Is Your Meta Tracking Broken?
Get ahead of the competition. Join Foxwell Digital Membership and access expert insights that drive real results.
In this episode of the Foxwell Founders podcast, Brett Fish, founder of Tag Hero, discusses the importance of tracking and technology in e-commerce. He addresses the question of whether third-party tracking services provide an edge over Shopify's built-in server-side pixel implementation and provides insights into the perfect tracking setup.
Key Takeaways:
Who third-party tracking services are most beneficial for.
Why Shopify's pixel implementation may be just right for you.
When its best suited to move to a third-party tracking service.
The 3 things the best tracking set-ups all have.
The importance of regular testing pixel events.
Why Brett believes the founders membership is so valuable
To learn more about Brett Fish and TagHero you can head here
If you'd like to learn more about the Founders Community or want to become a member you can do so here.
Full Transcript:
Tris Dyer (00:00.19)
well, just so the heads are all in line, like tiny, tiny detail. But like it's something that that's enough. That's plenty. That's plenty. Yeah, we're all more or less in line. Super. Hey, guys, welcome to the episode 29 of the Foxwell Founders podcast. We are going an absolute banger here today. We're talking all about things tracking and how to get things right. We have Brett Fish, the founder of Tag Hero on with us. They're the they're the go to when it comes to tracking and technology within your e-commerce space.
Brett Fish (00:04.758)
I'm gonna try. Is that better?
Tris Dyer (00:30.27)
He's helped so many people. I think it's something like 200 brands and over 100 agencies in helping them with tracking. I'm definitely one of them. And it's just, you know, it's really, really good to have you on. So Edwin, do you want to kick us off?
Edwin @ Snappic (00:43.198)
So Brett, I'm gonna ask you a first question. I'm gonna ask you to spill the tea on it. There are a lot of services out there now that are saying that they will give you an edge over maybe a Shopify implementation of a server-side pixel. True or false, do they actually matter? Or if they do, at what level does it actually make a difference?
Brett Fish (01:10.698)
Yeah, I think that last part you mentioned is the key part at what level. So there are some really good tools out there that do some really good things. So you've probably heard of maybe like Elivar or Edge Tag by Blotout. Some of those services, they do additional things in addition to the pixel tracking that like something out of the box from Shopify or Meta just wouldn't do. So they have some like user fingerprinting technologies and things like that they add to the mix that do enhance and enrich your data.
So they're good tools and they do some good things. I would say you'd probably, and there's no like arbitrary line on this. I think you'd wanna be at a certain level of traffic and volume and revenue before the incremental lift that those solutions provide would be tangible and worth it. They do bring some tech kind of load and implementation and maintenance and upkeep with them that I just think smaller, like lower traffic, volume revenue stores and brands wouldn't necessarily need.
We actually did a write-up on this a while ago on the Foxwell Founders blog, but essentially if you're a smaller store on Shopify, the built-in free integration does a pretty good job. Is it a like 100% chef's kiss, like completely dialed in setup? No, but it like, it gets you, I'd say a majority of the way there. And then of course, if you're like, like with most things, if you get to a really high traffic and volume and revenue situation where
incremental lifts can make a big impact on your data and your bottom line, then I think those tools play more of a role. So I think to your point Edwin, it's more about kind of where you are and at what level, but they do some good things in addition to that base tracking, but probably makes more sense if you're, and like I said, there's no like set line on that, but if you're a higher volume revenue store, then I think it would make sense to do something like that.
Tris Dyer (03:06.41)
What kind of stuff then, Brad, just to go into that, what specifically are we talking? Are we saying like, what type of cohorts? Like, what are they passing that the normal Shopify integration isn't?
Edwin @ Snappic (03:07.118)
So.
Brett Fish (03:17.406)
Yeah, they can be more aggressive and deliberate in capturing the FBC parameter, which is the click ID parameter. When you view an ad on Meta on Facebook or Instagram and you click through to a website, just like with UTMs, they append all kinds of data to your URLs and everything. And so they can be more aggressive and more deliberate in their code in capturing the Facebook click ID parameter.
