2.23billion people log-on to Facebook worldwide each month. So it’s unsurprising the platform has been dominant in social media advertising for years. But do you understand the social media marketing improvements this can offer? 

Facebook’s advertising offering works on a simple principle. The better quality your advert is, the less you pay and the more people have a chance of seeing it.

The powers that be judged adverts based on Relevance Score. The ranking was between 1 and 10— 10 being best, 1 worst. To secure high scores, ads must directly appeal to the audience you’re targeting.

You wanted to aim for 7 and over. Which meant taking into account:

*Definition of your audience demographic

*Relevance and ‘freshness’ of your advert content

*Objectives of the campaign

Once the ad has been served 500 times, Facebook will allocate a Relevance Score based on the expected reactions of future users who will see the ad.

Remember— Relevance Score is not static, and changed with time, meaning you need to tweak and improve advertising offerings over time to maintain a good rank.

The social media advertising game done change

At the beginning of summer, Facebook shifted to focus on three ad relevance diagnostics. These are:

Quality Ranking – Above Average / Average /Below Average 

Engagement Rate Ranking – Above Average / Average / Below Average 

Conversion Rate Ranking – Above Average / Average / Below Average 

This offers brands a better insight into their social media advertising. Rather than one single number, the feedback from Facebook is broken down into individual key of analysis.

Fundamentally, the approach you should take— as outlined above— hasn’t changed, only the format of the feedback.

How to respond to your Ad Relevance Diagnostics

This data is useful, if you act on it. Here are some pointers on how using Ad Relevance Diagnostics to improve campaigns…

Below average conversion 
Look at the journey potential customers take from first click to the point of sale. How can this be streamlined or improved?

Below average engagement 
Your ad isn’t eye-catching enough, and doesn’t encourage the audience to engage at their first opportunity. Think bold images, witty copy and poignant messaging.

How Ad Relevance Diagnostics can lead to social media marketing improvements

Just because Facebook’s Ad Relevance Diagnostics deal with advertising doesn’t mean the principles don’t apply to other campaigns.

In digital PR and social media marketing, you’re likely to be targeting the same demographic as your ads. So how the audience responds to your advertising is a good— albeit not absolute— indicator of the likely response to other campaigns.

 

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