouTube.
A
That was like, 2014, 2015, so.
B
Oh, yeah, no, I was. That was pretty.
A
That was pretty. You. It's like you were like, junior in high school, right? No.
B
Anyway, yeah, if you're looking at YouTube, you see the wrinkles near my eye and you're like, that is not true.
A
No, no. The point is, let's get right down to it here. We don't have to give the entire history of the Facebook pixel, but the point is, it's evolved over time. And my guess is that a lot of our listeners maybe aren't optimizing it the right way. This is on site. Keep in mind, this is going to be blocked a lot of times by ad blockers. It's going to be blocked by the ATT prompts. But still, like, you need to be able to capture the pixel. You need to be able to capture this information in order to be able to send the algorithm the right information to get the best results from your ads. So what say you, Lauren?
B
Get into it. Get into it in terms of history. Like, yes, there's always been time when we had the iOS apocalypse and you had that, like, you couldn't see a lot of stuff. This, like, data drought, if you will, that's coming out Meta's cookie. And what. This is true for every. Every platform, Pinterest and TikTok. And snap, all of them have some sort of pixel they're able to put on your website to send data back into your ads platform. Even if you're not running ads, you should still put it on there because if eventually you do, you'll be able to get signals on important events that are happening. Because if you are running a website, even if you're not running ads on that platform, there's like 16 different pixels you can put on a website for all the different networks you'll be able to empower and see that pixel now, even when you're not running traffic on that network. But anyways, with that, there's server side data, there's website data, there's CRM data. Meta specifically, what this episode is about is just things that Ralph, you and I have talked about that people don't optimize their website for. And the thing is, the algorithms that are behind so many of the ad networks are more and more sophisticated every single day, but you can't optimize for data you don't provide. And so what I wanted to do with you on today's episode is like, I've got this. The reference, the metapixel, like this is directly from Meta. What are the standard events? And go through the standard events so that if you are listening to this, you can ask this of your media buyers, of your dev team to just make sure that you're leveraging the standard events set by Meta or insert any other ad network appropriately. Because with billions of visitors all the time, Meta has so much data that it's accumulating. So they set up standard events, as in the name standardization of really important events to pollinate, like across pollination of info to the Facebook user so that they can be more accurate in predicting future behavior both with your website and all the other advertisers within the meta ecosystem. Now, this is not the episode we're going to be talking about like HIPAA compliant information or ensuring that you don't have PII personal identify full information being passed through. This is just going to go through literally the meta page. So if you're not watching on YouTube, we will do our best to describe what we're showing and we'll have the link to this direct URL in the description as well. But we're just going to go line by line and just talk about how like just adding a pixel is not enough.
A
So. Got it. Who does that? I don't know. I don't know who does it. The bad guys do that. ISIS does that. Yeah. That's who does it. Al Qaeda. They do it.
B
What's the name of the Downton Abbey dog? Did you know that? Did you watch that show?
A
No, I started but then the British accents are just too much for me. Although I love all my British friends. So let's take a step back here. Define standard event versus custom conversion, also known as a custom event. A lot of people say it's custom event, so just maybe give a broad overview of what that is. We'll obviously leave links in the show notes here. And for those of you who are like, oh my God, they're going through standard events versus custom conversions, well, pay attention because I'll guarantee you're going to pick up something here that you didn't know or you probably forgot. So anyway, go ahead Lauren, if you.
B
Don'T like, who are you, you unicorn? I have never found an ad account I've ever, ever audited.
A
That's perfect.
B
That didn't use these credit.
A
Yeah right. So true.
