Starting April, 30, 2019, Facebook’s relevance score will be replaced with three new “granular” metrics, plus they’ll swap out six other metrics to provide more actionable insights. As of the changeover date, the old metrics will no longer be available in Facebook’s product interfaces or in the release of Ads Insights
API v3.3.
Another change: Facebook is updating how it estimates potential reach. Now, reach will reflect the number of users who were shown an ad within the last 30 days, versus the number of users who were active on a Facebook service in the last 30 days.
Read on for more details.
Goodbye, Relevance Score
Three new metrics will take the place of relevance score:
- Quality Ranking: Measures an ad’s perceived quality compared to ads competing for the same target audience
- Engagement Rate Ranking: Measures an ad’s expected engagement rate compared to ads competing for the same audience
- Conversion Rate Ranking: Measures an ad’s expected conversion rate when compared to ads with the same optimization goals and audience
Like relevance score, these metrics aren’t factored into an ad’s performance in the auction—instead, they provide insights into how changes to creative assets, audience targeting, or the post-click experience may impact ad performance. Ad relevance diagnostics will be introduced gradually over the coming months.
No More ‘Offers Saved’ and ‘Cost Per Offers Saved’
Rather than only measuring the number of ads that were being saved for the “Offers” ad format, Facebook is extending this metric to be inclusive of all ads that are being saved, across all ad formats. This will be reflected as “Post Saves.”
Messaging Replies and Cost per Messaging Reply
These are going away, too. Previously, Facebook was measuring the number of replies within new and existing conversations attributed to your ad. “New Messaging Connections” only measures new conversations, excluding those with people who’ve sent a message to your business in the past. “Messaging Conversations Started” measures the number of times people started messaging your business after at least seven days of inactivity.
Mobile App Purchase ROAS and Web Purchase ROAS
Previously, ROAS metrics were channel specific (i.e., Mobile, Web, On-Facebook, Instagram). Since the customer's path to purchase is increasingly omnichannel, there will be one, holistic “Purchase ROAS” metric that will look at ROAS across all channels.
Updates to Potential Reach
Now, businesses will be able to gauge the number of people they can reach given specific targeting and placement criteria.
The new estimation methodology is based on people who were shown an ad within the last 30 days. Previously, the estimate was based on people who were active on a Facebook service in the last 30 days. This results in:
- More clarity: This update provides a better estimate of the potential audience that could see the ad given specific targeting and placement criteria.
- More stable audience sizes: It also reduces volatility in daily audience size estimates.
Why Facebook’s Making These Changes
As part of its efforts to improve its reporting offerings, Facebook wants to replace metrics that marketers have told them are infrequently used with more actionable ones. These metrics are intended to provide an additional level of insight and granularity, giving advertisers the opportunity to make smarter decisions regarding ad creatives, placement, and targeting.
What to Do If You’re a Marin Customer
Because Marin’s API integration is currently built out to API v3.1 and these changes will come into effect with Ads Insights API v3.3, no immediate changes will be reflected in the Marin application. This also means that all pre-existing metrics will be readily available in the Marin application until we choose to upgrade to API v3.3. Currently, API v3.1 won’t be sunsetted until October 2020.
As we get closer to upgrading to API v3.3, we’ll notify you with the foreseen timeline. At that point, you’ll need to update any reports or alerts to incorporate the appropriate actionable metrics. You won't need to take any further action for the potential reach changes.
As always, if you have questions, touch base with your Marin rep.
