Trouble with Facebook ads? Shoot ’em here

If you’re deep into it with Facebook ads but something just isn’t adding up, here are a couple of things to consider looking at:

Ad Relevance Diagnostics

You can see these scores in the standard “Performance” reporting view in Facebook Ads Manager when you’re viewing your ads.

For each ad that’s live, you’ll see a ranking including a % to show you how your ad compares to other companies who are competing in the auction for the same audience as you are targeting. Here are the various rankings you’ll see:

The new Facebook Ad Relevance Diagnostics are Quality Ranking, Engagement Rate Ranking and Conversion Rate Ranking.

If you remember relevance scores, this is the development of this – here are some pointers on what each might mean for your paid optimisation:

  • Quality Ranking – this is about how good your creative is, how compelling, and how relevant to your audience. Fail at these and you may be hindered by users “hiding” your ads from the feeds.
  • Engagement Rate Ranking – if your ad specifically asks for comments or the answers to a question, you’re more likely to get engagement and that’s what this rate will assess
  • Conversion Rate Ranking – this is determined by assessing your ad conversions against similar conversion goals from other ads targeting the same audience – if you have a low rate, then others are finding more success and you may need to consider strengthening your creative or CTA

You can read more and diagnose your challenges here.

“It’s more impactful to move a ranking from low to average than it is to move a ranking from average to above average, so focus on improving low rankings rather than on improving average rankings.”

Volume of ads

Previous advice from Facebook suggested that you could go for it with the volume of ads, creating up to 50 ads in each ad set. However, this may be about to change.

“We’re implementing ad limits because very high ad volume can hinder an advertiser’s performance. With too many ads running at the same time, fewer ads exit the learning phase and more budget it spent before the delivery system can optimize and ad’s performance,”

The rollout isn’t expected to affect everyone, and may not happen until the middle of 2020 [see Facebook’s announcement here], but even if you’re planning on creating a high volume of ads, it’s worth considering whether the volume you are running could be too high for your budget as this can really hinder delivery of impressions and therefore your success.

If you’re finding the navigation of all this measurement tricky, find out how we can help by giving us a call. Or you can listen to more on data narrative here in our latest episode of Serious Social.

Latest Posts

B2B marketing success in 2025 depends on trust, not just reach. Buyers use social to research, value authentic video, and trust thought leadership more than ads. This roadmap shows how to build belief with content mixes, creators, and social proof—because trust is the KPI that drives growth.
Read More
Here we are, entering the “Mber” months, and we all know those are always busy months for marketing and design teams. Between new campaign launches, seasonal promotions, and the pressure to deliver standout visuals before the holidays, structuring your workflow becomes just as important as the creative work itself. This…
Read More
If you still think Reddit is the wild west of the internet, you’re already behind. For years Reddit sat on the sidelines of marketing plans, overlooked in favour of shinier platforms. Too messy, too unpredictable, too risky. And guess what, while brands looked away, audiences didn’t. They piled in. And…
Read More