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Running a Facebook ad is one thing, but ensuring it has an above-average quality ranking is another.
The latter can do the former, but it’s harder than you think to achieve this.
If you’re considering adding Facebook ads into your social media campaigns, there are some key things you should know first. Like how can you be sure your ad is driving engagement? What is a good or poor Facebook ads quality ranking? Thankfully, we are here to break it all down.
Need to know something specific about Facebook ads? Jump ahead to:
First things first, what even is Facebook’s ad quality ranking?
Put simply, it explains how your ad quality compares to ads competing for the same audience. Quality ranking is one of the metrics that replaced Facebook ads relevance score in 2019 in an effort to give advertisers a better understanding of where exactly their ad is not performing.
The new Facebook ad relevance metrics are actually be broken down into 3 different metrics – quality ranking, engagement rate ranking, and conversion ranking.
This score is important because it can determine not only your cost per click (CPC) on the platform but also how frequently Facebook shows your ad to your audience. It’s how you can gauge whether or not your ad is doing well, in the eyes of Facebook, or if it’s time to try something else.
Interested in checking up on the ad quality score of your most recent ads? It’s relatively straightforward.
You can check your ads’ quality score in the Ads section of Facebook Ads Manager. As mentioned, the quality ranking score is one of 3 metrics that replaced the relevance score.
When you have these columns in your current view, it’s easier to take a deep dive into the current quality score of all of your current ads, as well as their engagement rate and conversion rate ranking.
The updated ad relevance diagnostics can now help you review underperforming ads across 3 dimensions of relevance: quality, engagement, and conversion.
Ad quality is measured through various signals, such as positive or negative feedback from people viewing or hiding your ad and assessments of low-quality attributes in the ad, such as withholding information, inadequate language and engagement bait.
Possible values for quality ranking are:
In addition to positive or negative feedback from your audience, and assessments of low-quality attributes in the ad, there are other factors that Facebook uses to calculate the score: ad format and ad relevance.
The first factor is the actual format of your Facebook ad.
According to our recent study on Facebook ads, image and video ads have performed much better than other formats for agencies, while SMBs say video ads have been the most effective for them.
Sandra Henderson at LifeHacks shares, “I believe the Facebook Ad format has a great impact on your score. Since there is a wide variety of formats, it is specifically crucial to identify the one that fits the needs of your brand. When you manage to use the right one for you, the efficacy of your ad improves and so as your score.”
There’s also ad relevance to consider.
Sid Bharath at Broca explains, “Ad relevance is often closely linked to quality score. So if an ad is targeted properly, people will engage with that, and that in turn improves the quality score. Remember, Facebook likes to make money, but they also don’t want to irritate their users with irrelevant ads, so they reward relevance.
That means your offer has to match your targeting. Try things like calling out the audience in your ad, based on targeting. So if you’re targeting chefs in NYC, start your ad with ‘Hey NYC Chefs!’”
Since the quality ranking is not on a scale of one to ten like the relevance score was, it rather easy to determine how your ads are performing.
Therefore, if you are Below Average, or in the bottom 20%, it means your ads are among the lowest 20% of ads competing for the same audience.
Essentially, the punishment for a low ranking on your ad is a higher cost for it to continue running on the platform.
On the other hand, when your ad has a good quality ranking (average or above average), it increases the likelihood that Facebook will serve your ad. These ads with a high score will deliver the cost-per-action you’re looking for and, in turn, be rewarded with lower costs to run.
When asked about the importance of the quality ranking and the success of the Facebook ad, here’s what the respondents had to say:
If you aren’t happy with the scores your Facebook ads are receiving, there are strategies you can try to increase your quality ranking and get your ad in front of the largest audience possible. If one of these tips doesn’t work for you, consider adding another, or even all seven, into your strategy.
Got your eyes on a specific tip? Jump ahead to:
Want to make sure your Facebook ads are performing and trending in the right direction? There are several types of metrics you should track, from costs to campaign engagement to ad-level engagement, and so on.
Here are a few we’d recommend focusing on.
Tracking these metrics in Facebook Ads Manager can be overwhelming since the tool is not easy to navigate and the visualizations are quite limiting. It’s also a bit time-consuming to combine all the metrics you need in one view.
We’ve made this easier by building a plug-and-play Facebook Ads dashboard that takes your data and automatically visualizes the right metrics to give you an in-depth analysis of your ad performance.
With this Facebook Ads dashboard, you can quickly discover your most popular ads and see which campaigns have the highest ROI, including details such as:
And more…
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up the dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Get the template
Step 2: Connect your Facebook Ads account with Databox.
Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
The first way you can increase your Facebook quality ranking is to turn the ad you’d like to run into a video. Thierry Tremblay from Kohezion elaborates further by saying, “My best tip for improving your quality ranking on Facebook Ads is to try using video ads. People linger over video content five times longer than at a static post. It is not only good at catching attention, but it’s also better at inspiring action, too.
Today, it takes more than flashy promotions and discounts to get people interested. There has to be a foundation of trust, and what a better way to achieve it than through a real demo of your product/service.
Describing the effectiveness of the product will do way more for your credibility, and ultimately, sales. Showing is always better than telling.
Fortunately, we live in a time when showing people how a product works is easier than ever – thanks to the ease-of-use and accessibility of video content.
