Tracking Facebook ad leads to closed sales means sending each step after the form back to Meta. Tracking is the part of running Meta ads for local service businesses that connects your ads to paying customers. Meta calls each step an event, and two tools send them: the Meta Pixel and the Conversions API. Once those events reach Meta, they show up in Ads Manager, Meta’s tool for running campaigns, so you can see which ads brought in customers.
What do the Meta Pixel and the Conversions API each do?
The Meta Pixel reports what people do on your website, and the Conversions API reports what happens everywhere else, straight from your own systems.
The Pixel is a small piece of code on your website that reports visits and form submissions from visitors’ web browsers. A phone call, an estimate in someone’s backyard, or a check handed over when the job is done never touches your website, so the Pixel never sees it.
With the Conversions API, events come from your CRM, the system where your team keeps track of leads and customers. They can also come from your website’s server, the computer that hosts your site. Because they don’t depend on anyone’s browser, they can include things that happen days later and nowhere near your site. Meta recommends running the two together, so each one covers what the other misses.
| Meta Pixel | Conversions API | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it runs | In the visitor’s web browser | In your CRM or on your website’s server |
| What it reports | Page visits and form submissions on your site | Anything your CRM records, including quotes, jobs, and payments |
| What it misses | Anything that happens off your website | Website activity, unless your server is set up to send it |
Which events should you send at each stage?
Send one event for each stage a lead goes through, from the form to the sale. Meta has names for common steps, called standard events. Lead is a form submission, Schedule is a booked appointment, and Purchase is a sale. When none of them fits a stage, you can create a custom event and name it yourself.
Take a fence company that spends $5,000 a month on Meta ads. Here’s how its month breaks down, with the event for each stage:
| Stage | The fence company’s month | Event to send | What sends it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Form submitted | 200 leads | Lead | The Pixel, or Meta itself for instant forms |
| Quote sent | 90 quotes | A custom event, such as QuoteSent | The CRM |
| Quote approved | 25 approvals | A custom event, such as QuoteApproved | The CRM |
| Fence built and paid for | 24 jobs at about $2,500 each | Purchase, with the job’s value | The CRM |
Send each sale with the amount the customer paid so that Ads Manager can show revenue as well as a count.
The fence company pays $25 a lead, and cost per lead is one of the Meta ads KPIs worth checking every day. But unless the other three stages get sent back, Meta only sees the first one. So Meta has no way to tell the 24 people who paid for a fence from the 176 who didn’t.
How does sending sales back change who sees your ads?
Meta shows your ads to the people it predicts will do what your campaign asks for, so if that’s leads, it looks for people who fill out forms. Sending quotes and sales back won’t change that on its own. You also have to set the campaign to aim for one of those later events, which Ads Manager calls the performance goal.
Even before you change the goal, you can add each event as a column in Ads Manager and see which ads led to quotes and jobs. Put that next to your CRM’s records, and your Meta ads reporting can show spend, leads, jobs, and revenue side by side.
If your leads come from instant forms
Instant forms are the forms that open inside Facebook or Instagram. For these, Meta offers a performance goal called Conversion Leads. Your CRM downloads each lead from Meta, then sends back each stage the lead reaches, matched by the ID number Meta gives every lead. Meta’s documentation asks for at least 200 leads a month, updates at least once a day, and a stage that happens within 28 days of the lead coming in.
If your leads come from a landing page
A landing page is a page on your website that people reach by clicking your ad. Set the campaign to aim for a later stage instead of the form. The fewer events Meta gets, though, the less it has to learn from. The fence company has 90 quotes a month but only 24 finished jobs, so the quote is probably the better choice.
Who sets up each piece?
Tracking touches three places: your website, your CRM, and your ad account. In many businesses, each one belongs to someone different.
Your website. The Pixel lives in your site’s code, along with the Lead event that gets sent when someone submits a form. That work belongs to whoever handles your web design, and so do the UTM tags on your ad links. UTM tags are labels on a link that tell your analytics which campaign sent a visitor, and they work the same way in your social media analytics.
Your CRM. A stage can’t be sent until someone records it. So your team needs to move each lead forward as it happens: quote sent, quote approved, job done. Some CRMs connect to the Conversions API on their own, and others need a connector tool or a developer. Posted Social uses Asera Edge, its CRM and automation platform, for every paid ads client. Asera Edge records each stage and sends it back to Meta.
Your ad account. Your business should own the ad account and the Pixel, even if an agency runs them, so the tracking and its history stay with you if you switch agencies.
How do you check that your tracking works?
Run a test before you trust the numbers, and run it again after any change to your website or CRM.
- Open Events Manager, Meta’s tool for managing tracking, and go to the Test Events tab. Then submit a test lead through your own form and watch for the Lead event to show up.
- Make sure the lead shows up once. When the Pixel and the Conversions API both send it, they need the same event name and the same ID number so Meta counts the lead once.
- Move the test lead through your CRM as quoted, approved, and paid, and check that each event reaches Meta.
- Compare the counts every week. Leads in Ads Manager should be close to leads in your CRM, and Purchase events should be close to paid jobs. A big gap means something stopped sending.
Two things can break tracking without anyone noticing. The first is a website change. A new form or thank-you page can stop the Lead event from being sent, so leads keep landing in your inbox while Meta sees none of them. The second is timing. Meta won’t accept most events more than seven days after they happen, so a CRM that only sends updates at month-end loses most of them.
Start with one event after the form.
If Meta only hears about leads today, pick one stage after the form and start sending it. Choose a stage your team already records every time. It should happen at least a few times a week, like the quote or the booking. Run a test lead through it and add the next stage once the first one is working.
If you’d rather have it built for you, that’s part of Posted Social’s paid ads management. To find out what your tracking sends Meta today, contact Posted Social.
Common questions
Do you need the Conversions API if you already have the Meta Pixel?
You need the Conversions API if you want Meta to see anything that happens after the form. The Pixel only reports what happens on your website, so quotes, jobs, and payments have to come from your CRM. Meta recommends running both, with matching ID numbers so nothing gets counted twice.
What if most of your leads call instead of filling out a form?
Record each call as a lead in your CRM, then send it to Meta the same way you send quotes and jobs. Meta’s standard event for a phone call, text, or chat is Contact. Give each campaign its own tracking number, a phone number that forwards to your main line, so your CRM knows where the call came from.