B
So just being honest. Okay, so custom conversions. So these are things if you're in the events tool within meta, custom conversions are a way that you can go outside of the standard event. So if you have pages you want to track by URL, if you're creating different events that go outside of this like 16 or however many standard items there are, custom conversions are amazing. Custom conversions are also a great thing that you can opt is for when standard events don't make sense. The benefit of the standard event is you don't have to tell meta anything about adding to cart, about initiating checkout, about start trial, about submitting application, about lead, about wishlist, about search, all these different pieces that these are standard behaviors that indicate a higher quality of who that user is to your website and their interest in your product or service. So custom conversions are great if you have like a really long funnel and maybe you got lots of upsell pages and you want to see how many people are making it to very specific pages. Custom conversions can also be great if you are leveraging Google Tag Manager and you're bringing in advanced sophisticated tracking where like they're not going to cover in this episode but oh my gosh Ralph, we should in a later if you're doing any like VSLs or webinars or if you're sending traffic to a blog, there are really important custom conversions that you can make that can significantly change the way you're driving traffic. Especially for your top of funnel folks such that you're seeing like paid time on page, how much of the page was consumed. Time on page is critical. If you've got a video that someone needs to watch before they can access an important page, you want to be able to track that custom conversion, not just necessarily for something you can optimize for. Yes, it's a great thing to optimize for, but you also have to use it as a validation technique when you're looking at your ads performance. Like these are in ad custom conversions that you can create to see like okay, if I'm sending 25,000 people to this landing page, to which 13,000 people are actually loading the landing page view like they're loading the pixel. Okay, you know your website's slow af, so you get to see right away then from the 13,000, maybe 8,000 of them convert. So now you can see what your conversion rate is on that landing page. Just looking specifically and only at those standard events because then you have a lead. You'll have view content, page view to lead and page view. And then if you have a video that's like a 5 to 15 minute video on that thank you page that will hide or later reveal a call to action like a schedule, an appointment. If you're not tracking how much video consumption is being done, how long people are on that page, you might just be optimizing for anyone that gets to the page. But if you're not optimizing correctly, not everyone who gets to the page is as important. Someone who watches 5 minutes or 10 minutes of your video is definitely more interested in what you have to say than someone who got to the page and did so custom conversions, when you're leveraging things like Google Tag Manager and outside additional resources to give you insight on your campaign performance are amazing for the chance to have greater visibility in how your campaign is doing outside of meta, like what happens after the click and then custom conversions are a good workaround for when you want to optimize for something that is not in the standard events that we'll go over in.
A
A second and there's about 16 or 17 standard events. I think they've added a couple here. But I mean it really is. It's not necessarily about. We used to look at these mostly as where do we create our specific custom audiences for retargeting? It's less for that now because that's a foggy line right now, but it's more for optimus of an event. As to what are your most high value pages that you want Facebook or meta specifically to understand are more high value. So page view versus View content view Content versus add to cart or maybe view content versus lead or versus registration. Like, there's a hierarchy of events which are already embedded in standard events. And I think those alone, for the majority of businesses, you can just stick with those. You don't have to go crazy and create these custom conversions or custom events. No, you know, we have lots of them here, but, like, well, now you're limited.
B
If we go back to the history, you used to have unlimited, now I think it's like a maximum of 150 or 250 custom. Oh, actually, I think it's 100. I just remember, like being capped out.
A
And it's like, oh, yeah, that's right.
B
No turn off older custom conversions. So look, I'm not that. I mean, I'm young.
A
I'm not a power editor, though, so I got that on you. Anyway, all right, so maybe we just do the screen share here and just kind of go through them and just explain step by step here. And I'm going to be honest, this is not. I hate what I said. This is not the most exciting episode, but it is exciting because you're explaining it. Lauren, I. Petrillo, the point is that what's exciting is the results that you get when you do this right. And whenever we do an audit, we never see this done right. I don't think I've ever seen. Never have seen it done right.
B
It's so frustrating. Like, fine, call this boring. I don't care. But I'm just going to tell you, if you don't care about how you're properly optimizing for, you're throwing money away. You're being a dumb, dumb idiot.
A
And that's not boring.
B
Don't mean to be rude, but, like, what are you doing? Like, why are you allowed. So again, when you're optimizing. Oh, I loved your muck of mediocrity. That was good.
A
I'm probably muck of mediocrity. I like your data drought, by the way. Data drought. I'm stealing that one. All right.
B
Steal that one. Also your muck of mediocrity. Anyone else in the telegram group that has great alliterations to throw in there, please. We'll make a perpetual traffic glossary of terms.