Furthermore, you can team up with influencers to get them to do a video showcase of your product. They can be extremely influential in purchasing decisions today. Make the best of your ads by combining their power and video content marketing.” Don’t just stop there, also track the success of your video ads using a social media dashboard software to identify your best performing ads and.
In agreement is Jonathan Aufray from Growth Hackers Company, who knows that a great way to improve your quality ranking is to get people to spend as much time viewing your ad as possible.
Aufray explains, “The goal of Facebook (and any other social media platforms) is for you to spend as much time as possible on their platform. So, if you want your Facebook ad quality ranking to increase, I suggest you create engaging ads where people will spend time on it. For instance, creating a video ad works well for that matter.”
Another tactic to consider if you’re looking to increase your ad quality score is to limit the number of times your campaign chooses to run its ads. Brooke Logan from Sagefrog Marketing Group explains, “Don’t go overboard on your ad frequency. If Facebook users see an ad too many times, they have the ability to hide or block your ads, which can have a negative impact on your quality ranking.”
If you’re using clickbait in your ads, it’s a good idea to, instead, create high-quality content to run alongside your ad instead, especially if you’re looking to improve your quality score.
Explaining further is Sam Russell from OuterBox, who states, “My number one tip to improve your quality ranking on Facebook Ads is to do the exact opposite of what most brands do. My advice is to avoid clickbait ads like, ‘You won’t believe which celebrities aren’t real blondes. Click to learn more.’ Ads like these are destined to get low ratings.”
Backing this up further is Andre Oentoro from Milkwhale, who states, “Always have quality content. Consumers these days are smarter and won’t fall for any ad. So, instead of focusing on selling, focus on providing quality content for your audience.”
On a similar note, in addition to avoiding click-bait language, you want to be sure that your ad is as straightforward as possible and reflects your brand, its message, or the product.
Elaborating is Krissy Selda from FitRated.com, who shares, “Make sure your creative (both copy and image) directly reflect your brand and the landing page you are sending people to. No one likes a misleading ad.”
Agreeing is Heidi Robinson from Because Market, who goes further into how to create an effective ad description. Robinson explains, “Your quality ranking all begins with crafting unique, top-notch content to support your links, images, or videos. It is typically the description that will encourage a viewer to click, so it must paint a clear, concise picture of what will be found behind that click.”
And finally, Allan Stolc at Bankly also stresses the importance of being straightforward by adding, “Always make sure that the content provided for the ads are aligned with the selected audience. High-quality content in terms of production value, does not necessarily mean high-quality rank.”
Another tactic to utilize when looking to boost the quality ranking of your Facebook ad is to test the ad as often as you can, in a variety of ways.
Quinn Dolan from Perfect Search Media elaborates to say, “Testing, testing, testing. Facebook’s auction is relatively simple — the higher the CTR, the lower the CPC. For this reason, it’s really important to constantly test new ads to figure out what improves CTR. Test different ad formats, colors that pop, calls-to-action that set your brand apart, eye-catching images and videos… Once you find what resonates most with your audience, continue to iterate.
Adding to this point is Johonattan Gomez from Publicize, sharing, “A/B test multimedia. The main performance-related part of any ad on Facebook are the images or videos being used. Make different versions of it and test it on each audience being targeted, and track performance as you do using these social media dashboards.”PRO TIP: Testing different creatives, CTAs (Call-to-Action), and audience adjustments can help reduce Facebook Ads CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions). This is because testing allows you to identify the most effective combination of ad elements that resonates with your target audience, which can improve your ad’s relevance score and decrease the cost of your impressions.
Previously we mentioned the importance of not running your Facebook ad too many times, as this can lower its quality ranking. On a related note, consider being strategic as to when you decide to run each ad.
Savannah Bilbo from Superior Honda explains, “A great way to improve your quality ranking is to strategically time your ads. Running ads during peak web traffic hours is the best way to reach your target audience. These peak traffic hours won’t be the same for every company, however.
I recommend testing out ads at different times of the day and at different days of the week to figure out when your specific audience is most likely to engage. Depending on your business or your client, you may find success and unexpected times and days.”
Finally, if you’re looking to get the most out of your ad and get the highest ranking from the content, it’s worth considering boosting the ad engagement.
Elaborating on how to boost ad engagement is Ruchika Gupta at Eyanki Media, who shares, “One of the underrated ways to improve quality ranking is by boosting ad engagement. Engagement not only includes creating high-quality engaging videos for the audience but also engaging with the audience. Filtering spam comments and replying to your audience queries keeps a clean picture of your Facebook ad and indirectly improves your quality ranking.”
Editor’s note: Would you like to view track ad engagement, anywhere you go? Track your current performance with the Databox mobile app and access any dashboard you’ve built from your mobile device too!
At the end of the day, the more attention you pay to the quality ranking of your ads, the more likely it is that your campaign will see success. Remember that finding the right strategy, tone, and format will take time.
It’s in your best interest to keep a close eye on how your ads perform with the help of the dashboards here at Databox.
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Mara is a freelance writer at Databox and a Content Marketing Manager at G2. In her spare time, she's either at the gym, reading a book from her overcrowded bookshelf, enjoying the great outdoors with her rescue dog Zeke, or right in the middle of a Netflix binge. Obsessions include the Chicago Cubs, Harry Potter, and all of the Italian food imaginable.
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