Set up your 2-in-1 pixel
Whence works from one piece of code on your store, the 2-in-1 pixel. It records each visit, so you can replay it, and it sends your sales and checkout steps to Meta, Google Ads, TikTok and your other ad platforms from the server, with your visitors’ marketing consent.
The Set up your 2-in-1 pixel guide takes you there in four steps. Only the first one is required. Plan on about 5 minutes if your ad pixels are already on your store.
At the top you see the four steps, each marked Required, Optional, Done or Skipped. Whence checks each step against what really happened (a visit received, a platform connected, a test accepted), so you can leave and come back: the guide reopens on the first step that is neither done nor skipped, with Picking up where you left off. Skipped steps are remembered in your browser only.
Step 1: Open the guide
The guide opens by itself the first time you land on Home, once per store, as long as Whence is not installed or no ad platform is connected.
To reopen it later, use the Welcome to Whence checklist on Home: step Connect your ad platforms, button Connect. The Conversions card on Home also has a Connect your ad platforms button while no platform is set up.
In the Whence app inside your Shopify admin, the same guide sits at the top of the app page until you finish it. Close the guide hides it.
Step 2: Install Whence
This step is required, and the other three stay locked until it is done.
- On Shopify, click Open the theme editor (1). Your live theme opens with the Whence app embed already selected: click Save in the theme editor.
- Anywhere else, click Open the install guide. The Install screen opens with the block to paste or the plugin for your platform. See Install guides by platform.
Then open your store in a new tab and click Check again (2).
The line under the step reads Waiting for the first visit. Open your store in a new tab, then check again. until Whence receives a visit, then Whence received your store’s first visit.
Step 3: Find the pixels already on your store
Open step 2, Connect your ad platforms, and click Find my pixels.
Whence reads your store’s public home page (Reading your store’s home page) and looks for the ad pixels already installed there: Meta, Google Ads, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, Microsoft Advertising, Reddit, Taboola and Klaviyo.
If the search finds nothing, one of these messages appears:
| Message | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| No ad pixel found on your home page. You can still add a platform by hand. | Nothing recognizable in the page code. | Click Add another platform. |
| Your store is password protected, so Whence can’t read its pixels. Remove the password, or add a platform by hand. | The storefront password page blocks the search. | Remove the password, then click Scan again. |
| Whence couldn’t open your store’s home page. You can add a platform by hand. | The page did not answer in time, or refused. | Try Scan again a little later. |
| Whence doesn’t know your store’s address yet. Add a platform by hand. | Your store has no domain on file in Whence yet. | Click Add another platform. |
Step 4: Paste the missing key and connect
Each pixel found gets a card with its ID already filled in (1), for example Found: Pixel ID followed by the number.
- Paste what Whence cannot read on a public page, usually the platform’s secret access token (2). Where to find it opens the platform’s own page for that key.
- Click Connect Meta (3), or the button with the name of that platform.
The card then shows Meta is connected., or Already connected if you had set it up before.
- Google Ads has no key to paste: it connects with your Google account. Connect Google Ads takes you to Connections.
- Pinterest also asks for your ad account ID, which is not on your store’s pages.
- Also seen in your visits: lists platforms Whence saw in your visits but whose ID is not on your home page. Add those by hand.
- Add another platform opens the full Conversions screen for any platform the search did not find.
On a plan without sending, connecting a platform stops with Sending to ad platforms is included from the Connect plan.
Step 5: Check how consent is read
Whence sends events only with your visitors’ consent, read from your store’s own cookie banner: Your store’s banner (Whence reads the consent your current cookie banner collects). Whence does not show a banner of its own. Open consent settings takes you to the Consent block, which says what Whence found. Once it is set, the step shows Consent is set. More in Which cookie banner to use.
Step 6: Send a test to each platform
Open step 4, Send a test to each platform (1), and click Send the tests (2).
Whence sends one test event to every platform you turned on and shows each answer: Meta received the test., or Meta refused the test: followed by the platform’s reason. If no platform is connected yet, the step reads Connect a platform first (step 2), then come back to test it.
Next
- Check that everything works
- Connect Meta and the other ad platform guides
- On a store that is not on Shopify, purchases reach your ad platforms through the browser pixel.