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

It’s tempting to focus on the latest trends and shiny innovations. But here’s the truth: without a strong foundation, even the most advanced strategies will fail. That’s why revisiting and mastering the basics is more important than ever. The numbers speak volumes Did you know that organisations with aligned…
Read More
TikTok’s future in the U.S. remains uncertain, with the platform facing potential legal restrictions over national security concerns. In 2024, TikTok’s engagement rates dropped by 35% (SocialInsider), averaging 2.65%, but it remains one of the most ROI-positive platforms for marketers. This duality highlights the critical need…
Read More
As the cheese fog settles and the calendar flips to January, many of us feel an itch—a restless desire to start afresh, reinvent ourselves, or simply shake off the cobwebs of the past year. It’s not just about resolutions (though we’ll get to those later) but something deeper: a creative reset. A chance to clear the slate, find our spark, and move forward with a little more purpose—or at least with fewer regrets about how many mince pies we devoured in December.
Read More