A
Oh, yeah, I'm full of them. I'm full of it. All right, so let's screen share here. That's it. Period, Period. Full stop. Aslam lives. All right, so beginning from the start, I'm looking at all the custom events, the standard events here, and pageview actually isn't Even one of them.
B
Do you want to share your screen?
A
Do you want me to share the screen?
B
I can share my screen or you can share yours.
A
Make sure that you go over to the perpetual traffic YouTube channel so you can see us doing this in real time. We'll also leave links in the show notes, obviously. Let's go through the standard events one by one here.
B
Cool. So at the top, if we were looking on YouTube, you're going to listen to us explain it more. But for those not like the website action description and standard event code. So what's really important in column three is the standard event code. What do I add? When you have your meta pixel or any pixel for any platform, you have a base code, you push the website. What we are showing here is in the standard event code column is that extra line of code you need to add on the pages that are relevant. So the first one we've got is add payment info. And the description here says adding customer payment information during a checkout process. For example, clicking on a button to save billing information. If you're using a tool like a Shopify or Magento or a sophisticated E commerce tool, as Ralph said earlier, a lot of this is going to be native to that solution provider. So you'll have add payment info as a standard event because they've built it inside of their economy of tools underneath it. Similarly though, we have add to cart, which is adding an item to a shopping cart or basket, for example, clicking on an add to cart weapon Add to cart button on a website. All right, so every standard event code is always going to start with FBQ parentheses with a backtick, as Ralph has so properly informed me, with track comma and then a back tick between the standard event code, it's literally one line and always starts the same. And if you're just using the standard event website action, which is what you're seeing in this Business Help center page that we've got shared, that's it. Once we go through this, I'm going to show you the developer side where we can take it to an even more extreme level. But what we have is add payment info add to cart. These two again are very common in E commerce, already set up. But if you are an info product or if you are not using a Magento, a Shopify or potentially even WooCommerce, you need to add these into places. Like if you're using ThriveCart, like you need to make sure that these standard events are getting applied. Because adding payment info and adding to cart are Two very different actions because you can add to cart without providing any type of billing information. But if someone's made it to add payment info, they are significantly more likely to make that purchase than add to cart. So that's why having this differentiation continues to provide qualitative data back into your algorithm.
A
Now, in a lot of cases, if you're lower volume, if you are, I mean, if you're not running a whole lot of traffic, some of this is you're splitting hairs a bit. But I find that with larger volume it's good to separate it out no matter what because I always plan for getting big. Like if you're running $100 a day in traffic, is this going to make that much of a difference? I mean, it might, yes.
B
I will argue because your delta grows. If you're saying that all add to carts are the same. When you know that someone's going to add to cart and they're like, woo, you don't ship to my country, you're going to keep optimizing for people that aren't going to add payment info.
A
What I'm saying is that if you're difference is massive. What I'm saying is that if you're running a very low level of traffic, this might not make as much of a difference. But you should plan for it now that when you are running thousands of dollars a day or even multiple hundred dollars a day, this does make difference because these are really two distinct individuals. Like I have a ton of stuff that's sitting in cart right now waiting for Black Friday. I'm one of those people, you know, But I haven't added payment info. So I'm not really a buyer yet. So it's like these are very important distinctions here. Now add to Wishlist. This is one I haven't used all that. I gotta be honest, I haven't used all that much. Have you used it and in what way have you used it?
B
I've used it for e commerce brands because when we've used an E Commerce Wishlist app because Shopify doesn't have a native Wishlist feature. And what's annoying is some of the apps that I've really liked before have deprecated so they don't provide that service anymore. But what you've essentially done is you're using your cart as your wishlist.
A
Yeah.
B
In the example you just provided.
A
True.
B
Add to wishlist. Again, not all of these are going to apply. You can say you're splitting here. I argue that that's bad. I don't Agree with that. Because standard means you have to just set it up once. And unless you have a new product offering every single week, you should just do this. It's standard, it's foundational. It's like wanting to use toilet paper or a bidet. You just have to clean up after yourself. And if you're not, you're just having stinky underwear.
