Facebook wants both advertisers and users to be satisfied, therefore, it would make sense that people should see the most relevant ads for them and advertisers only want their ads shown to relevant people. Facebook is constantly monitoring how well they think you are doing when it comes to communicating your business to the audience you are interested in, it’s part of their job! This means that Facebook is checking your ad copy, images/videos, your audience and even the copy on your landing page to make sure it is relevant to the audience. In doing so, Facebook is trying to determine whether or not you are relevant to the audience you chose to advertise to, and they do this by giving your ad Relevance Score.
A Relevance Score is a number between 1-10 that Facebook uses to determine the relevance of your ad for your advertising purposes. If your score is between 1-2, that means Facebook ranks you as rather irrelevant to your audience. If your ad score is between 8-10, that's another story - Facebook finds you highly relevant for your audience. That's what we all want, right? Once this score is high, your cost per click, cost per lead and cost per acquisition should also drop.
In this huge pool of advertisers trying to reach overlapping audiences, the highest bidder and the most relevant one will win. So, where are you in this journey and where are you heading?
Why should I care about having a high relevance score, can`t I get conversions with a low one?
The short answer, yes, you can get conversions with a low relevance score… but it’ll cost you. Not only is it less likely to happen, since Facebook doesn`t believe you are advertising to the right people, but also it will cost you more, because those that Facebook deems more relevant will always beat you out.
Here are some reasons why you should want and aim for a high relevance score:
- Reaching more people at a lower cost
- You get to discover your perfect target audience more quickly
- Measuring A/B testing of more ad creative at the same time
- Monitoring your score and using this info for campaign optimization
Well my score is low, what can I do to improve my relevance score?
In theory, it seems easy: target the best audience for your brand, offer value through your content, and make your ads exciting and clickable, but as with anything else, frequently this is easier said than done. In practice, here are some tips you could use when you're trying to increase your relevance score:
- REALLY define your target audience
Define your buyer persona as detailed as possible and think about different aspects of their life such as: their problems, questions, expressions, objectives, preferences, and day to day habits. Pretty much anything that would define them as the complex entity they are, you should consider. Once you get this profile defined, it will be easier for you to create and test new audiences and see which one will respond best. You can also create lookalike audiences after you establish the one that got you the best results.
- Try targeting people who already engaged with your business
Whether they liked, followed your page, engaged with a post or sent you a message, there's already a relationship with those users so Facebook will already assume they are relevant. Why not take the next step? It would benefit both sides of the equestion, and based on what action they took last time, you could tailor your message to them even more.
- Exclude people who already converted on your ads
They could get annoyed with seeing the same ads over and over again, especially after they just bought your product. You don't want people hitting ”Hide ad”. Your relevance score is definitely not going to benefit if that happens. The more synergy you find between your ad and the people it shows up for, the better for your score… so keep the grumpy folks at bay.
- Be careful with your headline and text copy
Do you want your potential client to click your ad right away or scroll down right away? A few words can really make a difference. Make the text about the customer and give them value. ”You, your, yours, you`re”.. YOU know the drill. Also, try making the ad copy longer, but not too long. Write short stories that will get your audience hooked from the start and make them click on the ”Read more” button. Engagement definitely signals relevance, so if you get engagement, you’ll get relevance.
- Test different call to action buttons,
Although this doesn’t seem like a big deal, you never know what sort of results you may get! The smallest things can have the biggest changes over time.
- Don`t forget about your ad imagery
Make it engaging, clear, contrasting and most important, relevant to your buyer persona. What does your buyer persona react to? What are their interests? What do they like most? Get that in your images and videos. Videos require less effort for the customer to perceive them and Facebook knows that. Getting your potential client to do less work and convert will most likely get you closer to that 10/10 relevance score.
- Choose your ad placements based on your buyer persona's interests.
How old are they? How much time do they spend on Instagram? Don't waste your budget on placements that won't benefit you. If you are marketing to a younger group, Instagram might be a better place for you, if it’s an older group, focus more on Facebook. Also, don’t let the age group affect your choices. Just because you WANT to advertise to younger people, doesn’t mean you should ignore the consumers that ARE engaging.
All in all, if you're interested in getting more relevant to your audience, increase your relevance score and therefore convert more often through your ads, give those tips a try and start getting the results you want, don't just dream about them!
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