Edwin @ Snappic (03:25.548)
Oh yeah.
Brett Fish (03:43.81)
They do some things with user fingerprinting where if you're like a user comes in and like goes through your funnel And then later comes in through another channel like they can capture some of that user PII So for example if a user comes to your website and clicks it like goes to a product detail page You don't have their name their email their phone number any data like that They haven't submitted that to you until probably they go all the way through and make a conversion. Well
Edwin @ Snappic (04:09.378)
Yep.
Brett Fish (04:09.502)
these services kind of install on your store and will capture and store that data. So if a user comes in later and they're in those upper funnel events and you have their data already, it'll match that data up. So you'll see improved match rates on upper funnel events like view content, add to cart. Like I said, like these aren't like seismic shifts. Like with a Shopify integration, you're still capturing purchases and purchase data and all that. But.
it enriches your data throughout the funnel more. And there's probably a lot of other things they do that I'm not totally up on their current deal with, but especially when it comes to like meta-tracking, those are some of the benefits. So it's usually more like, you're not gonna capture more purchases, you're not gonna capture more purchase data necessarily, but throughout your funnel, it can enrich the data with some of the additional things that they've engineered specifically to squeeze every drop out of the data.
So they do some good things in those regards, which is why usually the benefit is more incremental and usually more beneficial and realized if you're a higher volume or revenue store where those things can make a difference.
Edwin @ Snappic (05:18.806)
So I'm going to pin you on this one, Brett. Tell me incrementally, what is the incremental lift that you are generally seeing? Are we talking like 10%, 15%, like just ballpark? Are we talking 10 to 15%, is it 20%, is it 30%? Like what is generally the incrementality that you're ballpark seeing?
Brett Fish (05:26.51)
Oh man.
Brett Fish (05:38.886)
Okay, so I, with apologies in advance, if this is, cause this will be public, and so my friends at Elevar and some of these other shops, I don't want them to get up side with me. I would say from our experience, the incremental lift is somewhere usually like under 10, like seven to nine percent-ish. And it's hard to quantify honestly, Evan, because like, if someone like, how much does increasing the match rate on your view content event like?
Edwin @ Snappic (05:48.814)
way.
Edwin @ Snappic (05:54.423)
Okay.
Tris Dyer (05:58.306)
Mm-hmm.
Brett Fish (06:07.546)
Like like give you a boost right? It's it's a little hard, but i'd say it's more that level of incremental than like above that so Like for example meta says if you implement cappy if you don't have cappy in server tracking With your pixel if you implement that you're seeing like an 8 to 13 percent lift they like more quantify it. I'd say It would be on the like on the single digits of the incremental lift But when you're if you're a massive, you know If you're doing a ton of volume and revenue and you have a lot of people coming through
that incremental can be tangible and be super beneficial. And they might wanna correct me on that. They're more than happy to chime in on any of these and like correct me on what we see. That's just what we see anecdotally with the clients that we work with.
Tris Dyer (06:39.518)
Change the game. Yeah.
Tris Dyer (06:50.723)
Sure. And then so like, I'm sorry, I don't go on.
Edwin @ Snappic (06:50.97)
So basically if. So, so basically, if, if you're retargeting campaign, if, if like a 15% increase in purchase conversion value on your retargeting campaign will noticeably affect your bottom line, then, or a 15% increase in spend, then, then these softwares are worth it basically is what you're saying, because that's basically what it's for, right? Increased match rate on view content. That's basically what it's for. For.
for your retargeting campaigns if you're running them.
Brett Fish (07:24.53)
Yeah, I'd say that and then just, you know, like we were actually having a conversation about it in the Foxwell Founders Slack today with one of the members about, you know, let's say you don't have anything set up and you don't have server tracking set up and you're not just gonna use the Shopify, you know, built-in Facebook and Instagram app integration to do that. And you wanna get it all in place and you don't know. Like something like Elivar is a good solution because...