A
Amen. All right, so complete registration. This is a little bit different. This is what we should be using. If you're in the info space or the digital product space, this should be something that you should know quite a bit. So let's get into this one.
B
This one says submitting information in exchange for a service provided for your business. For example, signing up for an email subscription. So this one can get like, I'm not saying I'm the world's leading authority on this, I'm just sharing how we use it. Complete registration, I have found to be really good when we have. Because there's other ones with application stuff, but people will use it for webinar registration as opposed to just a lead. So some people will be like, do I use complete registration? Do you use lead? At that point, I'll say you're potentially splitting hairs. The fact of the matter is that if there is a difference for you, then let's establish it. But 100%, if you're in the info space, complete registration, when you are asking someone to register for something. So this is information in exchange of info for a service you're providing. Like that might be getting a quote page or getting access to rate cards. You can make that decision. But there is still a standard event for complete registration. There's gonna be definitely a lot of people on here that are like, hey, yeah, we do have a registration type of item. Like this is for example, signing up for an email subscription. But again, that could be lead. Not splitting hairs on this one, but the next one. Every website has a contact us page. And so we have the contact standard event or a contact between a customer and your business through phone, sms, email, chat or other means. We use this with our AI chatbots. If you're collecting information like and there's a conversation, we do the contact. Because then this is showing two ways conversation. What's interesting about this is between phone, sms, email, chat or other means. This is specifically only website pixel. There are five different types of pixels within the meta ecosystem. Offline conversions, website, CRM, messenger, like there's a lot. We're specifically talking about the website ones. But when you start to see them in overlap and intersect. Because I think the other one is like app pixel. This contact information can again signal someone that's having a two way conversation. So if you minimum you have a contact page, oh my gosh. If they submit that, please just use the contact standard event.
A
100% small differentiations. We are like, yeah, we might be splitting hairs here, but I think it's actually important to set it up the right way. And if you're listening to this and you're like, yeah, I just use just page view and lead for everything. Like you're using, you're using just such a small portion of the intelligence that's gathered through these events here. And we haven't even gotten into custom convergence yet. So our. Right, so customized product. Take me through that one.
B
So this one, in full disclosure, I don't actually use this one. So this is configuring with a tool or other application owned by your business. So this is if you're like doing like Etsy level stuff. So that's not any of the clients that we have necessarily worked with where we've gone into this one. But there is, if you do customize products, there's one donation. Like if you're donating funds to your organization across every single nonprofit I have ever audited, never uses the donate one. You have to identify someone who's a donor versus someone who is in need of your fundraising services or someone who works for you. Like this just. Oh, boggles my mind. You individuals need to listen to this or send this to yours. If you know anyone with a nonprofit, the standard event for donate signals that they care enough to give money. This is not a purchase. I see purchase all the time on donate thank you pages, but they didn't buy anything. It's a different behavior. This find location really good. If you have a brick and mortar and you have a website that talks about different locations on your website, that's huge. If someone's looking at your locations again, they are so much, so much more interested in what you have to sell or provide because they're looking at how they can get to you versus just having a standard. Like if you're just using page view and they're on your terms and conditions, page versus find location. They're very different behaviors of different steps in your customer value journey.
A
Makes sense. Initiate checkout. This is one a lot of people don't use. They just forget about it and then they use add to cart. This is usually embedded on the button itself, correct? Yeah.
B
And you can use this. You should have like an abandoned checkout and abandoned cart flow. Like there's three types of flows that you can do in your email automations. So initiating checkout is an easy one that most E commerce people will have and is sometimes useful for those in the info space because they might have a long exaggerated. All right, this next one is the one that everyone's familiar with. It's lead submission of information by customer with the understanding that they may be contacted at a later date for your business. For example submitting a form or signing up for trial. This is where we're going to get splitting hairs. If you have a sales team and they're going to contact that person, in theory you're generating leads that are going to be contacted by a salesperson versus a complete registration which we had seen earlier is just getting them onto an email list. They've registered for your email. But a lead is like a sales qualified lead, a marketing qualified lead. Like if we were to similar to the most recent episode Ralph, we talked about marketing qualified lead versus sales qualified lead, a sales qualified lead, you would put a lead because they have provided more information where they would possibly be contacted versus just complete registration which is like the email list for example.
