Welcome to Digital Marketing FAQs, the series where I answer your digital marketing questions with simple, concise answers so that you can get down to the business of growing your business online.
In today’s article we are looking at the following interesting question:
“What is the difference between Google Analytics & Facebook pixel?”
A common scenario in which this question might arise is that you have already got Google Analytics installed on your website, and then someone (perhaps your marketing agency or consultant) suggests installing a Facebook pixel to track data.
You might then think “why do I need both? After all, Google Analytics does my data tracking!”
Get free digital marketing advice and tutorials by subscribing to my YouTube channel. New videos being released every week, covering everything you need to know to grow your business with effective digital marketing. View my channel and subscribe here.
Also feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn, as I post lots of digital marketing content exclusively on there. Check out my profile and send me a connection request.
This is very true, but there are some major differences between Google Analytics & a Facebook pixel:
At the most basic level, Google Analytics is a tool for helping you to understand how your website performs across all channels (e.g. organic traffic, paid ads, social media etc) as well as what content performs the best.
In comparison, a Facebook pixel has a much more defined focus in that it is to help you understand and optimise your performance on Facebook ads.
As I’ve covered in another article in this series, you can have a Facebook pixel without ads, but the fundamental purpose of it is to allow you to build remarketing lists (that is to allow you to target with advertising people who’ve viewed your website but haven’t purchased/inquired).
Although you can get some basic website stats out of a Facebook pixel, it’s nowhere near as comprehensive as Google Analytics, and is only going to show you information as it relates to Facebook advertising.
There is basically no overlap between their function - so having both is important.
I hope that helps you to understand the difference between Google Analytics & the Facebook pixel!