Using Facebook Ad Relevancy To Improve Your Ad Strategy
Ads can make or break a marketing campaign. If not carefully thought out, what seemed like a great idea on paper could translate into a colossal failure once it has been implemented. They are a risky tool for your marketing strategy but a necessary one, especially when it comes to digital marketing. Facebook ads, in particular, have become a great way to test the waters and see how your consumers respond to your business.
Unfortunately, Facebook hasn’t always been the most user-friendly when it comes to creating effective ads. Luckily, just this year, Facebook has rolled out a new system, called relevance scores, for ensuring that your ads are reaching your target market. The best part: This new metric benefits not only your business but your consumers as well. The sooner you can understand how it works, the better chance for Facebook success in 2015.
Accessing Your Relevance Score
Below is a step-by-step list of how you can
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Go to your Ads Manager tab.
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Click the Reports link on the left menu.
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Click on Customize Columns.
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Check the Relevance Score box. There are other criteria you can check too. Facebook suggests that you check the Positive Feedback and Negative Feedback boxes as well.
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Click Apply.
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Once you’re back on the Reports page, click Level and then select Ad. Make sure that no delivery breakdown options are selected or your score will not appear.
How Relevance Scores Are Calculated
Facebook uses a scale from 1-10 when determining ad scores, with 10 being the highest. Ad scores are constantly being updated over time as user feedback is submitted. Like I stated in the introduction, an ad can go two ways. In other words, you can’t always expect to get a positive reaction from everything you do, and relevance scores take that into consideration. Below is a screenshot of a sample relevance score from the official Facebook announcement:
Negative Feedback
Obviously, your goal is for all feedback to be positive, but that’s not realistic. If you receive negative feedback from your audience Facebook will factor that into the score of that ad. Plain and simple, examples of negative feedback could be if Facebook thinks people will hide the ad or report it. I recommend visiting here to learn more about how to improve your relevance score if you keep getting negative feedback and aren’t sure why.
Positive Feedback
As you would expect, having positive feedback is the key to a higher relevance score. The factors that Facebook uses to determine if something is positive are not as cut-and-dry as the negative guidelines. Each ad is unique, so Facebook takes that into consideration when adjusting the score. In most cases, conversion and view counts are the metrics used, so if those numbers are high, you should expect a bump in your score.
Why Do Relevance Scores Matter To You?
So, why does this new system help you? Relevance scores are going to reinvigorate your social marketing strategy in drastic ways. These scores will save you money and expand and optimize your marketing campaign in three major ways:
The Higher Your Score The Less You Pay
This one is quite simple. If your ad score is high it won’t cost much to deliver it. The beauty of Facebooks delivery system is that your content will reach the people you need to reach. Having a higher score will only simplify that process. You may run into a case where you are competing for a target market with someone who also has a positive score. In that situation, it may come down to how much money you put into delivering the ad. This is particularly important for ecommerce companies, which you can learn more about here.
Try New Things
Relevance scores are still a new thing. The best way to fully understand how they work is to test them out. Try new things that you wouldn’t normally do–like changing up your content and graphics–to see what the results bring. The feedback you get might surprise you. This is a great way to learn what it takes to earn a positive relevance score.
Campaign Maintenance
If you’re already neck deep in a marketing campaign and you’re unsure of its effectiveness it might be time to check out your relevance score. If the score is low, you might want to reevaluate your game plan by altering your ad. A few simple tweaks is all it takes to transform a bad ad into a good one (for ideas about how to tweak your ads visit this page from The Miami SEO Company). Maybe your target audience is wrong or maybe the content/voice of your ad isn’t effective. These are things to keep in mind when you’re nurturing your struggling advertisements.
If you have ads with high scores, what qualities do they share? Maybe it’s the type of content or the graphics you’re implementing. If you have multiple ads that are in the 8, 9, or 10s, you’re obviously doing something right. Once you find out what the constants are, you can apply those factors to your struggling ads. Fluctuations in your scores are normal so don’t get too caught up in the numbers. Just keep an eye out for anything that seems to be consistently dropping.
Things To Keep In Mind
Relevance scores are a huge step forward for digital marketing. Facebook is constantly proving that it is a multi-faceted tool for online marketers and is constantly evolving, and relevance scores may be one of their best features for advertising. However, don’t let the numbers blind you. The score is extremely important and a great metric for gauging your ads success, but don’t forget the importance of bidding/cost. You might have an ad that is very successful, but the relevance score is abysmal. In that situation, don’t worry about the score.
A successful marketer will find a good balance between the cost of delivering an ad and its score. The insights gained from relevance scores can be extremely useful and serve as a critical tool in developing your marketing strategy. The simplified rating scale makes it really easy to gauge what needs to be improved or what needs to be sustained. If you’re currently debating if you should pursue Facebook advertising, there has never been a better time than now. The features the platform provides to marketers are unmatchable and it’s becoming easier and easier to take advantage of what they offer.
Keep in mind that as of right now, the relevance score system is slowly rolling out to users. The feature launched in January so if you don’t have access to it now, you should soon.
About The Author
Jason Hawkins / http://www.themiamiseocompany.com
Jason Hawkins is the CEO & Co-Founder of The Miami SEO Company. He has over ten years of experience in search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization and lead generation. His core responsibilities include identifying ways to increase value of services rendered, training staff on advanced SEO topics, and A/B testing internal processes to consistently improve client return on investment.