A
Makes sense. This one's probably overused is my guess in a lot of ways as is this one right here which is the good old purchase I would say it's.
B
Not just not necessarily overused, it's underutilized in the sense of people aren't attributing currency and value to the purchase. So you're able to add additional objects into your. I mean this is getting at like a more sophisticated level. You can add object properties where you're able to tell them what the currency is. So like and then there's like USD GBP for Great Great Britain pound predicted lifetime value, specific product IDs. Like that information is available to enhance the purchase information. Because if you have a large SKU site and you have a product that's 500 and a product that's $5, there's a big difference in who that buyer.
A
Is and of course purchase conversion value. It's just a whole other thing here is derived through this obviously important if it's set up the correct way schedule. Okay, this is one I think a lot of people miss here.
B
No one uses this is a booking appointment to visit for like one of your locations or I use if they've gotten on your calendar. Some people will say like oh they're a lead because they're on my calendar but they book time to talk to you. Which means their schedule versus they're a lead if you're eventually going to book time to talk to them. That's how I'm going to look at it in that way.
A
Absolutely. Emma. We definitely use that one here. Search a search performed on your website, app or other property, for example, travel searches. I can't. Yeah, I mean I've seen this used. Where do you use it?
B
We use it in the search box. Yeah, we just have anyone that's interacting with that search box, they hit the button for search, they get that added feature. Because if someone fails to find what they're looking for, they'll fail to be found a customer of yours. So that's where it's like again, someone who's searching like is looking for a solution that based off of how you do it can send greater signals to what your sales team needs to be looking at and all that.
A
So we are tracking behaviors here at the end of the day. And if you think like everyone who comes to your site has the same behavior, you are very wrong.
B
Yeah. Not all visitors are created equal. So we're just going to fly through the last few. We've got start trial, which is the start of a free trial. A lot of people will do like a free sample, like a week trial, 14 week trial. Just look importantly here, predicted lifetime value people, if you do start trial, great. But you can enhance it by saying, hey, if I know. And this is why if you don't know your numbers, you have no numbers to know. Like, you have to know like why you're providing someone a free trial. And having that predicted lifetime value again enhances the weight because you might have a 14 day trial or a different type of trial. And again it signals different hierarchy of who that visitor is.
A
That's revenue and waiting in essence. So kind of important to track that submit application. Talk to me about this one.
B
So this one some people will mix with complete registration. Again, not the world's leading authority. But like this is submission of an application for a product, service or program you offer, for example a credit card, educational program or job. So again this is where you have to determine are they registering for something. Like I like to do for webinars. Are they submitting an application? Are they applying to see if like a lot of agencies will have apply to work with us. And there are questions on there that are more than scheduling an appointment, that are more than just a lead. Like they're applying to see if they're a good fit.
A
Absolutely.
B
So this can be I'm not going to split hairs on those pieces. They get used interchangeably. But the way I would look at it is at the basis are they registering for something, Are they an actual lead that your team will work, or are they applying for something? The use case of credit card, educational program or job?
A
This one's pretty important, I would say. This is one that we've used for years and years. All right, subscribe.
B
No one uses, no one uses the start of a paid subscription for a product or service you offer.
A
Rarely.
B
No one uses.
A
Rarely, if ever. I don't think I've ever seen this on any audit anywhere.
B
If you have a what a supplement business and your business is based off of a subscription model. If you're using recharge or anything like that. Here again you have predicted lifetime value. If you have an info product and you have average subscriber is with you for six months and you're paying 9.99 or $149 a month, you need to incorporate that predictive lifetime value because what will then happen later is if that person exceeds that, then you get to have again more information that your algorithm can find. People that have a higher propensity to invest more with you.
A
Exactly. And last but not least, last but not least, our friend View content. Everybody knows this on E Commerce.
