Hi there,
Thanks for reaching out! I had a look over the situation you described. It's a really common spot to be in when you're just starting out with performance marketing, so don't worry, you're not alone in feeling a bit lost. It can feel like a massive puzzle with a million pieces.
I'm happy to give you some initial thoughts and guidance based on my experience. Getting the foundations right from the start is absolutly the most important thing you can do, and it'll save you a lot of headaches (and wasted ad spend) down the line. What you're dealing with right now is all about data and tracking, and without that data, you're basically flying blind.
We'll need to look at getting your tracking foundations right...
Alright, first things first, let's talk about that Meta Pixel. You said the Pixel Helper can see it, but the Events Manager can't. This is a wierdly common and frustrating problem. There's a few things that could be causing this, and we need to sort it before we do anything else. Without a properly working pixel that's firing events, your Meta ads will never be properly effective because the algorithm won't know what you want it to do.
Here's what I'd check, in this order:
1. Domain Verification: Have you verified your website's domain inside your Meta Business Manager? This is a non-negotiable step now. Meta needs to know you own the website you're sending traffic to. If you haven't done this, it's often the main reason why the Events Manager acts up. It's a simple process, they give you a bit of code to add to your site's header or a file to upload.
2. Caching Issues: Sometimes it's just a simple caching problem. Your browser might be holding on to an old version of your site, or if you use a caching plugin on your website (like WP Rocket or similar), it might be interfering. Try clearing all your browser cache and cookies, and maybe even try looking at it in an incognito/private window. Also, if your website has a caching plugin, clear the cache there too.
3. Conflicting Code: Do you have multiple pixel codes installed by mistake? Or maybe an old pixel from a previous attempt? This can confuse things. Use the Meta Pixel Helper extension on Chrome to see exactly which pixel IDs are firing. There should only be one.
Once you've got Events Manager to recognise your base pixel, you need to set up events. A page view is fine, but it's just the start. Your funnel is 1. visit -> 2. sign up -> 3. click a start button. So, you need to tell Meta about steps 2 and 3. These are the conversions that matter to you. You want Meta's algorithm to go out and find people who are not just likely to visit your page, but who are likely to actually sign up.
To do this, you'll use the Events Manager. You mentioned clicking 'Add events' -> 'From the pixel'. The next step should be to use the 'Event Setup Tool'. This is a user-friendly tool that lets you open your website and just click on the buttons you want to track.
-> For your 'sign up' button, when you click it in the tool, you should assign it the standard event 'CompleteRegistration' or 'Lead'. I'd probably go with 'Lead' for a sign up. This tells Meta someone has given you their details.
-> For the 'start button', this sounds like a more custom action. You could use the 'Lead' event again if it signifies a higher level of intent, or you could create a 'Custom Event'. I'd probably stick to standard events where possible though as they are easier for the system to understand. Let's say 'StartTrial' if it's a trial, or maybe just stick with another 'Lead' event but you'll know internally it's a higher quality one. For now, just getting the 'sign up' button tracked as a Lead is the main goal.
If the Event Setup Tool doesn't work for some reason (it can be a bit buggy with certain website builders), you'd have to look at adding the event code manually. This means adding a small snippet of Javascript code (`fbq('track', 'Lead');`) to the button itself or to the 'thank you' page that users see after they sign up. This sounds more complicated, but there's tons of guides on it.
The bottom line is: you cannot optimise your ads properly until you can track these actions. Running ads optimised for 'Landing Page Views' is just paying for traffic. You need to be running ads optimised for 'Conversions' (specifically, the 'Lead' event you're about to create). That's the difference between just getting clicks and actually getting customers.
I'd say you need to get to grips with Google Analytics...
Okay, so once the Meta Pixel is behaving, the next peice of the puzzle is Google Analytics (GA). You're right to be looking at it. Think of it like this: The Meta Pixel tells Meta what's happening. Google Analytics tells *you* what's happening across your entire marketing effort, not just one platform.
You mentioned you don't see an event called 'sign up' in GA. That's because, just like with Meta, you have to tell it what to look for. By default, GA4 (I'm assuming you're on GA4) tracks a bunch of things automatically, but a specific button click on your site isn't one of them. You need to set it up as a conversion event.
