What is the Facebook Pixel Helper? How do you use it?

Unlock Facebook ad performance insights with the Pixel Helper tool for troubleshooting and optimizing your campaigns. Discover how to diagnose conversion issues in real time.

Ceyhun Enki Aksan Entrepreneur, Maker

Apr 2, 2019

Analyze Facebook ad models and assume you’re developing a strategy for ads that will soon go live.

You’ve set up your Facebook Pixel installations for the conversions you’re aiming to achieve or plan to achieve, and even included user behaviors in your targeting. Yet, despite your ads being live, they’re not reaching anyone.

tip

You may find support through Facebook Pixel Management.

You have many ideas regarding the reason and would like to test them to identify the problem. In that case, the tool you need is also a Chrome extension: Facebook Pixel Helper.

Facebook Pixel Helper

First, one possible solution to the issue above is that your ad targeting is quite narrow, which could be due to your website not receiving enough traffic to support ad campaigns. It’s worth evaluating this possibility. As an alternative, you may consider excluding Facebook Pixel breakdowns and/or adjusting your targeting options through other targeting features. Once we eliminate this option, testing our Facebook Pixel installation becomes more accurate. At this point, we can start leveraging the Facebook Pixel extension.

Facebook Pixel Helper can be described as a utility tool that checks the validity of Facebook Pixel snippets and configurations (custom pixels). Through this tool, you can verify whether the Facebook Pixel code has been correctly installed and is functioning properly, access recommended solutions for potential installation and configuration errors, and conduct performance optimization studies. You can access the relevant extension via Chrome Web Store > Facebook Pixel Helper¹. So, how does Facebook Pixel Helper work? Facebook Pixel Helper operates automatically in the background, analyzing Facebook Pixel code. If a Facebook Pixel code is present on the viewed page, the icon in the extensions/added-ons section of the address bar will change from gray to blue, and will display the number of codes processed in the corner.

If the icon is not blue, you may assume that no Facebook Pixel code is installed on the page, or that it has not been correctly installed/activated. If the icon is blue, you can click it to access detailed information about the relevant pixel codes. A red warning icon indicates that the code is installed but not activated. In such cases, you should ensure that ad-blocking and similar ad-blocking extension tools are not active in your browser².

Regarding errors, the most commonly encountered alerts include:

Pixel Did Not Load

This indicates that although a Facebook Pixel code exists on the viewed page, it has not been triggered/activated. For example, if a pixel is associated with a button, the error will appear until the button is clicked; once the button is clicked, the error will disappear.

This error indicates the possibility of double-encoded character issues within the pixel code. For example, using &amp; instead of &. Once this incorrect formatting is corrected, the error will disappear.

Not a Standard Event

The alert indicates that the event detected is outside the standard events defined by Pixel Helper. For example, instead of the standard event Purchase, the event Purchased might be used, as shown in the example below. For more detailed information about standard events, please refer to the Conversion Tracking page³.

fbq('track', 'Purchased', // the correct event should be 'Purchase'.
  {
    value: 115.00,
    currency: 'USD',
    contents: [
      {
        id: '301',
        quantity: 1,
        item_price: 85.00
      },
      {
        id: '401',
        quantity: 2,
        item_price: 15.00
      }],
    content_type: 'product'
  }
);

Pixel Activated Multiple Times

One of the most commonly encountered errors is the triggering of the Facebook Pixel code with the same ID and event more than once. To resolve this issue, the defined ID values and events within the init function should be adjusted, and it must be ensured that the same action is not triggered again on the relevant page. The correct and example usage should be as follows⁴ ⁵.

<script>
  !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
  {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
  n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
  if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';
  n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
  t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
  s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',
  'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js');
  fbq('init', '[pixel-id-1]');
  fbq('init', '[pixel-id-2]');
  fbq('track', 'PageView');

  fbq('trackSingleCustom', '[pixel-id-1]', 'Step4',{
    // additional parameters
  });

fbq('trackSingle', '[pixel-id-2]', 'Purchase',{
    value: 115.00,
    currency: 'USD',
    contents: [
      {
        id: '301',
        quantity: 1,
        item_price: 85.00
      },
      {
        id: '401',
        quantity: 2,
        item_price: 15.00
      }],
    content_type: 'product'
  }
);
</script>
<noscript>
  <img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=[pixel-id-1]&ev=PageView&noscript=1" />
</noscript>
<!-- End Facebook Pixel Code -->

Invalid Pixel ID

This error indicates that the ID value within the pixel snippet is not linked to any valid Facebook Pixel account (it may have been deleted, incorrectly typed, etc.). In such cases, you should check the ID value in the Events Manager section of the Ads Manager page and compare it with the ID value in the snippet. If a discrepancy is found, you must correct the error.

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