Written by: Dianna Leyton
Here's the scenario: you discovered the magic of Facebook ads, but now you notice that your ad's cost per click is higher than expected. You put more and more money into your ad campaigns and while you are seeing some results, they’re not happening as quickly (or as inexpensively) as you'd like them to happen.
A WordStream study shows that the average cost per click for Facebook ads across all industries is $1.72, but this can vary greatly by industry. If you're noticing that your results are coming at a much higher price, then it might be time to consider improving your Facebook ad's relevance score.
What is a "relevance score" anyway?
After your Facebook ad has been shown 500 times, a score of 1 to 10 will be made available to you in your Ads Manager.
This score represents how relevant your ad is to the audience you're targeting. It can also affect the likelihood that your ad will be shown rather a competitor who is targeting the same audience. A higher score signals to Facebook that your ad message is resonating with your audience. This makes it more likely that your ad will be served more often.
The score is based on both positive and negative feedback of your ad. Positive feedback of your ad means the number of times Facebook expects people to take a desired action. On the other hand, negative feedback would be the number of times Facebook expects people to hide your ad or indicate a negative experience, like not choosing to see ads from your company.
Ad Relevance Score's Impact on Your Facebook Ad Cost
As mentioned above, a higher relevance score can cause Facebook to show your ad to your audience more often. Facebook ads with lower relevance scores can have the opposite effect, and will be shown less often to your target audience. To compete with other ads with higher relevance scores, you'll have to pay more to ensure that your ad is seen.
Not convinced? AdEspresso studied relevance score's impact on cost per click and click-through rate for 104,256 ads. The study revealed that ads with relevance scores of 10 had an average CPC of $0.029 vs. $0.946 for ads with a relevance score of 1. Click-through rate for ads with a score of 10 were at 8%, making it much cheaper to get their desired results.
Ways to Increase Your Relevance Score
Now that you understand Facebook's ad relevance score, it’s time to get to work on improving it! Here are a few simple ways you can increase your ad’s relevance score:
Get Specific with Your Audience Targeting
When you first start running Facebook ads, it can be tempting to target a broad audience. You don't want to miss out on anyone who may potentially be interested, right?
Much like you and me, your audience is bombarded with social media messages and ads every day. It's not until we come across something really relevant that it piques our interest enough to click or take action.
Instead, think critically about who will truly be interested in what your company is selling. Consider related interests your audience might have and narrow your audience by those interests on Facebook.
Refresh Your Ad Message and Creative
After a few days of your ad launch you see that your relevance score is eight. Great! Now you can cruise until the end of your ad campaign, right? Not so fast. Remember that your ad's relevance score is updated daily.
After an ad has run for a few weeks, you'll likely notice that your relevance score will decline. This is due to ad fatigue, or when a prospect sees an ad over and over again to the point that it becomes tiresome.
To avoid falling victim to this, change your ad creative every so often so that your audience sees a new message from you. This keeps things fresh and exciting, making it more likely that you'll keep a more captive audience.
Test to Learn What's Working and What's Not
We're fans of testing inbound marketing efforts, and we feel the same about Facebook ads.
Facebook allows marketers to A/B test ads with business objectives of lead generation, mobile app installs and website conversions. You can test audiences, placements, and optimization variables like conversion windows.
But can testing really make an impact? We think so. Just recently we tested narrowing a client's targeted audience to see its impact on ad costs. The result? Changing the audience reduced cost per lead by as much as 40%, saving our client an average of $12.85 per lead.