Verify Facebook Pixel and Conversions API are working correctly

Following the updates on Apple's App Tracking Transparency Framework, Facebook has introduced the Aggregated Event Measurement to provide a way that help merchants to take on Apple's limitation.

This protocol has been fully supported by ShopBase. Merchants can now set up Conversions API and fire events from both browser and server. All events received will be displayed in Facebook Events Manager.

Below is a guide on how you can make sure Facebook Pixel and Conversions API are firing events correctly from your ShopBase stores.

A. Verify Facebook Pixel is working correctly

To make sure Facebook Pixel is firing events correctly from your browser:

Go to Test Events tab located under your pixel. Here you can see 2 options: Test Browser Events and Test Server Events.

Enter Website URL in Test Browser Events:

Enter the Website URL that is linked to the store with the current pixel.

Click Open Website.

Your online store will be opened in a new tab. Here you can take actions within your store.

Receive activities in Test Events:

As you take actions on your online store, new events will start appearing in your Test Events.

For example, when you view a product page from the store, Test Events will begin to display traffic and View Content event.

When you continue to add to cart and check out, corresponding events will show up. After you have made a purchase, Test Events will display a Purchase event.

If you see these events appear normally in Facebook Test Events, it means that your Facebook Pixel is working correctly.

B. Verify Conversions API is working correctly

To make sure Facebook Pixel is firing events correctly from your server:

Go to Test Events tab located under your pixel. Here you can see 2 options: Test Browser Events and Test Server Events.

Copy the test code in Test Server Events:

In Facebook Pixel & Conversions API section, paste the test code to Access token:

At this point, you should already have had your Facebook Pixel and Access token ready in your store. You can enter the following format at the end of your Access token field: -testcode-.

Next, paste the test code you have copied from step 3.

The final correct format for this Access token field is: Access_token-testcode-Your_test_code_here.

For example, your Access token is demo and your Test code is TEST42552, then you should enter demo-testcode-TEST42552 in your Access token field.

Receive activities in Test Events:

After you have attached the test code to your online store, you can begin to take actions on your store and send server events from there.

As you take actions on your online store, new events will start appearing in your Test Events.

For example, when your view a product page from the store, Test Events will begin to display traffic and the event ViewContent.

When you continue to add to cart and check out, corresponding events will show up. After you have made a purchase, Test Events will display a Purchase event.

Server events: Events that are fired from server.

Browser - Server event: Events that are fired from both browser and server.

When an event is fired from both browser and server, deduplication will happen, and normally server activities for that event will be discarded (as its activities have already been recorded from browser).

If you see these events appear normally in Facebook Test Events, it means Conversions API is working correctly.

See the following article to understand more about Facebook Events Deduplication.

C. Facebook Event Matching Quality

When you share server events using Conversions API, you can see the Event Match Quality (EMQ) for each event in Facebook Events Manager.

An event’s EMQ score (out of 10) indicates how effective the customer information sent from your server is at matching it to a Facebook account.

Common events such as PageView or ViewContent are expected to see a very low score, as these events are triggered by virtually any website visitor. At this step, it is very hard to send useful customer information, such as name, email, or address. This is a common practice among platforms.

This Facebook metric is still in development.

D. FAQs: Fix common warnings and alerts from Facebook

Below are some of the common warnings and alerts you may receive in your Facebook Events Manager and actions you could take when encountering these problems.

Low Event matching quality:

These warnings usually appear in events such as Search and ViewContent.

It is expected that the above events will have a low Event matching quality score, because data on customer information (e.g. email, phone number, etc.) is very limited at these steps (unless your customers have logged in).

Event matching quality score may increase after some time, as Facebook usually takes up to 48 hours to aggregate data. Please wait during this delayed time until Facebook can aggregate your data adequately.

A low matching score for InitiateCheckout or Purchase events (below 3) is regarded as abnormal. In this case, please contact our support team for further support.

Same event_id received for many event instances or Missing deduplication parameters:

This alert usually shows up when you have additional scripts attached to your store, which are sending redundant data to Facebook.

In this case, you should check in Online store > Preferences > Additional scripts for any third party's scripts that may affect your data.

If you don't see any third party's scripts in your store and still receive this alert from Facebook, please contact our support team for further support.

Please note that Facebook Pixel and Conversions API are integrated natively in ShopBase (in Online store > Preferences > Facebook Pixel & Conversion API), so you don't need to attach any other scripts from Facebook in the Additional scripts section.

Server External ID not matching to Pixel External ID:

ShopBase has already been sending the matching value for all parameters to both the pixel and the server. However, Facebook may require some times to update data, you will receive this alert at first. If the alert keeps coming on a regular basis, you can check it in two ways:

Make sure that you do not add any redundant additional script from Facebook (for example, scripts to fire additional events). You only need to add necessary Facebook Pixel and/or Conversion API in Online store > Preferences > Facebook Pixel & Conversion API in your ShopBase admin site.

Make sure that you are not using Event setup tool from Facebook. If there are some events marked as Event setup tool in the Test event tab as in the photo below, it must be deleted so that the event is not fired repeatedly, causing data differences. Please refer to this article for more information about Facebook event setup tool.

Some events are marked as Event setup tool

After you completed the steps above, in the Facebook's warning, click How to fix the issue > Mark As Resolved. Facebook will automatically update when new data is available.

Appendix 1. Events ShopBase fires to Facebook

Search: When a search is made. A person lands on search results page (including no result page)*

Event Name: Search

Parameters: search_string

Visit Product Detail Page: When a key page is viewed such as a product page. A person lands on a product details page.*

Event Name: ViewContent

Parameters: content_ids, content_name, content_type, content_category, currency, value

Check Out from Cart: When a buyer click Checkout Button on Cart Drawer or Cart Page

Event Name: CheckoutButtonClicked

Parameters: content_ids, content_type, currency, value, num_items

Buy Now: When a buyer click Buy Now button on Product Detail Page

Event Name: BuyNowButtonClicked

Parameters: content_ids, content_type, currency, value, num_items

Add to Cart: When a product is added to the shopping cart. A person clicks on an add to cart button.*

Event Name: AddToCart

Parameters: content_ids, content_type, content_category, currency, value

Start Checkout: When a person enters the checkout flow prior to completing the checkout flow. A person clicks on a checkout button, buy now, or Accelerated Checkout button (eg. Checkout with Paypal)*

Event Name: InitiateCheckout

Parameters: content_category, contents, content_brand, currency, value, num_items

Use Coupon Code: When user applies coupon code successfully

Event Name: UseCouponCode

Parameters: coupon

Purchase: When a purchase is made or checkout flow is completed. A person has finished the purchase or checkout flow and lands on thank you page.*

Event Name: Purchase

Parameters: content_category, contents, content_brand, currency, value, num_items

Appendix 2. Event parameters sent to Facebook

To make sure events are fired correctly to Facebook, ShopBase is closely following Facebook's guideline on required event data parameters.

Required parameters (sent from server): event_name, event_time, user_data, custom_data, event_source_url, event_id, action_source

Customer information parameters (sent from both browser and server): em (email), ph (phone), ge (gender), db (date of birth), ln (last name), fn (first name), ct (city), st (state), zp (zip code), country (country), external_id (external ID), client_ip_address (client IP address), client_user_agent (client user agent), fbc (click ID), fbp (browser ID), subscription_id (subscription ID), fb_login_id (Facebook login ID), lead_id (lead ID)

Some of these parameters are hashed as recommended from Facebook.

Updated 8 months ago