Almost all of these platforms use a performance assessment measure to better indicate how each advertisement is performing against other ones. For example, Facebook Ads assigns a relevance scores to ads that show how well they’re doing against competing ads for the same audiences. Let’s dive into this measure and see how you could snatch a high score with your ads.
The history of Facebook’s ad quality ranking
Facebook used to provide advertisers with a single indicator that showed how much their audience finds their ads relevant. Known as “Ad Relevance Score”, this indicator was a number from 1 to 10. The higher you got, the more your intended audience have resonated with your ad. This system had several shortcomings and Facebook eventually ditched. The major issue with it was that beside a number, advertisers didn’t get any insightful data about the performance of their ads and which parts of them needed to get tweaked. Ad Relevance Score was only good to compare yourself against the competition, but that wasn’t enough at all.
Since 2019, We’ve got a whole new Facebook quality ranking factor system that’s much more extensive and actually useful. The new system is called “Ad Relevance Diagnostics”, and instead of relying on just a number, it provides advertisers with much more detail about the quality of their ads and how they could improve it. The addition of Ad Relevance Diagnostics ranking system was highly necessary because Facebook’s policies and approach to content curation has changed drastically in the recent years. The company now cares much more about displaying organic and paid content that its users find useful and relevant. Unfortunately for businesses, this new approach has led to a massive decline in organic reach, but at least now advertisers have a strong tool to help them create better ads and drive more engagement.
How does Ad Relevance Diagnostics work?
Facebook’s Ad Relevance Diagnostics measures how your ad performs across three dimensions of relevance:
- Quality Ranking: How your ad’s perceived quality compared to ads is competing for the same audience
- Engagement Rate Ranking: How your ad’s expected engagement rate is compared to ads competing for the same audience
- Conversion Rate Ranking: How your ad’s expected conversion rate is compared to ads with the same optimization goal competing for the same audience
These diagnostics have replaced the Ad Relevance Score in the Performance column in Facebook Ads Manager. Instead of a single estimate between 1 to 10, Facebook gives one of these five values to your ad for each ranking:
- Above Average
- Average
- Below Average (Bottom 35% of ads)
- Below Average (Bottom 20% of ads)
- Below Average (Bottom 10% of ads)
Similar to the relevance score, these ranks are given to an ad after it gains 500 impressions. The higher rank you get in each metric, the lower your CPC (cost-per-click) will be. Having an ad with good performance in each area also results in higher CTR (click-through rate) and ultimately, more ROI.
We should mention that this system is not always 100% accurate. Don’t panic if your ad has gotten a Below Average score in any of the aforementioned three areas. As long as it’s getting your desired results, there’s no need to worry about the scores. Another important thing to consider is the diagnostics you need to focus on. Improving an ad’s ranking from Below Average to Average is much more impactful than moving up from Average to Above Average. Let’s check out the possible scenarios of Ad Relevance Diagnostics:
If your ad has received…
- Below Average Quality Ranking but Average Engagement Rate and Conversion Rate rankings or above: The quality of your ad is perceived as low by viewers, even though you’ve chosen the right audience that is already interacting with it. To improve performance, you should improve ad copy and creative or include audiences that are more likely to find your ad high-quality.
- Below Average Conversion Rate Ranking but Average Quality and Engagement Rate rankings or above: The ad is not producing the conversions you’re bidding on. This means users may like your ad and even engage with it, but they don’t take the actions you want after clicking on your ad. You need to find a way to entice them to take that action by improving your CTA or landing page experience. Another solution would be targeting people who are more likely to convert. Bear in mind that some products like expensive accessories naturally achieve lower conversion rates, so make sure to check your business goals before applying any changes.
- Below Average Engagement Rate Ranking but Average Quality and Conversion Rate rankings or above: Your ad is not spurring enough interest and the audience is not interacting with it. To put it simply, the audience you reach with your ad doesn’t find it relevant. You either have to target a different audience or tweak your ad to make it more engaging.
Facebook Ads tips to improve Ad Relevance Diagnostics score
The following are some well-proven Facebook ad tips and tactics to boost the performance of your Facebook ads and achieve high scores in all of ARD’s relevance dimensions:
- Develop a well-thought-out Facebook advertising strategy before running campaigns. You should set clear goals for your paid presence on Facebook and have a clear understanding of your potential customers. Segment your audiences based on a customized marketing funnel and think about the best ways to reach them with your campaigns and drive them down the funnel.
- Avoid low-quality attributes when creating ads. Facebook strongly discourages advertisers on its platform from incorporating malpractices in their campaigns to boost performance. Withholding information, using sensationalized language, and using engagement baits will tank your scores and could even lead to rejection of your ads.
- Improve your post-click experiences. Most advertisers only focus on the quality of the ads themselves and ignore the fact that post-click experiences could decide whether or not a potential customer converts. Your landing page must be highly focused, include substantial and original content, and free of any possible confusion or misleading info.
- Take advantage of a Facebook ad spy tool. Ad spy tools are great for skipping the time-consuming and costly learning curve of Facebook ads and get inspiration from top advertisers and winning ads. You could check how top-performing advertisers are handling their campaigns, what creatives, copies, landing pages, and targeting properties they use, and what are the latest trends among Facebook advertisers. There are multiple powerful Facebook ad spy tools on the market, like AdFlex which provides extensive search filters and ad performance analytics.
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