Facebook Pixel – How to Verify Your Domain

I’ve been getting lots of emails from authors asking me to help them verify their domains with Facebook (following Apple’s iOS updates). In a nutshell, Apple changed the way their phones work. Users can now enable/disable tracking at the app level, so this greatly impacted Facebook and its pixel. This is NOT brand new information (Apple and Facebook have been talking about this for months), but I finally upgraded my phone software to that iOS version last week, so I figured I would share more information now in case you’ve yet to verify your domain names with Facebook.

Facebook (FB) Pixel Changes

Here’s what you need to know in a nutshell: If you don’t verify that you own the domain name(s) where your FB Pixel appears, your pixel will stop working.

There are two common scenarios for authors:

1- Authors advertise on Facebook and send people to their website. You need to verify that you own your domain name in order for your FB pixel to keep working/tracking stuff on your site.

2- Authors advertise on Facebook and send people to BookFunnel, where they have their FB Pixel. Obviously, you don’t own BookFunnel.com (unless you’re Damon. If so, hi Damon!), but there’s a work-around that you can follow to set up a CNAME like bf.penname.com and point it to dl.bookfunnel.com, and then you’ll be able to continue using your Facebook pixel on your BookFunnel delivery pages. You’ll find step-by-step instructions here:

https://authors.bookfunnel.com/help/add-a-facebook-pixel-to-your-page/

How to verify that you own your domain

Facebook makes it hard to provide step-by-step instructions because they keep changing their interface, so bear with me here. You’ll need to verify your domain here:

https://business.facebook.com/settings/owned-domains/

(This link will probably direct you to your login or account-selection page, but should then redirect you to the correct page.)

If the link was useless to you, then try to make your way to this screen, somewhere in your Facebook business settings:

If you don’t see your domain name there at all, then click “Add” (blue button in the middle column) and add it.

You then need to click on the UNVERIFIED domain name you wish to verify, then click on the Meta-tag Verification tab (that’s the easiest option for me to explain here; feel free to pick one of the other two options if you know how to do those, any of them will work):

For Parallax for Writers theme users:

If your WordPress site is running the Parallax for Writers theme, login, go to Options, and then copy and paste that meta tag (including the < brackets>) in the top tracking field. The exact “NAME” of that “Tracking Info” area will vary but should be something related to “Tracking” in some way. See the screenshot below for what it looks like, but it won’t be identical.

Expand the box and you’ll see a few fields. Chances are you’ll ALREADY HAVE SOMETHING in there. Don’t delete anything. Just include the new line either at the top OR at the bottom of what you already have in the first box. (Don’t interrupt whatever code you already have.)

Don’t worry about which box you put it in. If you see one for FB pixel, then add it there. If not, any of them should work anyway.

Then click the blue Update button to save your changes (top right) and skip to the “DON’T FORGET THE LAST STEP” section at the bottom of this email.

NOTE: If you’re running Wordfence, a pop-up may appear to prevent you from saving your changes. Wordfence may warn you about an unsafe action. If so, go through the whitelist process. That’s due to some javascript tracking code entered elsewhere, there’s nothing dangerous about it.

For Elementor for Writers and WordPress sites running ANY OTHER theme:

You can use many plugins to add the meta-tag to your site.

Elementor for Writers theme users already have a plugin called “Head, Footer, and Post Injections,” but there are many plugins that do the same thing.

If you don’t have that plugin installed, go to Plugins and look for it by name, then install and activate.

Once that plugin is running, go to Settings -> Header and Footer

You can paste that meta code (including the <brackets>) in the area highlighted below:

Click the blue Save button.

Don’t forget the last step!

Once the meta tag verification code has been added to your WordPress site, clear your cache, if needed (if your site has a caching plugin, you’ll typically find a link in the top admin bar), then return to your Facebook business account.

Click the green “VERIFY” button, which is at the bottom of the Meta-tag Verification tab we were on earlier.

Your domain name should now appear as “VERIFIED.”

If you see other domain names, repeat the process, but remember that you need to OWN those domain names. For BookFunnel, in case you missed it in the section above, refer to the following page for instructions on how you can still use your FB pixel after following a few extra steps: