So, you’re an event manager. Cool job! Nowadays though, managing events requires a lot of time online. You aren’t just managing the event itself, but a lot of the work that happens before and after the event as well.
One of the other roles that you tend to take on is marketing, especially online. And of course, this means following market trends, analyzing your own event data, and making snazzy posts that will draw customers in.
Luckily for you, there are online services that can help streamline your work and make your life easier. Facebook Events Manager is one of those tools, designed to diagnose and analyze online trends and traffic.
What Is Facebook Events Manager?
As an events manager, we’re sure you know your way around online management tools. But just in case you don’t, we’re going to briefly explain what Facebook Events Manager is. Facebook Events Manager, also known as Meta Events Manager, is a built-in tool on Facebook that tracks interactions with your event page both on and off Facebook.
Facebook Events Manager works in tandem with other Meta tools like Facebook Ads Manager, Facebook Commerce Manager, the Facebook pixel, and Facebook SDK (Software Development Kit). All of these tools together increase the chances for your event to be seen by the public and help you track who is seeing your posts.
Seeing as Facebook Events Manager is an online ad-tracking software, we suggest using it in conjunction with Perfect Venue. Perfect Venue is an event management system that collates all your event planning into one place. As an event manager, keeping track of all the events you’ve got going on as well as the details involved can be a lot!
Oftentimes you are juggling different websites across platforms, clients are communicating with you via email, text, and calls, and it’s just confusing.
With Perfect Venue, all this information is stored in one place and is made accessible and easy for you to use. They even have email templates that can be batch-sent to clients. Talk about a time saver. Utilizing all this information will help you better understand who, how, and when to target the best audience for your events.
Setting up Facebook Events Manager for Your Event
Facebook Events Manager has a lot of tools. A lot. Before we jump into the article, we’re going to list them out and delve a bit deeper into them so that the article makes sense as we continue. A quick note before we go on: Facebook is also known as Meta, so if we use both words throughout this article please know that they are interchangeable.
We also want to point out that Facebook/Meta is constantly changing, and by the time you read this article, they may have switched things up a little bit. Regardless, you’ll find the basic information should stay the same, so carry on reading to learn how to navigate this online tool!
What Is a Facebook Event?
So you want to market your events, but what are these Facebook Events that we keep talking about? Well, Facebook Events aren’t actually events, per se. It’s rather a term used to describe actions that can be taken on the site. There are two different types of events:
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- Standard events: Standard events are exactly what they sound like. Made with pre-sets, they involve basic events such as “add to cart,” “find location,” and “subscribe,” just to name a few. These are often used for online shops. For example, someone might use it to see how many people are adding items to their cart but then not purchasing. As an event manager, this tool will help you with basic traffic, such as who is viewing content on your page. If you’re working with Perfect Venue, this is where you’ll be able to see who clicks on sign-up forms and track the engagement with your page features.
‍ - Conversions: Conversions are customizable, so this means you can add code to a specific feature. For custom conversions, you have to add code with Pixel Integrations.
How Does Facebook Events Manager Work?
The way that Facebook Events Manager works is that you link your event site (website, social media, even an Excel spreadsheet) to Meta and the system tracks the engagement with the event. There is an event setup tool and conversion events, and you can track user activity. But, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
This online tool is used to track ad performance, and we like to think of it as the command center for analytics. On your dashboard, you’ll have access to everything.
- Create and control your Pixels (code) and event tracking.
‍ - View data from online and offline sources.
‍ - Retarget ads.
‍ - Manage different accounts and events that go with them.
For example, you can set your ads to show up more frequently for certain demographics. Let’s use a hypothetical: every time someone clicks on the sign-up form to book an event through your venue but doesn’t click send. Your ads will retarget these profiles to make your event page with the booking form appear more frequently until they fill the form out.
Facebook Events Manager uses a coding system called Conversions API. API stands for Application Programming Interface – essentially, it allows your website to talk to the Facebook Events Manager and gather data.
How to Create Custom Conversions/Events
Okay! Let’s get into the juicy bits now. When we talk about marketing events on Facebook, these are usually for offline events that you will be managing. Of course, you need to market any sort of event and track the attention and demographics of the online presence. With Facebook Events Manager you can create ads for your event and then track the event data.
