MetaPixel use in BetterUnite

The Meta Pixel is a snippet of tracking code from Meta that you paste into BetterUnite once. From then on it loads on your public donation, ticketing, and auction pages, so Meta can tell you which of your social posts brought in the people who gave.

What the pixel does on BetterUnite, and what it does not

It is worth knowing this before you start, because it shapes how you set up reporting on the Meta side.

What works: once your pixel code is saved, it loads on your public BetterUnite pages and records a page view every time a supporter lands on one. That includes your thank-you and confirmation pages, which is what makes conversion tracking possible.

What does not happen automatically: BetterUnite does not send Meta a purchase event carrying the gift amount. Meta will not populate a donation value or a return-on-ad-spend figure on its own. To count completed gifts you create a custom conversion in Meta based on your confirmation page URL, which is covered in step 5 below. That gives you a reliable count of completed gifts and a conversion rate, but not a dollar value per conversion.

Please do not hand-edit the code you paste. It may be tempting to add a line such as fbq('track', 'Purchase') to the snippet. Do not. The snippet you save runs on every public page, so that line would report a purchase every time anyone views any page, and your numbers would be far worse than no numbers at all. Use a custom conversion instead.

Before you start

• Access to Meta Events Manager for your organization's Meta Business account, with permission to create or view a pixel.
• An administrator login for your BetterUnite organization, since the field lives on your organization profile.

The whole process takes about ten minutes. You only do it once for your organization, not once per campaign.

Step 1: Find or create your pixel in Meta

Meta renames parts of this interface fairly often, so treat the labels below as a guide rather than an exact script.

1. Go to Meta Events Manager and sign in.
2. In the left sidebar, open Data sources.
3. If your organization already has a pixel, select it from the list. If not, choose Connect data sources, pick Web, then Meta Pixel, and give it a name you will recognize later, such as your organization's name.

Once the pixel exists, note its dataset ID, the long number shown under the pixel name. You will use it to confirm things are working later.

Step 2: Copy the base code from Meta

This is the step people most often get wrong, so it is worth being precise. You need the full code block, not just the ID number.

1. With your pixel selected, open its setup options. Depending on your view this is Continue pixel setup, or Settings, then the install section.
2. Choose Install code manually. Do not choose a partner integration or the conversions API option, since neither applies here.
3. Meta shows you a block of code that starts with <script> and ends with </noscript>. Use the Copy code button to copy the whole thing.

A correct copy is roughly fifteen lines long and contains the text connect.facebook.net somewhere in the middle. If what you copied is only a number such as 123456789012345, go back and copy again. BetterUnite will reject the short version.

Step 3: Paste it into BetterUnite

1. Sign in to BetterUnite as an administrator.
2. Open your organization profile settings, the same page where your organization name, logo, and contact details live.
3. Scroll to the section headed Meta Pixel (Formerly Facebook Pixel). It sits just below the field for Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.
4. Paste the entire copied block into the box.
5. Save the page.

If you see the message Invalid Facebook/Meta Pixel Code, the text you pasted does not contain connect.facebook.net. That almost always means a pixel ID was pasted instead of the full snippet. Return to step 2.

Step 4: Check that it is loading

Two ways to confirm, and it is worth doing both.

THE BROWSER EXTENSION

Install the Meta Pixel Helper extension for Chrome, then visit your own public donation page in a normal browser window. The extension icon should report one pixel found, with an ID matching the one from step 1, and a PageView event.

TEST EVENTS IN META

In Events Manager, open your pixel and go to Test events. Paste the address of your public donation page into the URL field and open it. A PageView row should appear within a few seconds.

Real activity can take twenty minutes or more to show up in the main Events Manager overview, so use Test events rather than the overview when you are checking your work.

PAGES WHERE THE PIXEL LOADS

• Your campaign donation form
• The thank-you page after a one-time donation
• The confirmation page after a ticket or registration checkout
• The confirmation page after a recurring gift is set up
• Auction, item browsing, and event item pages
• Your organization's public landing pages

Step 5: Turn a completed gift into a conversion

This is the step that produces a conversion rate. You are telling Meta that anyone who reaches a BetterUnite confirmation page has completed a gift.

Your confirmation pages follow a predictable address pattern, which is what makes this work:

Note that the broad rule in the last row overlaps all three specific ones. Pick either the broad rule or the specific rules, not both, or the same gift will be counted twice.

To create the conversion:

1. In Events Manager, open Custom conversions from the left sidebar.
2. Choose Create custom conversion.
3. Name it something a colleague would understand later, such as Completed donation.
4. Set the data source to your pixel, and the conversion event to All URL traffic.
5. Add a rule: URL, contains, then the text from the table above. For most organizations, ConfirmationDonation is the right place to start.
6. Pick a category. Donate is the closest fit.
7. Leave the value field empty. BetterUnite does not pass a gift amount to Meta, so any number entered here would be a fixed guess applied to every gift.
8. Save.

New custom conversions only count activity from the moment you create them. They do not backfill.

Step 6: Read your conversion rate

Once the pixel has been live for a few days and your custom conversion has recorded activity, you can select it as the results metric on your Meta campaigns and see how many completed gifts each post or ad drove.

Two habits make those numbers far more trustworthy:

• Tag your links. Add UTM parameters to the BetterUnite links you post on social media. This lets you separate paid and organic traffic, and it gives you the same picture in Google Analytics if you also use the Google field on the organization profile page.
• Expect Meta and BetterUnite to disagree slightly. BetterUnite counts gifts that were actually processed. Meta counts confirmation pages that loaded in a browser where its tracking was allowed. Ad blockers, privacy settings, and people who close the tab quickly all create a gap. BetterUnite's own reporting is the record for how much you raised; use Meta for relative comparison between posts.

If something is not working

THE CODE WILL NOT SAVE

The field rejects anything that does not contain connect.facebook.net. Paste the full block from step 2, including the opening <script> line.

THE PIXEL HELPER FINDS NOTHING ON YOUR PAGE

Confirm you saved the organization profile, then reload the public page with a hard refresh. Check that you are looking at a public supporter-facing page rather than an administrative screen.

YOU SEE PAGE VIEWS BUT NO CONVERSIONS

Your custom conversion rule is probably not matching. Complete a small test gift yourself, copy the exact address of the confirmation page you land on, and compare it to your rule. Remember that rules are matched against the full address, and that a conversion created today ignores everything that happened yesterday.

CONVERSIONS LOOK ROUGHLY DOUBLE

Check whether you have both a broad Confirmation rule and a specific one such as ConfirmationDonation. Delete one of them.

YOU WANT THE DOLLAR VALUE OF EACH GIFT IN META

That is not available through this field today. If value-level reporting matters to your organization, contact BetterUnite support and let us know, and we can talk through what is possible using the Google Tag Manager field on the same settings page.

Getting help

For anything on the BetterUnite side, such as the field rejecting your code or the pixel not appearing on your pages, contact BetterUnite support and include the campaign address you are testing along with your pixel ID. For anything inside Events Manager, such as ad reporting or a pixel you cannot access, Meta's own business support is the faster route, since we cannot see inside your Meta account.