You pay them, they'll set you up with Pixel and server tracking via Google Tag Manager and take care of all that implementation. So excuse me, there is value there as well. It's not simply just on the Lyft. There's some actual infrastructure benefit. But that can also be accomplished without a paid service like that. So just to be totally objective, like,
That's where I see the most value with their services, but it is a situation where, hey, I wanna get server tracking in place. Something like Elavar, they do set up a really robust data connection. So it's like, I want that. So there's value in that with those services as well.
Tris Dyer (08:30.134)
Mm hmm. And so if we're talking, talking specifically, then, like when it comes to the perfect set up, say we've got Brettfish.com and you sell the coolest sneakers around and, you know, we're selling a couple hundred a day and things are going well. It's fantastic. What's your perfect set up? What's your if you're if you're saying like our server, our tracking pixel, everything is set up rock solid. What am I looking for when I look in there?
Edwin @ Snappic (08:30.732)
Okay.
Brett Fish (08:56.998)
Yeah, so if you go into a Facebook events manager or meta events manager, that's where we always look to start because that's going to show you what data meta is receiving regardless of what anything else says at browser plug-in, whatever anything else says, that's what meta is going to show you is what they're receiving. So what we want to see when we go in there is we want to see that we're getting data from both the pixel and the server side.
A multiple redundant setup is what's considered best practice. Um, we want to see that. We want to see that the correlation.
Tris Dyer (09:34.11)
Sorry, what's a multiple redundant? What's that? What? You just mentioned something there redundant setup. What's that?
Brett Fish (09:38.422)
Sure, sure. So the way that it works now is what Meta recommends is that you are sending all of your events back both via the Pixel and via server side, which they call CAPI. CAPI is there, like TikTok calls it EAPI, but server side tracking. And the way it works is for every event, so let's say I go on your website and I make a purchase, we're gonna send a Pixel event for that purchase via JavaScript on your site, and we're gonna send a server event for that same event back to Meta.
The key in that is in the setup, because what we do is we append an event ID to each of those events. That's like a completely unique number string. So what Meta gets on their end is, hey, we got this pixel purchase event at 10 a.m. and we got this server purchase event at 10 a.m. and they have matching event IDs. Cool, that's the same event. We're going to deduplicate those. And Meta will always favor and keep the pixel event and discard the server event in a deduplication.
So that way we assure that we're not double counting conversions. And that redundant setup is what's ideal because with the pixel, the pixel can be disrupted by a ton of things like browser errors, ad blockers, JavaScript blockers, all sorts of stuff can happen with the pixel. So if for some reason we don't get that pixel event, the server event still comes through and that makes sure we capture that event and that conversion and that data. But if they both come through.
then it will keep the pixel event, discard the server event. So that's why we wanna see that redundant setup. And what I mentioned earlier is, you know, Meta's guidance on that is, you'll see anywhere from an eight to 13%, usually lift if you have that server tracking in place, you're capturing that many more events, which, you know, when we're talking about like optimization, so you're getting around maybe 10% more like conversions for them to optimize toward and learn about. For agencies,
in reporting, if you can show 10% higher lift in the conversions you're driving, that can be the difference between, you know, blah results and like pretty good results and things like that. So it is valuable to have in place. So that's one of the main things we look at. And then at that same time, are those deduplicating correctly? Are they coming in correctly so that we're not overcounting or creating any issues with our, our attribution and reporting.
Tris Dyer (11:58.31)
And as you say, deduplication there, is there something in the ads manager that's doing that for you? Or have you got something in your tool that will tell about deduplication?
