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Someone who’s visited your site shows a level of intent that’s hard to find anywhere else. If you want to reach them on the open web, you’ll first need a pixel designed to capture their activity, followed by a platform that can turn that pixel data into information you can use.
Realize tackles both of those tasks in one platform. Below, you’ll find seven ways Realize can help with your pixel-based audience management, from initial setup to expanding your audiences across the open web, beyond search and social. It complements your existing solutions, including Google Tag Manager.
1. Install the Realize Pixel Your Way
Realize offers several ways to install its pixel on your website.
Choose the Installation Method That Fits Your Stack
If you’re using Google Tag Manager, Realize offers a ready-made template to help you install the pixel. WordPress and WooCommerce site owners can use plugins, while Shopify stores can use a dedicated app. Manual setup is also available.
Place a Base Pixel Sitewide and Add Event Pixels
The base pixel resides on every page of your website, monitoring activity in the background. On top of that, you can add event pixels for key actions such as purchases or signups, or define URL-based conversions in Realize, which don’t need event code. You can also attach revenue and currency values to each tracked event to make it easy to see what each conversion is worth.
Confirm Tracking With Pixel Status Labels
Realize attaches status labels to each pixel, so you can easily see what’s active.
2. Build Audiences Automatically and on Demand
Once tracking is in place, it’s time to turn site activity into audiences you can target.
Start With Auto-Built Pixel Audiences
Realize starts building audiences, such as “All Website Visits” and an audience for each conversion rule, based on the activity on your website. The result will be a retargeting pool that grows as visitors arrive.
Create “My” Audiences From URLs and Events
You can add precision to your targeting by building audiences from URL rules or tracked events. Popular groupings include product viewers, cart abandoners, and pricing-page visitors.
Set Up Events Without a Developer Using Codeless Conversions
Codeless Conversions makes it easy to define conversion events within your dashboard, without developer support.
3. Retarget at Every Funnel Stage
Realize lets you follow up with each visitor based on their drop-off point.
Re-Engage Visitors With Tailored Messaging
You can customize your messaging for past site visitors using Realize’s Pixel Audiences. A prospect who read a blog post needs a different approach from someone who left an item in a shopping cart.
Build Multi-Step Funnel Strategies
You can also retarget site visitors based on the specific pages they viewed. For example, you can use broader messaging for those who look at product categories, then move to product-specific creative for those who drill down to a particular item.
Use Dynamic Creative Optimization for Product-Level Retargeting
If you have a large catalog, dynamic creative optimization (DCO) can help you target users based on the products they’ve viewed. On Realize, DCO starts with a product feed integration and the pixel, set up with a DCO Account Manager.
4. Exclude to Reduce Waste
To avoid losing ad spend to the wrong prospects, you’ll need to know which people to leave out of your campaigns.
Exclude Users Who Already Converted
Realize can automatically leave out people who’ve already converted. That setting is on by default for the lead, registration, and app-install conversion categories, and you can turn it on for others.
Include or Exclude Pixel Audiences per Campaign
Each campaign lets you choose which Pixel Audiences to target or skip. For your prospecting campaigns, you might exclude recent site visitors, since those are exactly the users your retargeting campaigns go after.
Combine Segments With AND/OR/EXCLUDE Logic
Combined Audiences let you mix your Pixel Audiences with first-party and marketplace segments. AND, OR, and EXCLUDE logic lets you blend your targeting strategies, such as reaching cart abandoners on your customer relationship management system (CRM) list, while also skipping those who made a purchase in the last 30 days.
5. Expand Beyond Existing Visitors
While your current website visitors are a strong starting point, you’ll need to expand beyond them to scale your campaigns.
Find New Users With Predictive Audiences
Predictive Audiences look at your pixel conversions to find similar users who are likely to convert. They need a baseline of conversion data first, though (at least 100 conversions from your Realize campaign), so they work best once your pixel has been collecting events for a while.
Add CRM Lookalike in the US
In the US, CRM Lookalike offers another way to scale. It works alongside your pixel-based audiences to find prospects who resemble the customers you already have.
6. Validate and Monitor Data Quality
Realize gives you tools to check the quality of your data.
Check Events in Real Time
Using the Tracking Test Tool and the Pixel Helper Chrome extension, you can watch events as they happen.
Spot Issues Early With Event Activity
Event Activity shows your event trends over time. If something drops off or stops reporting, you can make adjustments before it impacts your audiences or weakens the signal that feeds your bids.
Measure Segment Performance With Audience Reporting
Audience Reporting shows results by segment, revealing which audiences drive conversions.
7. Privacy Compliance Built In
Realize is built to comply with major privacy regulations, and it gives you options for times when audience signals run thin.
A Pixel Built for Privacy Compliance
Realize is fully compliant with privacy regulations, including GDPR and CCPA, so you can build pixel audiences while respecting user privacy.
Pair Pixel Audiences With Contextual Targeting
When audience signals are limited, contextual targeting puts your ads next to relevant content. Combined with pixel data, this approach can keep your campaigns strong.
Key Takeaways
Realize’s pixel can be installed manually or through Google Tag Manager, Shopify, WordPress, or WooCommerce. You can launch quickly and set up custom segments through auto-built audiences, My Audiences, and Codeless Conversions. Control spend through exclusions and Combined Audiences, and extend beyond your current audiences using Predictive Audiences and CRM Lookalike (currently only available in the US). Built-in testing, monitoring, and privacy compliance help keep your data accurate and compliant.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What’s the difference between Realize and Google Tag Manager?
Teams use Google Tag Manager (GTM) to deploy, edit, and test tracking tags across a website without pushing new code every time tracking changes. Once the Realize pixel is in place via GTM, Realize activates that data to turn your site visitor behavior into audiences, exclusions, and conversion signals that inform bidding.
What’s the difference between Realize and Google Analytics + Enhanced Conversions?
GA4 groups your site visitors based on the actions they took, primarily for use in Google’s own ad products. Realize’s Pixel Audiences let you reach your site visitors across premium open-web publishers. These audiences can be extended to new users through Predictive Audiences. When you run both together, UTM parameters ensure Realize traffic shows up in your GA4 reports.
What’s the difference between Realize and Meta Pixel + Conversions API?
The Meta Pixel and Conversions API power targeting within Meta’s apps, while the Realize pixel handles measurement and audience signals for campaigns across the open web, and server-to-server (S2S) tracking adds conversions the pixel can’t see. Realize’s Combined Audiences can mix pixel, CRM, and marketplace segments in a single audience for more informed targeting. Realize’s server-to-server tracking also complements the pixel by reporting offline or CRM-based conversions.
