Question from Reddit user:
So my client doesn’t have a form to track conversions on their landing page and they do not have the time to tell their web developer to create one. But they want to track a specific landing page.
Can I setup the conversion to track the url? I know that may be bad to do but what are other options? I suggested another page to track that does have a form for a user to submit and we can track the button there. However, that’s not the page they want to track.
Any thoughts or workaround here would be helpful.
Answer from Nabil:
The short answer is:
Yes, you absolutely can set up a Facebook conversion event to track a specific URL page view, and in your client’s current situation where they lack a form or a dedicated thank you page, this is the most immediate workaround.
You can do this by setting up a Custom Conversion in Facebook Events Manager based on the PageURL matching the target landing page, or by creating a custom event in Google Tag Manager (GTM) that fires a PageView conversion event to the Facebook Pixel when the URL matches.
However, the best long-term and most accurate solution is to implement the Facebook Conversions API via a server-side solution like Stape or Google Cloud Platform, as this will ensure the tracking is resilient against browser restrictions and ad blockers, giving you a truer picture of traffic landing on that critical page.
The long answer is:
Relying on a simple page view of a landing page as a conversion event is generally considered a weak signal because it tracks anyone who lands there, even if they bounce immediately, but given your client’s constraints, it’s a necessary first step to get some tracking in place.
To do this quickly, you can use your existing GTM setup to create a trigger based on a Page View where the Page Path or Page URL equals the specific landing page your client wants to track.
This trigger then fires a Facebook Pixel event – ideally a custom event you name something like LandingPageReached – to Facebook.
Once this event is sent to Facebook, you would define it as a conversion event in the Facebook Events Manager.
This client-side method is fast, but it is highly susceptible to ad blockers and browser privacy settings that may prevent the Facebook Pixel from firing or transmitting the data correctly, leading to underreporting.
The superior solution for reliable and future-proof tracking is to implement the Facebook Conversions API through a server-side container.
Using GTM, you can send the raw browser data, including the Facebook click ID (the fbclid parameter) and the user’s IP address, to your server-side environment like Stape or Google Cloud Platform.
This server-side container then takes that data and sends a direct, server-to-server PageView event to the Facebook Conversions API whenever the page loads.
By sending the event from your server, you bypass client-side tracking barriers, which dramatically increases the accuracy and reliability of your data.
While the event is still just a page view, the increased data matching quality from the Conversions API ensures that the tracked event is more accurately attributed to the original Facebook ad click, giving the client the most reliable data possible given the current lack of a proper opt-in form.
Once your client is ready, you can then evolve this server-side setup to fire a stronger conversion signal, like a Click Event on a core button, which is a better proxy for user intent than a simple page load.
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