Brett Fish (12:08.394)
So Meta does that within their platform, within Events Manager. So what we do look at is, it's a little abstract when you're not looking at it, but in Events Manager, if you go to your Events Manager, there'll be a list of all the events on the main tab that are coming in. You can click into any of those events, and there should be two line graphs that are showing the pixel events coming in and the server events coming in. What we look for is that those lines are tightly correlated. We don't want to see pixel events way over here and server events way over here.
Tris Dyer (12:22.561)
I know it.
Brett Fish (12:36.83)
they should follow the same flow, and that there should always be equal to or greater number of server events than pixel events. In an ideal setup, you should never have more pixel events than server events. That should not be possible on a technical level. There are some nuances to that. So let's say on like your page view event, if you have a bunch of landing pages where you don't have server events set up, sure, you might have more like page view pixel events than server events.
Tris Dyer (12:46.326)
Mm-hmm.
Brett Fish (13:03.742)
But for something like an add to cart or a purchase or down funnel events like that, you should always have as many or greater number of server events than pixel events in a correct technical setup. So those are just some of the quick things that we look at, visual that anyone can go into events manager and look at to determine like, does this look correct? Is this tracking like we'd expect it to or is there an obvious Delta or issue there where it looks like it's not deduplicating? We're getting way more pixel events than server events.
The common one that we see when we're brought in on pixel auditing and troubleshooting the most often is they have a core tracking setup either through an integration or GTM or something like that, but then Too many cooks in the kitchen over time. Whatever it is. They have additional events implemented in other places whether that's tag manager or in their theme code or In the meta event setup tool or something like that are also firing events
So they're getting over counting and over reporting and things like that because they have their tracking set up in a few places. That's one of the things we identify because we'll see, Oh, we have a ton of pixel events more than server events. That shouldn't be happening. We need to find where there's a coming from and root those out and fix those.
Tris Dyer (14:14.614)
Mm-hmm. Makes a lot of sense. Makes a ton of sense. And you mentioned there just real briefly before we go on, you mentioned there about having TikTok, their server-side tracking as well. Is there much of a difference in terms of the implementation of TikTok server-side tracking versus meta?
Brett Fish (14:32.29)
At its heart, very, very similar. I dare to say that TikTok's tracking implementation is strikingly similar to Meta's and it's interesting, that's interesting how they got there. But no, at its core it's the same. A little while ago, TikTok added to their Shopify app, they added server-side tracking as well. So like if you're on Shopify and you install the TikTok app, you will get Pixel and Server, just like with Meta.
Edwin @ Snappic (14:43.874)
I wonder why.
Brett Fish (14:58.982)
But if we're setting it up via any like via Google Tag Manager or something It's the same general premise where you have pixel events and server events and they deduplicate And they're set up in generally the same way There's some slight nuances on the tick-tock side that wouldn't affect the day-to-day user But like they use a complete payment event as opposed to a purchase There's some like nuance in things like that, but the general structure of it is the same
Tris Dyer (15:25.976)
super interesting.
Edwin @ Snappic (15:26.07)
So, it doesn't happen often, but when it does, it is the worst thing ever, which is duplicate purchase events. So, if you think you suspect that you have duplications on the purchase, where are you looking?
Brett Fish (15:42.278)
Absolutely. So the first thing I would do always, and this is one of my, it shows how much we geek out on this, but one of my favorite things to do is run an event test in Meta. So if you go into Meta Events Manager, there's some tabs, and the second tab is Test Events. And what you can do is go in there and test your Pixel and your server events. The server events are a little more tricky because you have to put in a test code and do some things, but on the browser side, you can essentially just open your site and go through your funnel.
Edwin @ Snappic (15:52.982)
Okay.
Brett Fish (16:11.442)
And Meadow will show you every event that's coming in, all the parameters that are coming in. So is it passing product name and price and value and like all those things that you want with it. And you can go through your whole funnel. So that's always the first thing I recommend is go through your site, go through like your normal customer conversion funnel in test events with test events tab open, see what comes in. Because if you are getting a duplicate purchase, it'll show up. You'll see like.