Below, we’re going to outline the steps that you need to go through to set up your Facebook Events Manager. Once these steps are done, then you can move on to creating event pages.
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- First things first, you go onto the Meta homepage/suite and find the Events Manager tab. Once you’ve clicked on this tab, you’ll be taken to that dashboard that includes all your analytics for your page. Â
‍ - On this dashboard, you want to find and click the tab that says Connect Data Sources. From here you have a few options for what type of data sources you can connect.
‍ - If you’re using an online event management system like Perfect Venue, you can use the website as your data source. You can also use your venue location, or social media to do so. Remember, the site that you want to connect to will be the one with traffic. Aka you want to be able to track the performance of the website you connect to. From here, follow the steps to complete the connections, and bam! You have installed your Conversions API.
‍ - Once you’ve set this up, you can then create Facebook conversion events. You can link appointments, make phone calls, and even make custom conversions.
‍ - After you’ve set up your conversion events, you’ll want to test them. What’s easy about this, is that you can run test events through the website on a phone. This step is crucial, as it helps iron out any coding mistakes or errors that could appear.
So now what? Well, with all of this connected, you’ll be able to view event activity and see how many people are clicking on the event. In using this feature we have to hope that you are marketing your event on Facebook as well. Using this tool will help run diagnostics on who is clicking the adverts which leads to sales.
Promoting Your Event With Facebook's Marketing Tools
Now that you know how to use the tool, let’s get into how you can use it to your advantage.
How to Effectively Market Your Event
While Facebook has some amazing marketing tools, the one thing we couldn’t recommend more is taking a management course. We know you’re probably wondering how a management course is going to assist with marketing, so hear us out.
As an event manager, there are certain skills you need to have. Obviously, organization skills and communication come to mind but don’t forget about admin work as well. Being a good, no, the best event manager also means being a good marketer. Â
Once you’ve followed the steps above, you’ll want to monitor the diagnostics. Using the Event Diagnostics feature gives you real-time and accurate updates as your event marketing goes live. Combining this tool along with your management course skills will give you deeper insights into your diagnostics.
Utilizing Facebook Event Insights and Analytics
There are a bunch of different online tools that can track analytics. Why use Facebook Event Manager? Well, with this tool you have centralized management. This means that you can track all performance through the site, whether that’s online or offline traffic.
Because you have control over what site you want to input into the system, you have access to all the information on one site. Let’s say you manage events at a bar and you use a POS system. You can link this to your Meta Events Manager on top of it being linked to your online website.
Similarly, as Meta has access to so much of your information, you get much broader insights into your performance analytics. With targeted ads and a wide reach, your events are going to be promoted to the people who want to go to them.
One of the features that we really love about this tool is its access to information. Nowadays, most people have all their information online. By this, we namely mean email addresses and phone numbers. Your clients will likely need to give you this information, and from here it can automatically be linked to Meta.
This is known as advanced matching. You do have to manually turn this feature on, and we really suggest you do so. From your dashboard, go to your data set and find “settings.” You’ll find the “automatic advanced matching” feature and click it on.
As the information is all intertwined now, the targeted ads have a better chance of reaching your audience. Once the code has access to this information, it can reach larger audiences and get your conversions up. Not only does it target the clients that are already part of your system, but it can reach out to similar demographics.
Conclusion
Facebook Events Manager allows you to view almost every single insight that will help improve your business. The comprehensive analytics and data performance diagnosis alongside targeted ads work to best ensure that your events are being seen by as many people as possible.
Feeling ready to take on this new marketing aspect of your business? We hope so! We also want to remind you that using an online software system like Perfect Venue in tandem with Facebook Events Manager will vastly improve your managerial experience.
Much like the Meta manager, Perfect Venue also collates all your different events into one space. No more juggling different websites and losing track. With Perfect Venue, you can keep your events in one place but still have direct access to them. Don’t believe us? Check out this demo video for some helpful insights.
Now you’re ready to take on the world of online marketing! With the help of Perfect Venue, you’ll be smashing your next events. Try this 14-day free trial to get you started!
