✅ Is Your Meta Pixel Properly Installed?

Start here. The Meta Pixel needs to be fully integrated into your website or store. The fastest way to check? Use the Meta Pixel Helper Chrome extension.

If your Pixel is installed correctly, you’ll see your events firing without errors. But don’t stop there.

🔄 Are All Standard Events Set Up and Firing?

Your Pixel should track key actions across the entire customer journey, not just purchases. These are the standard events every e-commerce brand should have:

• PageView

• ViewContent

• AddToCart

• InitiateCheckout

• Purchase

• (And possibly: Lead, CompleteRegistration, depending on your funnel)

Use Pixel Helper to walk through your funnel and ensure every step is being captured. Every missed event = a missed signal to the algorithm.

⚠️ Errors in Events Manager? Don’t Ignore Them

Check your Events Manager regularly. If you see warnings or issues, that’s a red flag — especially if you’re seeing “Event Not Received,” “Missing Parameters,” or “New Domain Sending Data” errors. These issues directly impact how Meta receives and interprets your campaign data.

🍪 Are First-Party Cookies Enabled?

This one often gets missed. Make sure your first-party cookies are ON — especially post-iOS 14.5. This helps Meta track user behavior more reliably and improves attribution accuracy.

🔍 Is Automatic Advanced Matching Turned On?

Advanced Matching allows Meta to capture more customer data, like name, email, and phone, which improves attribution and event matching.

Make sure all matching parameters are toggled on. The more complete your data, the smarter the algorithm becomes.

⚙️ Using Partner Integrations? Double-Check Everything

Shopify, WooCommerce, and others offer built-in Partner Integrations to install your Pixel fast. But don’t assume it’s all working perfectly.

Even with integrations, double-check your events manually using Pixel Helper and Events Manager. Some setups need extra customization to match your unique funnel.

🚫 Traffic Permissions: Clean Up Your Allow & Block Lists

In Events Manager diagnostics, you might see the error: “New Domain Sending Data.” These often come from third-party apps or preview environments (like Shopify Preview), but they still contaminate your data.

Add unrecognized domains to your Block List and keep only trusted sources in your Allow List. Clean data = better algorithmic performance.

📊 Event Match Quality: The Score That Tells the Real Story

Meta’s Event Match Quality score reflects how much useful data is attached to each event.

Here’s what to aim for:

• PageView / ViewContent / AddToCart: 3.0 – 6.2

• InitiateCheckout: 4.0 – 7.5 (more form data = better score)

• Purchase: 9.0+ is ideal

Each stage of the journey collects different levels of data. Purchases should have the highest score, since that’s where personal info (name, email, address) is provided.

Lower scores = opportunity for improvement.

🔄 Event Deduplication: Avoid Double Counting

Running both Pixel and CAPI? Smart. But if deduplication isn’t working, Meta might count one event twice, skewing results and hurting performance.

In each event’s details, confirm that deduplication is active. Look for a green “No issues detected.” Orange warning? Time to fix it.

🕒 Data Freshness: Real-Time Isn’t Always Realistic

Ideally, your data updates in real time, but most accounts operate on hourly data freshness, and that’s okay. Just make sure it’s not lagging significantly. Old data = slow decision-making.

🔌 Is Your CAPI Firing Properly?

Meta’s Conversions API (CAPI) is essential in a post-cookie world. Make sure it’s firing on every major event and passing as many customer info parameters as possible.

This boosts your Event Match Quality and helps Meta attribute conversions more accurately.

🛠 Third-Party Tracking Tools We Trust

We’ve tested most tracking tools out there. Here’s what works for us and our clients:

• Triple Whale – For cross-platform attribution and performance tracking.

• BlotOut – For enriching data and improving signal quality to Meta’s algorithm.

Both integrate seamlessly with Shopify and help plug any gaps that Pixel + CAPI alone might miss.

Final Thoughts

Poor tracking is like running ads blindfolded. You might get lucky, but more often than not, you’re burning money.

At Highlight, we make sure your tracking foundation is rock-solid before scaling spend. Because great campaigns don’t start with creatives or copy — they start with clean, reliable data.

If you’re not 100% confident in your current tracking setup, let’s talk. It might be the most profitable conversation you have this month.