The best way to manage all this tracking code (for Meta, for Google, for anything else you might use later) is with Google Tag Manager (GTM). If you're not using it, you should be. It's a container that you put on your website, and then you add all your tracking 'tags' into GTM instead of cluttering up your website's code. It gives you much more control. It might seem like another thing to learn, but it's worth the effort, I promise.
Here’s the basic process:
1. Set up GTM: Create a GTM account and install its container snippet on your website.
2. Create a GA4 Event Tag: Inside GTM, you'll create a new tag. This tag will be a 'GA4 Event' tag. You'll give the event a name, something simple like `sign_up`.
3. Create a Trigger: The tag needs a 'trigger' to tell it when to fire. The trigger is the action the user takes. In your case, the trigger would be 'Click - All Elements'. You would then configure it to only fire when someone clicks on your specific 'sign up' button (you can specify it by its button text "Sign Up" or its CSS ID).
4. Mark it as a Conversion: Once GTM is sending that `sign_up` event to GA4, you then have to go into your GA4 settings (Admin -> Conversions) and tell it that `sign_up` is a conversion event. You just flip a switch next to the event name.
You'd repeat this exact same process for your 'start button' click, maybe calling the event `start_button_click`.
Once this is done, you'll be able to see in GA4 not just how many people visited, but how many of them completed a `sign_up` and how many did a `start_button_click`. This is where the real anayltics begins. You can see your funnel conversion rates right there in GA. For example, you can see that 1,000 people visited from your Meta ad, 100 of them signed up (a 10% conversion rate), and 20 of them clicked the start button (a 20% conversion rate from sign-up). This data is gold.
You probably should use URL parameters for clear attribution...
This brings us neatly to your last question about URL parameters. This is the final bit of the tracking puzzle that ties everything together. Right now, you might see traffic in GA from "facebook.com", but you don't know if it came from your paid ad, or from a random post you made. You also don't know *which* ad they clicked if you're running more than one.
URL parameters, or 'UTM codes', are little bits of text you add to the end of your website link in your ad. They don't change the page the user goes to, but they pass information back to Google Analytics. It sounds technical, but it's really simple once you see it.
The main parameters you need to care about are:
-> utm_source: Where is the traffic coming from? e.g., `facebook`
-> utm_medium: What type of traffic is it? e.g., `cpc` (cost-per-click, a standard for paid ads)
-> utm_campaign: Which campaign is this ad in? e.g., `winter_promo_2023`
-> utm_content: What ad set or specific ad did they click? This let's you tell different ads apart. e.g., `ad_set_young_professionals` or `video_ad_1`
Inside the Meta Ads Manager, when you're creating your ad, there's a field at the bottom called 'URL Parameters'. You can build them there. So, if your landing page is `www.mywebsite.com`, the final URL a user clicks might look like this:
www.mywebsite.com?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=first_test_campaign&utm_content=image_ad_blue
Meta actually has a dynamic builder which makes this even easier. You can use dynamic values so you don't have to type them out for every ad. For example, you can put `{{campaign.name}}` in the utm_campaign field and Meta will automatically fill in your actual campaign name. It's really handy.
Here's a sample of what that might look like in the Ads Manager URL parameter box:
| Parameter | Value (using Meta's dynamic placeholders) | Example Result |
|---|---|---|
| utm_source | facebook |
|
| utm_medium | cpc |
cpc |
| utm_campaign | {{campaign.name}} |
My First Campaign |
| utm_content | {{adset.name}}_{{ad.name}} |
Audience1_BlueImageAd |
Why bother with all this? Because now, in Google Analytics, you can go to your Acquisition reports and see exactly how the "first_test_campaign" performed. You can see how many visitors, sign-ups, and start-button-clicks came from that specific campaign, and even that specific ad. This is how you make smart decisions. You can see "oh, my video ad gets lots of clicks but no sign-ups, but my image ad gets fewer clicks but loads of sign-ups. I should put more budget behind the image ad." Without UTMs, you just see "Facebook" traffic, and you can't make those calls.
You'll need a proper campaign structure and optimisation strategy...
Once your tracking is sorted, you can start thinking more strategically about your ads. You're running your first Meta ad, which is great. But you need to think about your entire funnel, not just that one ad. I've worked on many software campaigns, and the ones that succeed always have a structured approach.
