Question from Reddit user:
Hi. So I am running a traffic object campaign optimized for Landing Page View. Recently, results dropped dramatically (-76.7% last 7 days), and no landing page views (“-” in ads manager) in the past 3 days. 1.45 Frequency, 50 k~60 k Reach. I checked google analytics: traffic is indeed decreasing but haven’t touched the bottom.
Of course I set pixel tracking for this campaign. Sadly, dev or someone from the higher-up took down my Pixel code from the entire site, and this happened just on the day when this campaign starts to lose results (I know that by seeing the main chart in event manager). I can’t reinstate the code cuz I just! don’t have a say on this (fuck that). I don’t know if it’s coincidence…
My question is, does the absence of Pixel tracking hinder ads manager from collecting statistics? Thanks in advance. And do you think results dropping is caused by this? However, I am not using custom/lookalike audience or other Pixel feature on my campaign, simply tracking.
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
Yes, the absence of the Pixel tracking code is absolutely the cause of the immediate loss of all Landing Page View results in your Ads Manager.
This is not a coincidence, and the dramatic drop in results is a direct and expected consequence of the code being removed from your site.
Because your campaign is specifically optimized for this event, once the client-side Pixel stops firing the PageView event and sending it back to Meta, the Ads Manager reports a dash (or zero) for that metric, and more importantly, the campaign’s delivery algorithm loses the crucial feedback signal it needs to optimize its bidding and targeting, causing its performance to collapse.
The only way to restore accurate tracking without reinstating the Pixel code is by implementing the Facebook Conversions API (CAPI), which sends the data directly from your server to Meta, bypassing your website’s front end entirely.
The long answer is:
The Meta Pixel’s primary function is to track the actions a user takes on your website after clicking your ad.
The Landing Page View metric in Ads Manager is dependent on the Pixel’s PageView standard event successfully firing on your landing page and reporting back to Meta.
Since the Pixel code was removed, that event can no longer fire, which is why your Ads Manager column for Landing Page View has the dash or zero.
While Meta has introduced some modeling that can sometimes attribute a Landing Page View even without a Pixel, this modeled data is an estimation and cannot reliably replace the volume of data needed for a campaign to successfully optimize its delivery, especially when the main conversion goal is being tracked.
Your campaign’s dramatic performance drop is not due to a technical glitch, but rather an algorithmic starvation – the system is now blind.
It can see the clicks and knows the ad’s Reach and Frequency, but it has no idea which of those clicks actually turned into a page load, so it can’t distinguish between high- and low-quality traffic, causing it to default to a broader, less effective audience, which naturally drives down your conversion rate and overall results.
To fix this permanently and in a future-proof way that protects you from client-side restrictions like browser ad blockers or, in your case, internal developer interference, the best solution is to adopt a server-side tracking infrastructure using the Facebook Conversions API (CAPI).
Instead of relying on a browser-based script (the Pixel), CAPI sends data directly from your server to Meta’s server.
You can implement this by using a container like Google Tag Manager on the web layer to collect user data, and then sending that data to a server-side GTM environment run on a dedicated platform like Stape or your own Google Cloud Platform instance.
This server-side environment acts as a secure intermediary, translating the collected data into the CAPI format and sending the PageView and other crucial events (like Purchase or Lead) directly to Meta, effectively restoring your campaign’s ability to track and optimize for the Landing Page View event, regardless of what happens to the front-end Pixel code.
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