Oh, I'm getting a purchase that has a, there's event IDs, it'll show if they have event IDs. Oh, it has an SH event ID. That means that one's coming from that Shopify app integration. But I have another purchase event that's coming in that doesn't have an event ID. That's coming from somewhere else. That's a duplicate, I don't want that. So the testing of events is usually the first place we look. And then once we've identified, we try to get some clues about where that's potentially coming from. Usually the usual suspects are either,
Google Tag Manager, some rogue Google Tag Manager container that got installed on your website three years ago by an intern and no one knows it's there. Code thrown into your theme files actually on your website, like in your Shopify theme codes or stuff like that, or through the Meta Event Setup Tool, which Edwin knows he saw my presentation in Santa Barbara, but I call it the silent killer because Meta has their codeless event setup tool in the settings of Event Manager where...
you can add events to your site, as long as the pixel's on the site, you can add events on like button clicks and things like that, but it's no code. So you can comb through website code and JavaScript and you're like, where is this coming from? And it's coming from event setup tool. So that's somewhere we always check to, but those are like the usual suspects, but yeah, we'd run an event test to confirm that there is a double fire when we go through the funnel and then kind of hopefully get clues from there and then start checking all those channels of like, where could this additional event be coming from?
Edwin @ Snappic (17:37.39)
Thank you.
Tris Dyer (18:06.016)
of that.
Edwin @ Snappic (18:06.022)
So you mentioned that if I see an SH on the event ID, that's Shopify, right? So are there other tells, like for example, if it's Google Tag Manager, or if it's coming from the Facebook events, like setup, like are there other tells that will tell you like, hey, this one is from a Google Tag Manager.
Brett Fish (18:25.706)
There's nothing specific that'll tell you if it's coming from Google Tag Manager. There is a column when you're testing events that'll say it's coming from manual setup or partner integration. There's a column there for that. That's one thing you can look at. Now that gets tricky because I think technically Google Tag Manager can be both manual or partner because Google Tag Manager is a partner. So if you have Google Tag Manager selected, it'll say partner integration.
But yeah, on the event IDs, the main tell is that SH. So if you're using that Facebook and Instagram, Shopify app at all, any events that come in from that app will have an event ID in them. And there's a column for that in the test that says event ID, so it's easy to see. But those will always start with an SH preface. So like that's, or prefix, that's an easy tell that that's coming from the app. So when we're troubleshooting, a lot of times they're using the app, but there's additional events coming from somewhere else.
that makes it easier for us to identify, okay, that's from Shopify, this one's coming from somewhere else. Other than that, there's not a lot of tells other than sometimes you can see, oh, this is coming. Sometimes where there's like a partner, that manual thing, it'll say like from event setup tool, if you're doing testing. I think that's still there, they change stuff on that all the time, but at one point it did show like, oh, this is coming from event setup tool. So there are some clues that can be had.
You know, the other thing that we'll do is, let's say on a purchase that one, like you mentioned, like we see a double fire, but we don't know where that double fire is. We will first check event setup tool and make sure it's not in there. Like, and we'll rule that out immediately. Cause that's pretty quick. Then we'll go to the site, the site, the actual pages, uh, code, and we will look for the pixel ID. We'll search some things in the code just to see if it's hard coded anywhere. And then as a third step, we'll see is Google tag manager or another tag solution.
present that could be because you know Google Tag Manager, it'll show that Google Tag Manager's on the page It won't show that like any of the code it's loading through Google Tag Manager But we'll at least get a clue of like hey, there is a Google Tag Manager container on this site There could be something in there. Let's dig deeper So that would be our like our usual like steps in process and then it can get way more crazy and like detailed and we sometimes have to do crazy digging to actually find this stuff, but I'd say like
Brett Fish (20:51.196)
80% probably of the situations live somewhere in those steps.
Tris Dyer (20:56.482)
Nice, nice. That's a detailed step-by-step guide. I think it was kind of in detail for sure.
