As of May 2019 Facebook Relevance Score is dead.

The announcement that Facebook would replacing a handful of their reporting metrics with options “that may provide insights that are more actionable” came way back in March. Relevance Score, as you’ve probably guessed, was among them.

Below, we take a look at what it was and the three exciting new metrics replacing it.

What Was Facebook Relevance Score?

Relevance Score aggregated various ad quality and relevance factors and produced a number from 1 - 10 to indicate how relevant your ads were to the people in your target audience. Similar, you might think, to Google’s Quality Score.

However, whereas Google’s Quality Score is taken into consideration when entering the auction, Facebook’s Relevance Score was never part of the “total value” calculation that determines when your ad is shown. Perhaps, then, it wasn’t as useful as it sounds.

Well, good news! Relevance Score is no more. Instead, the space left behind has been filled with no one, but three new and exciting metrics; quality ranking, engagement rate ranking and conversion rate ranking.

Below, we take a look at each of these three metrics in turn, explaining why they’re probably more useful to advertisers than Relevance Score alone.

A Guide to Facebook’s New Reporting Metrics

Quality Ranking

Quality ranking is “your ad's perceived quality compared to ads competing for the same audience”. Ad quality will be based on feedback from people viewing or hiding your ads, as well as assessments of poor user experiences such as clickbaiting.

Quality ranking will be measured on the following scale, where average indicates the 35th to 55th percentile:

  • Above average
  • Average
  • Below average (bottom 35% of ads)
  • Below average (bottom 20% of ads)
  • Below average (bottom 10% of ads)

Engagement Rate Ranking

Following on from the above, engagement rate ranking is “your ad's expected engagement rate compared to ads competing for the same audience.” It will be measured on the same scale as above.

Expected engagement rate will be calculated based on the likelihood of a user clicking, reacting to, commenting on, sharing or expanding your ad. Asking people explicitly to like and share your ads, also known as engagement-baiting, will not improve performance.

For example, an engagement rate ranking of below average (bottom 35% of ads) would mean that at least 65% of ads competing for the same audience have a higher expected engagement rate than your ad.

It is also important to note that engagement rate ranking is not available for the following optimisation goals: ad recall lift, impressions, reach or custom conversions.

Conversion Rate Ranking

Conversion rate ranking will also be measured on the scale above, and will relate to how the expected conversion rate of your ad compares with ads with the same optimisation goal, competing for the same audience.

It is calculated based on the likelihood of a user who has viewed your ad, going on to complete your conversion goal (this will only be available for standard events and not custom conversions). For example, the optimisation goal for a Video Views optimised campaign would be a 10-second video view.

As with engagement rate ranking, conversion rate ranking will not be available for ad recall lift, impressions, reach, or custom conversion optimised campaigns.

If you have any questions about Facebook advertising reporting metrics, or advertising on Facebook in general, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with one of the team today...