To The Point With Facebook Ads Relevancy

As an incentive for advertisers on Facebook to improve the quality of their ads, Facebook has recently exposed ‘Relevance Scores’. These newly exposed scores are an estimate of the ad’s targeted affiliation with its intended audience. Facebook is hoping that the exposure of the scores will produce ads that are more interesting to audiences, perform better for ad users and generate more revenue (for Facebook).

But in an industry that generates more questions than answers, are these scores making things easier or harder for ad users, or is it just one more thing you have to try and adhere to? In an effort to simplify things, I’ve created a cheat sheet that will give you the knowledge to make the most of out of self-managing your ads.

1. Tailor your audience.
Make sure you aren’t trying to target anyone and everyone who may or may not have an interest in your business. If you target broadly, say you’re targeting people ages 18-65 that live in Australia, there is a high chance that you’re ad isn’t going to be of interest to a large portion of people. Narrow down your targeting by using specific age groups, geographic locations, interests and even their behaviours.

Tip: Check your insights to get a snapshot of your current page demographics.

2. Be the mad scientist.
Split testing ads will allow you to get the information you need to help increase your Relevance Score. Chances are you’ll probably score really low if it’s your first time, or if you are in a very niche industry, so you’ll need to create multiple ads to test different images, ad text and audiences.

Tip: I highly recommend using custom audiences as a part of your testing. These can be easy to set up and can be used for things like remarketing and showing ads to people who react similarly to those who like your page currently.

3. BE RELEVANT.
If the image and text in your ad has very little to do with your business or what you are trying to promote, common sense should tell you that you will get a low Relevance Score. If you’re in real estate and the picture in your ad is of a cute little dog, people glancing at the ad would assume its advertising something pet related. Think about what you are looking to achieve with your ads, what you are looking to promote exactly, then think about what would attract YOU to click on the ad.

Tip: If you’re having trouble with a low relevance score, a good place to start is your image, as that’s the most noticeable part of your ad.

4. You gotta be fresh.
Facebook ads aren’t set and then forgotten about. After a while, people start seeing the same ad and they will get sick of it, ignore it or report it for not being relevant to them. You always need to be updating the targeting from your ad and when your relevance score drops, create a new ad. Learn from what you’ve done and move forward.

Tip: anything above a 4-5 is okay, anything about a 7 is great. If you find that your ad RS is dropping, that’s when you need to freshen it up.