Edwin @ Snappic (20:56.578)
Mm-hmm.
Brett Fish (21:02.19)
And Tris, shameless plug, if you are in the founders group, Edwin and I were at the meetup in Santa Barbara. We did a presentation on our, we called our 10 minute meta pixel audit, which is like a condensed turbocharged version of the audits that we do at Tag Hero for clients. So that has like detailed screenshot slides of walking through a whole pixel audit and like how to identify issues. If you're not a member of the founders group,
might want to sign up and check that out. So there you go.
Tris Dyer (21:33.73)
I was going to ask, is that something you've already talked about? But yeah, I think it's just, I mean, just go, that kind of leads me on to that question is like, you know, with the founders group, obviously you've talked about this at length, you've gone through a lot of this in detail in the meetups, but also within the group, you know, what do you get from the group? What do you find just generally like, you know, is it something that you've found to be helpful for you in your day to day in running an agency essentially?
Brett Fish (21:59.198)
Um, a hundred percent. And I want to not come off as too strong of a fanboy, but the group has been amazing. Um, I think Andrew does. Probably better job than anyone I've ever seen as far as like leading that in groups that I've been a part of, as far as curating the group, um, making an outstanding experience. Um, you know, especially during like COVID time, the group was quintessential for me. Um, when we felt kind of like.
disconnected and discombobulated, just connecting with others. I've been so impressed from day one on the quality of people there. And also the willingness to share, still to this day blows me away. There are some of the top minds, people you follow on Twitter that you think of as thought leaders in our space, are in the group sharing what's working for them, answering questions, including you two gentlemen who, but there's some amazing people in the group
nature is amazing. Like prior to the Foxwell group I was in a lot of Facebook groups and things like that and there would be occasionally be good information shared in there but I'm ongoing astounded at the value and the level of information that's just readily being shared in the group. It's been one of the best things I've ever signed up for and done. I get so much value out of it. Yeah I can't speak highly enough.
Tris Dyer (23:20.402)
Absolutely, yeah. I would, I would definitely second that. We wouldn't have met someone like you. I did not before that group. So it's, um, likewise with, uh, with Edwin, I think the three or three of us, I think we, we met in the group and we're so happy for it. So that's, that's absolutely fantastic. Listen, I just want to, uh, like just lastly, I want to kind of quickly just you say, you know, the, the go-to, uh, you're saying is event, the event debugger, the event, uh, the vent, um, tool in, in Facebook. So.
Brett Fish (23:29.278)
Same here, yeah.
Brett Fish (23:36.022)
for sure.
Tris Dyer (23:48.406)
When you're implementing anything, I suppose you're first, you're like when you're starting up a store, you're making sure you're putting in your, using the native integration within Shopify, you're getting your copy with that on both sides. And I think, was it EPI you called it for TikTok? Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Brett Fish (24:04.658)
Yeah, yeah, they call it their EAPI, which is just their name for their server tracking. Same thing, yep.
Tris Dyer (24:10.014)
Yeah, and then so then with Google, is there anything in particular that you'd run with Google that you would say that is something we need to watch out for that's any different to say any social tracking?
Brett Fish (24:21.322)
Uh, so Google's added some things recently and admittedly I'm not like a hundred percent up on like consent mode version two and some of the newer stuff. Um, Google has added some things. So, um, I know my, our Google, uh, tracking engineer is a huge fan of their enhanced conversions functionality, which has been added more recently, which is essentially the equivalent on Meta of what Meta calls their advanced matching, which is passing back user parameters alongside events to help.
Tris Dyer (24:46.295)
Hmm.
Brett Fish (24:50.25)
match the activities on the platform. So if myself, Brett Fish, if I click on an ad and I go to your site and I buy something, well, if I send back that purchase event, but it also has my first name, my last name, my email, my phone number, all those things, Meta can take all those user parameters and better match that action to users on their platform, which is that EMQ score that you'll see in the Meta Events Manager, which is a qualitative score of like, how good is the data that we're getting?
