The Facebook Blueprint certification is a way for digital marketers to distinguish themselves as having advanced-level proficiency in Facebook’s advertising products and services. In order to earn this certification, an individual must pass two rigorous exams.

Below are a few key takeaways from studying for these exams. Included is a case study to show how to combine these strategies for success.

Facebook Pixel

Facebook Pixel is a snippet of code that goes on your website. It helps measure, optimize, and expand advertising efforts by tracking the actions users take on your website — known as Events.

Standard and Custom Events

When you first enable Facebook Pixel, it will come with a default set of Standard Events including user actions such as filling out a contact form or adding products to the shopping cart.

You can enhance these baseline Events to track more specific conversions that are valuable to your business via Custom Events. For example, if you want to know when someone visits a certain page on your website, you can build out a Custom Event to measure that particular micro-conversion.

Based on these user actions, you can create Custom Audiences and serve specific ads to those within the established groups, a particularly helpful tool when building a remarketing campaign. By creating an audience of consumers who previously added a product to their cart but did not complete the purchase, you can target those users with custom offers or relevant messaging.

Ultimately, the Facebook Pixel enables you to see what actions people take on your website, attribute those actions to your Facebook ads, and reach valuable customers.

Lookalike Audiences

Maybe you’re asking yourself, how can I reach more high-value customers that are similar to my target audience? The answer: Lookalike Audiences.

Lookalike Audiences are based on your source audience. In other words, they are a new audience that “looks like” your already existing customers with similar demographics, interests, and behaviors.

Let’s say you have a source audience of people who have signed up for a paid membership. If you create a Lookalike Audience based on that source audience, Facebook will find people who share similar attributes to those buyers.

This is extremely valuable in helping you find new customers who you otherwise may have never reached.

Want to see how our Blueprint-certified team best utilizes all of these features? Check out the case study below!

Lead Generation Case Study

Client: Online membership provider for various festivals around the US offering free and paid membership options

Goal: Increase memberships using Facebook ads

Setup:

  1. Implement the Facebook Pixel to start tracking Events
  2. Create custom events for free and paid membership sign-ups
  3. Create Lookalike Audiences based on each membership type:
    • A lookalike audience based on people who signed up for a free membership
    • A lookalike audience based on people who signed up for a paid membership

Ad targeting strategies:

  1. Target people who had signed up for a free membership encouraging them to upgrade to a paid membership
  2. Target people who “look like” paid members to acquire new customers who are similar to the already existing valuable customers
  3. Target people who “look like” free members to acquire new customers, raise brand awareness, and gain more free members. Paid membership sign-ups are a bonus

Results:

  • Continuous increase in monthly membership signups from Facebook ads
  • Continuous decrease in average cost per membership signup
  • Facebook advertising is a successful new lead source