B
Everyone that like. No, you say everyone knows on E Commerce. No, I think it's even more important.
A
I shouldn't say everyone knows, but I would say in E commerce people understand what this is. I don't think people understand in every other space. So how would you describe this one? I look at this as like high value.
B
Any page. Yeah. A visit to a web page you care about, for example, a product or landing page. View content tells if someone visits a page, but not what they see on that page. But you have an important page. This should be on your about us page. This should be on your landing pages. This should be on your upsell. Pages that don't have an issue like these are important pages that have more value than your privacy policy. How about blog posts and your terms and conditions?
A
I always sort of go back and forth on this.
B
I don't. Unless it's a pillar blog that is generating sales for you. View content should go on something as a page. Are you optimizing for that blog then? I would recommend that you do a custom conversion with scroll depth or time on page.
A
Yeah, we do a lot of view content for blog posts just for clients. We optimize for view content specifically just because it's an intermediate event because the next logical step is like there's lots of calls to action anyway. The point is you can figure out what your hierarchy is here. It's going to depend on your business individually. But take this for what it says. What is your higher value Pages that don't necessarily equate to a specific action like an opt in or registration or even add to cart. Initiate checkout. If you're on the e commerce side, this is a page that actually has high value. So for some of our high value blog post pages, like really chunky, funky stuff like pillar content, we'll put view content on there as opposed to page view. And plus it differentiates like if you only have a certain amount of blog posts that are view content, that you're sending that to those pages and then when they go to the page view pages or the homepage, whatever it is, or other less valued page, then you can differentiate those audiences and tell the algorithm exactly who you're looking for. So anything to add as we close here? Because we could get into custom conversions but we can't in today's show. We will in a future show. Out of all this stuff here, what's the big takeaway? Just use it. Just do it.
B
Oh my gosh. Just settle up once. Know what you want to optimize for. You're going to get what you ask for and if you don't provide it, you're not asking the right questions of your algorithm to optimize for your success.
A
So no more mucky middle. No more what did I say before?
B
The muck of mediocrity.
A
See, I can't even remember the things I said. The no more muck of mediocrity. And you're going to get you out of the data drought. We're going to talk about the data drought later and how you can get data typhoon data hurricane. Anyway, hopefully you enjoyed today's show. Definitely. Check it out over on perpetualtraffic.com YouTube. This is the most exciting show I think we've ever done. I'm just going to say that right now. I said it was kind of boring before, but look at this. They even have on this, on this page, they have a typo on the meta page. How about that? Look at that. Below is a list of standard events. Saw that originally. All right, well, meta, we'll submit a help ticket for you. Good support. So we'll make sure that we leave all these links in the show notes here. Like I said, check us out over on our YouTube channel. It's growing like a weed. And on behalf of my awesome co host, Lauren E. Petrulo for this week's show. Till next show, see ya.
B
You've been listening to Perpetual Traffic.
Perpetual Traffic Episode Summary: "Fix These 17 Biggest Mistakes You Are Making Right Now With Your Meta Ads"
Release Date: November 29, 2024
In this episode of Perpetual Traffic, hosts Ralph Burns and Lauren Petrullo delve deep into the common pitfalls businesses encounter when managing their Meta (formerly Facebook) Ads. By dissecting the intricacies of Meta Pixel implementation, standard events, and custom conversions, they provide actionable insights to optimize ad performance and maximize ROI.
Ralph and Lauren begin by tracing the history of the Meta Pixel, highlighting its transformation from the early days of Power Editor to its current sophisticated state. They emphasize the critical role of the Meta Pixel in capturing user behavior data, which is essential for fine-tuning ad strategies.
Ralph [08:13]: "If you're not optimizing it the right way, you're stuck in the muck of mediocrity."
Lauren [09:29]: "The algorithms behind ad networks are getting more sophisticated every day, but you can't optimize for data you don't provide."
The hosts acknowledge the challenges posed by ad blockers and Apple's App Tracking Transparency (ATT) prompts, which can hinder data collection. Despite these obstacles, they stress the necessity of implementing the Meta Pixel correctly to ensure that the ad algorithms receive accurate user behavior signals.
