One of the most puzzling questions we get from customers who run Facebook Ads and want to analyze their website traffic, is why there's discrepancies between Facebook Ad clicks and Facebook Pixel fires aka website visits. Show
This is where Landing Page views come in, since they're the closest metric you can use in Facebook Ads Manager reporting to track your website visitorsโ. In many cases, we've heard (and experienced first-hand) up to a 50% drop-off between Facebook Ad clicks and Landing Page Views ๐. So what causes this discrepancy? And how can you optimize your ads for more website visitors? We'll break things down into 4 parts, so you have everything you need to know about Clicks vs. Landing Page Views:
Facebook Landing Page views vs Link Clicks
1. Clicks (All): This is
the total number of clicks on your ads. Seems simple by definition, however, the main callout is that it also counts any actions on the ad itself, including:
2. Link Clicks: This is the total number of clicks on links within the ad that led to destinations on or off Facebook (websites, Facebook lead forms, videos on YouTube, etc.). If you include Instagram as a placement, for "ads promoting Instagram profile views, link
clicks include clicks on the ad header or comments that led to the advertiser's profile." ๐ช Pro tip: Link Clicks filter out some of the noise so you get a closer metric on clicks leading to your website, but again it won't be accurate since it still includes clicks to Facebook destinations. 3. Outbound Clicks: These are the total number of clicks that lead people off of Facebook to your website or app. Facebook mentions that "while some
traffic might drop off between an outbound click and a webpage view, outbound clicks give you a closer approximation of the traffic intended for your website or app." ๐ช Pro tip: Between the 3 click metrics, Outbound Clicks is the closest one for gauging traffic to your site, but it's still inaccurate as it doesn't capture landing page loads. So this of course brings us to Landing Page Views โก. From
Facebook: "Landing page views let you know how many times people loaded your website, after clicking your ad. You can compare landing page views to link clicks to understand how many people clicked on your ad but left before your website loaded. To report on landing page views, you must have created a Facebook pixel." The most important takeaway, is that of all the metrics above, Landing Page Views is the only one that counts when a user loads a webpage after clicking an ad, since the pixel fires any of these events: PageView, PixelInitialized or ViewContent (PageView and PixelInitialized are automatically captured by the Facebook Pixel). So for truly monitoring how effective your ads are at driving people to your website, use Landing Page Views ๐. What causes discrepancies between Facebook Ad clicks and landing page views
๐ช Pro tip: If you're running link retargeting campaigns using PixelMe, read this FAQ on why the number of clicks in your PixelMe analytics may appear differently than in your ads
platform. How to create custom Facebook Ads reports with Landing Page Views
This gives you a view of which devices, platforms, and placements people are clicking and landing on your
website from, and helps you understand if there's certain paths with a greater drop-off that you need to optimize. Steps to create a report with custom columnsโ
๐ช Pro-tip: You can repeat this step to include "Link Clicks" and โOutbound Clicksโ and arrange your columns on the far right by simply clicking and moving them up or down. Or, remove any by clicking on the 'x'.
Now you have a new report that includes columns for Link Clicks, Outbound Clicks, Landing Page Views, all the different Facebook placements (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network) and devices people are using (Android, iPhone, Desktop, iPad, etc.). Tools to optimize your Facebook Ad analytics
To help you keep improving your Facebook Ads reporting and increasing traffic, we'll close off with our top 4 tools ๐ฏ. 1. Landing Page Views Optimization
This will tell Facebook to show your ads to people likely to click through and view your landing page, and should increase the quality of your audience.
2. Facebook Pixel Helper
For every Pixel event you're tracking (e.g. purchase, complete registration, signup), it'll show each event along with details, such as warnings, errors, and successes. ๐ช Pro tip: Facebook for Developers has a great Pixel Helper guide with troubleshooting tips. 3. GTmetrix Website Speed Test
GTmetrix is completely free and lets you enter in any URL, then shows your average page load time, page size, and a list of specific recommendations on
how to optimize the page. 4. Smart Attribution
Want
to track your Facebook Ads ROI? Sign up for a free 7-day PixelMe trial ๐. Or send us a message from the chat icon in the bottom right-hand corner! ๐ฌ To get more marketing tips like in your inbox, subscribe to our PixelMe newsletter Are landing page views better than link clicks?"Landing page views will let you know how many times people loaded your website after clicking your ad [whereas link clicks won't]." Landing page views are a far superior metric compared to link clicks because of the depth of information that it can reveal about the success of your ads.
What counts as a landing page view on Facebook?A landing page view is when a person clicks on your ad link and then successfully loads at least some of your ad's destination URL or Instant Experience. In this context, โlanding pageโ refers to the destination URL or Instant Experience you choose during ad creation.
What is the difference between views and clicks?Clicks represent the number of visitors coming to the destination page, through your tracking links. Views (or visits) represents the number of people that have visited the webpage in which a tracking pixel is embedded.
What counts as link clicks on Facebook?Facebook defines Link Clicks as โthe number of clicks on links within the ad that led to destinations or experiences, on or off Facebook.โ So, while Link Clicks are more focused than the Clicks (All) metric, they still include clicks on any links, whether they take people on or off of Facebook.
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