Think of your audience in three stages:
1. Top of Funnel (ToFu) - Cold Audiences: These are people who have never heard of you. Your current ad is a ToFu ad. You're targeting them based on interests or demographics. The goal here is to introduce them to your solution and get that initial sign-up. The most important change you need to make here is to change your campaign objective from 'Traffic' or 'Landing Page Views' to 'Conversions', and set the conversion event to the 'Lead' event you created for your sign-up button. This is a massive shift. You're telling Meta "don't just find me people who click, find me people who sign up". Your cost per click might go up, but your cost per sign-up will go way down.
2. Middle of Funnel (MoFu) - Warm Audiences: These are people who've shown some interest but haven't converted. For example, people who visited your website but didn't sign up. You should run a seperate campaign to retarget these people. The ad copy would be different. It might be something like "Still thinking about it? Here's why you should sign up today" or you could show them a testimonial. These audiences are 'warmer' and usually convert at a much higher rate and lower cost.
3. Bottom of Funnel (BoFu) - Hot Audiences: These are people who are very close to converting. In your case, this would be people who signed up but *didn't* click the start button. You can run a very specific retargeting ad to them, encouraging them to take that final step. You could also retarget existing customers later on to upsell them.
You don't need to do all this on day one, but you need to be aware of this structure. I recall one software client where we aimed to achieve a high volume of registrations at a low cost. We implemented a proper funnel structure with different ads tailored to different levels of audience awareness. We began with broad targeting to gather initial data and sign-ups, and then we heavily retargeted anyone who showed interest to guide them towards registration. Ultimately, we achieved 4,622 registrations at a cost of $2.38 each using Meta Ads.
For now, focus on getting that ToFu campaign right. Set the objective to Conversions (for your sign-up event) and start split-testing. Test at least two different audiences against each other, and two different ad creatives (e.g. an image vs a video) within each audience. This is how you learn what works.
I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:
This is a lot to take in, I know. It's a big shift from just 'boosting a post' to running a proper performance marketing programme. Here is a summary of the main things I'd focus on right now to get you on the right track.
| Area of Focus | Your Immediate Actionable Step | Why It's Important |
|---|---|---|
| Meta Pixel & Events | Verify your domain in Meta Business Manager. Then use the Event Setup Tool to create a 'Lead' event for your 'sign up' button. | Without this, you can't track conversions or optimise your ads for anything other than basic clicks. It's the foundation of Meta advertising. |
| Google Analytics | Set up Google Tag Manager (GTM). Use GTM to create GA4 events for your 'sign up' and 'start' button clicks, then mark them as conversions in GA4. | This gives you a central, unbiased view of your website performance and lets you see your full funnel conversion rates. |
| Attribution & Tracking | Start using the 'URL Parameters' builder in Meta Ads Manager. Use dynamic parameters like {{campaign.name}} to automatically tag your traffic. |
This allows you to see in GA which specific campaigns, ad sets, and ads are driving your sign-ups, so you can make informed budget decisions. |
| Meta Ad Strategy | Change your campaign objective from Traffic to 'Conversions'. Optimise for the 'Lead' (sign-up) event you created. | You'll start paying Meta to find people who will actually become leads, not just people who click links. This single change can drastically improve your results. |
Getting all of this set up correctly is a big job, and it's just the first step. The real work comes in the ongoing management, testing, and optimisation. It involves constantly analysing the data you're now able to collect, testing new audiences and creatives, and managing your budget effectively to scale what's working and cut what isn't.
This is where expert help can make a huge difference. You can definatly learn to do all this yourself, but it takes a lot of time and you'll likely waste a fair bit of money through trial and error. We've spent years honing these processes for clients, especially in the software space, helping them avoid those initial mistakes and get to a positive return on their ad spend much faster.
If you'd like to have a chat, we offer a free initial consultation where we could actually look at your accounts together on a call. We could check your pixel setup, look at your GA, and talk through a more detailed strategy for your first few campaigns. There's no obligation at all, it's just a way for us to show you the level of expertise we could bring to your project.
Either way, I hope this detailed breakdown has helped clear the fog a bit and given you a solid action plan to get started. Get that tracking sorted and you'll be in a much, much stronger position.
Regards,
Team @ Lukas Holschuh
