When to Use Custom Conversions

When should you use custom conversions?

This is a common point of confusion among advertisers. Custom conversionsCustom conversions let you create rules for events or URLs so that you can better track and optimize for specific actions with Facebook ads. More don’t replace standard or custom eventsConversion events tracked by the pixel, app SDK, or API that are outside of standard events. These tend to be created to fit the publisher’s needs when a pre-defined standard event will not. More. They have a unique purpose.

The Purpose

The primary benefit of custom conversionsA conversion is counted whenever a website visitor performs an action that fires a standard event, custom event, or custom conversion. Examples of conversions include purchases, leads, content views, add to cart, and registrations. More is to segment your results. Here’s an example…

The Purchase standard event will fire every time there’s a purchase on your website. You may run a campaignThe campaign is the foundation of your Facebook ad. This is where you’ll set an advertising objective, which defines what you want your ad to achieve. More that uses Purchase as the optimized event, and the Results column will reflect that. But, it won’t only reflect the purchase of the product you’re promoting. Custom conversions help you know which product they bought.

Create custom conversions for the purchase of specific products…

…and then add columns to your reporting for those custom conversions.

You can do this for other events, too, like Leads or Complete Registration.

OptimizationThe Performance Goal is chosen within the ad set and determines optimization and delivery. How you optimize impacts who sees your ad. Meta will show your ad to people most likely to perform your desired action. More

You should rarely optimize for custom conversions, but there are exceptions. The standard event will have far more data behind it to optimize.

But if you sell different products that appeal to uniquely different groups, you might create a custom conversion to segment those purchases and use it as your optimization event.

I’d still try the standard event first, but it’s worth an experiment.

How do you use custom conversions?