Tris Dyer (25:16.04)
Mm.
Brett Fish (25:19.402)
that allows us to match what's happening on your website back to users on our platform, which helps with attribution and reporting and all that kind of good stuff. So on the Google side, enhanced conversions, and then Google ads and stuff also has server-side tracking. I mean, most of these platforms that you'll see, even LinkedIn has introduced server-side tracking. It's still early with that if you do LinkedIn, but what you'll see is as privacy continues to become...
or continues to be a priority with all of this as cookie deprecation continues to move in as third-party cookies are deprecated, that server-side tracking's gonna be more and more important. It's really funny, actually. Meta introduced, or Facebook introduced Cappy years ago, but it was like, for down funnel events, like if you ran an auto dealership, you could run an ad, and then when you sold a car, you could upload an offline event.
That's really what CAPI is. So it's really interesting to see how quickly and prominently it's come to the forefront as a essential best practice. But with Google, I'd say, you know, probably your normal Google tracking and then making sure you're using enhanced conversions as well as you're using server-side tracking. As far as I know, right now you still have to use, GA4 is involved with server-side tracking when you're doing Google Ads and Google Tag Manager.
Edwin @ Snappic (26:44.023)
Yeah.
Brett Fish (26:45.062)
and in server-side tracking, you still have to run it through GA4. But those are the things that are probably at the forefront. If you're running like Google advertising would be enhanced conversion, server-side tracking, essentially with all these platforms, we're just trying to send back as much data that they can use as possible to maximize our signals, to let them do what they do best. That's kind of the overarching premise. So those would be the things on the Google side that if you don't have in place.
Tris Dyer (27:01.994)
and see ya.
Brett Fish (27:12.958)
And then consent mode is a whole nother thing that's kind of seems like it's coming for all of us. Like I said, I'm not a super expert on that yet, but there are some elements of how are you triggering tracking based on user consent to tracking and cookies and banners and stuff on your site. And so, you know, probably not as huge of a deal for like smaller stores and businesses, but for larger ones, you probably wanna make sure you start looking into consent mode and making sure all your.
Edwin @ Snappic (27:27.106)
Oh, yeah.
Brett Fish (27:41.162)
T's are crossed and I's are dotted on that so you don't get hung up with any issues down the line.
Tris Dyer (27:46.05)
or join the Foxwell Founders Group and you'll find out even more as it happens. Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (27:46.531)
So.
Brett Fish (27:50.52)
Exactly.
Edwin @ Snappic (27:52.219)
So can I ask, I just want to ask one more question because this, this session is, it's been so good with just like, cause there's so much mystery around pixel and like pixel tracking and etch and all this stuff. So what would you say? So I've had it happen to me before. Someone was on their LinkedIn and they're scrolling and they got one of these headlines. Like if you don't have your own first party pixel.
it's over or like you are not doing it right. Right. And if you are a Shopify store owner, what do you have to say to something like that?
Brett Fish (28:30.062)
I'd probably go back to kind of what we talked about at the beginning, where are you at and what makes sense? You know, if you're a smaller store, just getting started, I don't think you need a lot of bells and whistles. You know, there are some tools out there, like I know very smart people that, you know, for their stores, you something like the triple whale pixel cause it's first party or North beam and things like that. And their debate has raged on for years of like,
how do you use those data points to make decisions? Because it's not necessarily the data that the platforms are getting. That's just the data that, you know, this third party platform is getting. So like a triple whale, for example, like their pixel, Meta's not getting that data. You can see it and you can make decisions off it, but that's not what Meta is getting and optimizing towards. So how valuable is it? I would kind of go back to my original answer, which is if you're smaller or starting out, the free immigration solutions are like,
As much technical manual work that we do, I'm still a huge fan of these platform integrations, wherever they make sense. They're quick, they're easy. You don't have to pay server costs or anything. They cover those. So there's a lot of good things about them. Like anything else with a business or a brand, if you get to a certain point where you're doing a lot of business and you're doing a volume and you're like, hey, how can we get even more out of this when it makes sense to maybe make some investment or some spend into...