A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to distinguishing between Standard Events and Custom Conversions within the Meta Pixel framework. Ralph explains that while Standard Events cover common user interactions (like Add to Cart, Purchase, Complete Registration), Custom Conversions allow businesses to track more nuanced actions tailored to their specific needs.
Ralph [12:07]: "Standard events are foundational. It's like using toilet paper—you just have to do it right to avoid stinky underwear."
Lauren [16:06]: "Custom conversions are a great workaround when you want to optimize for something that isn't covered in the standard events."
They highlight that many businesses default to tracking generic events like Page Views and Leads, thereby missing out on capturing more granular data that could significantly enhance ad targeting and optimization.
Ralph and Lauren identify several prevalent mistakes businesses make when setting up their Meta Ads, primarily revolving around improper use of the Meta Pixel and event tracking.
Lauren [25:41]: "If you're just using Page View and Lead for everything, you're only using a small portion of the intelligence gathered through these events."
Many businesses fail to differentiate between various user actions, leading to a one-size-fits-all approach that doesn't leverage the full potential of the Meta Pixel.
Ralph [28:58]: "You're underutilizing purchase conversion values by not attributing currency and value to the purchase."
By not assigning specific values to purchases (like currency type and product IDs), businesses miss out on deeper insights into customer behavior and purchase patterns.
Lauren [29:48]: "If you're not tracking how much video consumption is being done, you might just be optimizing for anyone that gets to the page."
Important actions such as scheduling appointments, watching videos, or interacting with key content areas are often overlooked, resulting in missed opportunities for engagement and conversion.
To rectify these mistakes, Ralph and Lauren offer a set of best practices aimed at enhancing Meta Ads performance through meticulous tracking and data utilization.
Ensure that all relevant standard events are accurately integrated into your website. This involves adding specific lines of code to track actions like Add to Cart, Initiate Checkout, and Complete Registration.
Ralph [21:24]: "Separating these events continues to provide qualitative data back into your algorithm."
For businesses with unique funnels or specialized tracking needs, custom conversions are invaluable. They allow for deeper analysis and more precise targeting based on specific user interactions that standard events may not cover.
Lauren [26:12]: "Custom conversions can significantly change the way you're driving traffic, especially for your top of funnel folks."
Incorporating tools like Google Tag Manager can streamline the tracking process, making it easier to manage and analyze custom events. Additionally, integrating server-side data and CRM data can provide a holistic view of customer interactions beyond website activity.
Ralph and Lauren emphasize the importance of strategic planning when implementing Meta Ads tracking. They advise businesses to consider their long-term growth and scalability, ensuring that their tracking setup can handle increasing volumes of traffic and data.
Lauren [35:35]: "Just set it up once. Know what you want to optimize for, and you'll get what you ask for."
By meticulously setting up both standard events and custom conversions from the outset, businesses can avoid data droughts and build a robust foundation for ongoing optimization and success.
Proper Implementation is Crucial: Correctly setting up the Meta Pixel and differentiating between standard events and custom conversions is foundational to effective ad optimization.
Granular Tracking Enhances Targeting: Moving beyond generic events to track specific user actions provides deeper insights and enhances the precision of ad targeting.
Strategic Planning Pays Off: Investing time and resources into a well-thought-out tracking strategy can lead to significant improvements in ad performance and ROI.
In wrapping up, Ralph and Lauren reiterate the importance of moving beyond mediocre tracking practices. By eliminating the "muck of mediocrity" and addressing the identified mistakes, businesses can transform their Meta Ads strategies, leading to better performance and increased profitability.
Lauren [35:46]: "No more muck of mediocrity. We're going to help you move out of the data drought and into a data hurricane."
Listeners are encouraged to apply the insights shared in this episode to refine their Meta Ads strategies, ensuring they are well-equipped to maximize their advertising efforts in the competitive digital landscape.
For a more in-depth exploration of these topics, including visual demonstrations, tune into the episode available on the Perpetual Traffic YouTube channel.