Meta pixel: Custom Conversions for web

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With Meta Custom Conversions you can track conversions more granularly than just the Facebook standard events (View Content, Add To Cart etc), as well as optimize your bids towards those conversions.

In practice, this means combining standard Pixel events (such as ViewContent, AddToCart or Purchase) with rules based on URL and referring domain to create new, trackable conversions. For example, you can create a separate conversion metric for a certain product category (if visible in the URL), or for users visiting your website from another website (referring domain).

Examples:

  • "Careers page views" could include all URL traffic where URL contains "/careers"
  • "Shoe views" could include "View Content" pixel events, but only when product_type contains "shoe".
  • "Big purchases" could include "Purchase" events, but only when event parameter value is greater than 100
  • "Visitors from Google" could be all URL traffic where referring domain contains "google.com"

Smartly shows Custom Conversions in the column selector like this:

Custom Conversion: <user defined name>

Create Meta pixel Custom Conversions for Web

Go to the Meta Events Manager to set up Custom Conversions. These are automatically synced to Smartly with a few hours' delay.

Remember to assign them to the ad account, as well.

See also Meta's own help article: About Custom Conversions for Web.

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Limitations

The maximum number of Custom Conversions per ad account is 100. You can share Custom Conversions across accounts in Business Manager Settings.

To use custom conversions in Smartly, first set them up in Meta Ads Manager. Once they're set in Ads Manager, return to Smartly, go to campaign creation/editing, set objective to Conversions and then choose the Custom Conversion from the conversions list under bidding. In Catalog Sales campaigns (Dynamic Ads), it's unfortunately not possible to use Custom Conversions as bidding goals.

Archived custom conversions

Meta automatically archives Custom Conversions if they're inactive or Meta doesn't receive any events for 2 years. Smartly marks these columns by adding "(ARCHIVED)" after the name.

To reinstate a custom conversion that was automatically archived, create a new custom conversion with the same rules. Read more here.

Related: Custom Events

Custom events – not to be confused with custom conversions discussed above – are custom Pixel events whose name is not among the standard Pixel event names like Purchases and Add to Cart. Custom events are created in the pixel code itself: if the pixel sends an event name outside of the list of standard events, a new Custom Event is created automatically. Existing custom events are listed in Smartly Account Settings > Pixels under Meta Pixel Events.

Custom events cannot be used directly in optimization and reporting. However, you can create a Custom Conversion based on the custom event, like shown above. The custom conversion can then be used as a bidding goal.

See also Meta's instructions for custom events.