A common point of confusion: the Meta (Facebook) pixel's primary role is retargeting, not on-site event tracking. On-site behavioral events should be tracked through Google Analytics, with Facebook traffic attributed via UTM parameters.
When a user sees a Facebook ad, clicks through, and lands on the website, the pixel fires and records that this specific user arrived from Facebook. This creates an audience of known website visitors that can be used for retargeting — showing ads back to people who have already visited the site.
The pixel does not track on-site events. Clicks, video views, form submissions, and other behavioral events on the website are captured by Google Analytics (typically via Google Tag Manager), not the pixel.
Facebook traffic should be attributed in Google Analytics using UTM parameters appended to ad destination URLs. When configured correctly:
facebook / cpc or facebook / paid-social)Pixel events (configured in Facebook's Events Manager) are relevant when you want to track actions that happen on Facebook itself — for example, lead forms submitted natively within Facebook, or video views within the platform. For campaigns that send users directly to an external website, pixel events add little value over what GA already captures.
If you are auditing a client's tracking setup and find that Meta pixel events are not firing or are misconfigured, this is generally not a critical issue as long as:
The pixel in GTM should be verified as present and firing on page load, but elaborate pixel event configuration is typically unnecessary for standard direct-to-website campaigns.