The Facebook Quality Ranking Score- what is it?
How does it impact your ads? And how can you tweak your efforts to get the best score possible?
You’re going to learn all of this and more in this post.
- Having higher ranking scores than your competitors will help Facebook decide to deliver your ad instead of theirs.
- It’s also important to note that Facebook analyzes the landing page you’re sending users to from your ad as well.
- Keep in mind that Facebook will only give you the score after your ad has had somewhere between 500 – 1k impressions.
What Is The Facebook Quality Ranking Score?
It’s actually 1 of the 3 ad relevance diagnostics that Facebook uses to determine the relevance of your Facebook ad campaign.
You may have noticed it being called your “ad relevance score” in the past within Facebook Ads Manager.
The other 2 ad relevance diagnostics, that aren’t as well known, are your engagement rate ranking and your conversion rate ranking.
So before we dive into what each of these 3 rankings means, let’s first talk about how they impact your ad performance as a whole.
How Does Facebook Quality Ranking Score Impact Your Ad Performance?
Facebook uses these rankings to determine how your ad compares to other advertisers serving ads to the same audience.
If you’ve read some of our other Facebook posts before, then you know that Facebook can’t serve every ad to every person within a given targeted audience.
Facebook has to make a decision on which ads it’s going to serve to which person.
Having higher ranking scores than your competitors will help Facebook decide to deliver your ad instead of theirs.
This is why having higher ranking scores generally lowers your cost per 1000 impressions (CPM) and cost per click (CPC).
So now let’s go over each of these scores individually.
Facebook’s 3 Ad Relevance Diagnostics
1. Quality Ranking Score
This is how Facebook estimates the quality of your ad.
Facebook says they measure:
“Ad quality through various signals, such as feedback from people viewing or hiding the ad and assessments of low-quality attributes in the ad, such as withholding information, sensationalized language and engagement bait.”
Facebook also provides some visual examples of what not to do.
But in short, you don’t want your ads to look spammy or use language that doesn’t authentically draw in the user’s click.
You don’t want to use images or copy that dishonestly lure Facebook users into clicking.
It’s also important to note that Facebook analyzes the landing page you’re sending users to from your ad as well.
Facebook doesn’t just stop at analyzing your ad – where you send traffic to from your ad also matters.
Some of the things Facebook considers to be “low-quality attributes” are:
- misleading experiences,
- pop-up ads, and
- unexpected content experiences
Facebook looks at the landing page bounce rate and dwell time to determine if people are finding the ad that directed them there useful or of high quality.
We’ll talk more about how Facebook scores your ad based on what it finds from all of this in a little bit.
2. Engagement Rate Ranking
Facebook says the engagement rate ranking:
“Calculates the likelihood that a person will click, react to, comment on, share or expand an ad. Engagement-baiting (For example, asking for likes, comments, and so on) will not improve your ad’s performance.”
So keep in mind that you shouldn’t say, ‘Like this post!’ or ‘Comment down below!’ in your Facebook ads.
That is because Facebook is saying that will actually lower your score.
You want to set up your ad so that it organically, or naturally, draws in good Facebook engagement.
3. Conversion Rate Ranking
Facebook says the:
“Conversion rate ranking explains how your ad’s expected conversion rate compared to ads with the same optimization goal competing for the same audience. The expected conversion rate calculates the likelihood that a person who viewed your ad will complete your optimization goal.”
So let’s put that in more everyday terms.
When you choose a Facebook ad campaign objective, you are given options to choose from based on what your goals are.
For example, if you want to boost your post engagement, you can select that objective under Engagement.
Or if you want to drive more website purchases, you can select Conversions.
So let’s say you sell yoga pants, you select the Conversion campaign, and target moms between the ages of 30-55 who are interested in yoga.
Facebook is going to compare your ad to other people targeting that exact same audience, and have the same optimization goal of conversions.
So those are the 3 ad diagnostics, now let’s talk about Facebook’s Scoring System.
Facebook Quality Ranking Score System
For all 3 scores, Facebook ranks you one of these 5 ways:
- Above Average
- Average
- Below Average (Bottom 35% of ads)
- Below Average (Bottom 20% of ads)
- Below Average (Bottom 10% of ads)
So again, this is in comparison to other ads that are serving the same target audience as you.
The lower your score, the more you’re going to have to pay for reach, impressions, and clicks.
How To Find Out What Your Facebook Quality Ranking Score Is
You’ll need to look in your Ads Manager account at business.facebook.com/adsmanager, click on a campaign, and click on the Ads tab.
This is because these scores are only given to ads, not to campaigns or ad sets.
Then you’ll need to click on columns and make sure it’s set to the default performance view.
If you’ve changed your default settings in the past, you can also click Customize Columns,
…and then type ‘ranking’ into the search bar to find them that way.
Make sure all three are checked and then hit Apply down at the bottom right.
This will show you your score for individual ads.
Keep in mind that Facebook will only give you the score after your ad has had somewhere between 500 – 1k impressions.
So if you see a – dash where the score should be, it’s either that your ad hasn’t gotten enough impressions yet…
…or it’s because it’s a dynamic ad (Facebook doesn’t give these scores to dynamic ads).
How To Tweak Your Efforts To Get The Best Score Possible
Now our last piece of advice is to take these scores with a grain of salt when assessing the overall effectiveness of your ad campaigns.
If you’re underperforming, and your ad diagnostics are all below average, that’s definitely something to look into and troubleshoot.
But there can be times when your ad campaign is not profiting well, but your ad diagnostics are all average, or above average.
Or vice versa, your ad campaign might be profiting very well, but your ad diagnostics all say below average.
If your overall ad campaign is performing well, we wouldn’t change everything we’re doing just to get those diagnostics up.
Sure there is room for improvement, but the real proof of having successful Facebook ads is in your ROI, right?
So we would use the ad diagnostics more as a tool to look into if your ads are not performing well, and have a high cost per 1,000 impressions.
Facebook actually alludes to this sentiment as well by saying:
“Some products and services naturally exhibit lower conversion rates than others competing in the same ad auction. High-price or high-consideration products like jewelry should expect lower conversion rate rankings than lower-price or lower-consideration products like t-shirts.”
So that’s a perfect example, right?
Let’s say someone who is selling a $2,000 bracelet is targeting women between the ages of 30-50.
And someone else who sells $15 t-shirts is also targeting the same audience of women between ages 30 and 50.
The t-shirts are most likely going to have a higher conversion rate because they’re less expensive and more of an impulse buy.
Whereas, the bracelets will have a lower conversion rate because they’re way more expensive and require more consideration from the buyer.
So let’s say the t-shirt company sells 15 t-shirts, while the jewelry company sells 3 bracelets.
Facebook is going to think that the t-shirt company has a higher conversion rate and is therefore, more relevant, giving them a higher conversion rate score.
But, remember how much the items are worth.
The t-shirt company would have made $225 from selling those 15 t-shirts, and the jewelry company would have made $6,000 from selling their 3 bracelets.
So that’s our point here, it’s to keep the bigger picture in mind when looking at your ad diagnostics.
For more Facebook advertising tips, be sure to check out this post next.
And if you think you’ll be needing some help for your Facebook ad campaigns, then look no further.
Our Facebook advertising agency has a team of experts always ready to help businesses like yours. Contact us today to get started!