signals and things, then I think it's worth it as looking at some of these other third-party tools and solutions. I think some of the doomsday stuff, Edwin, is kinda, I don't buy into all of that, any of the doomsday stuff. I've read a ton of doomsday stuff about cookie deprecation and a bunch of other stuff, like, oh, it's over for all of us. Forget advertising, it's done. And it's like, well, no, not really. Google and Meta are actually using first-party and third-party cookies.
They're working, I know Meta, right now it's in beta, but they're actually working on their own first party pixel that's not a third party pixel. There's all these things that are happening. So in general, I don't buy in any of the doomsday stuff or the kind of ultimatum of, if you're not doing this, you're hosed. Sure, there are some things you can do to improve your signals if you're willing to pay for them. Some of these tools will add enrichment and enhancement, but it's not like if you're not using them that you're...
Brett Fish (30:52.102)
you know, you're getting left behind or it's an absolute wasteland. I don't necessarily buy into that because I think those free tools, those native tools do a pretty good job. And then of course, when you're ready to graduate to something else, you know, it's definitely an option.
Tris Dyer (31:08.766)
Jesus, that is, so I put markers on the, like when we're going through this, I put like tags on stuff and normally I'm like, you know, 10, maybe 15. I got like 36 clips. So it's a ton of value right there, right? So we are pumping it out. But yeah, thank you so much for this, Brett. It's been absolutely like eye opening. It turns out I know fuck all.
Edwin @ Snappic (31:10.158)
Cool.
Brett Fish (31:21.65)
Excellent.
Edwin @ Snappic (31:35.67)
So we're gonna outro. I'll outro and then at the end I say hi my names or see you guys my name is Edwin then Tris will be like hi my name is Tris then you then you just say how my name is Brett and then after you say ciao and then I'll say I'll see you guys on the next one. Okay. All right. Let's do it. Ready? All right guys.
Tris Dyer (31:49.738)
Don't say hi.
Yeah.
Edwin @ Snappic (32:01.554)
We pulled back the curtain. We exposed a bunch of those doomsday myths. Brett told you how it is. Straight shooting, no sauce. I mean, sorry. All right, sorry. We'll rewind it. All right. Hey guys, we talked. Hey guys, we talked about a bunch of stuff today. We pulled back the curtain. We busted a bunch of myths. Brett gave it to a straight no chaser. My name's Edwin.
Tris Dyer (32:15.775)
Right, again, again.
Brett Fish (32:18.122)
Do great.
Edwin @ Snappic (32:33.672)
Oh, no?
Tris Dyer (32:33.89)
Nope. Nope, all we got was... I think you're... Well, sorry, that's all I got. So all I got was, it got straight and then it just went blank for me. Is that just me, Brett, or is that...
Edwin @ Snappic (32:39.147)
Oh.
Edwin @ Snappic (32:42.981)
Oh, okay.
Edwin @ Snappic (32:48.438)
Oh. Okay, okay.
Brett Fish (32:49.386)
There was a bit of a delay. I've seen that before with Riverside, but we can try again.
Tris Dyer (32:54.599)
Yeah, let's try a third time.
Edwin @ Snappic (32:56.123)
I'll run again, okay. All right, guys, we got a ton of value today. We pulled back the curtain, we busted a bunch of myths. Brett gave it to a straight no chaser. My name is Edwin.
Tris Dyer (32:58.09)
Yeah, okay, go.
Tris Dyer (33:08.842)
I'm Triss.
Brett Fish (33:10.174)
Brett.
Edwin @ Snappic (33:11.714)
We'll see you on the next one. OK.
Tris Dyer (33:13.578)
Peace out.