How to Check Facebook Ad Quality Score

If you've ever run Google Ads, you know the importance of your Quality Score. It's a critical metric that influences your ad rank and how much you pay per click. But when you switch over to Facebook Ads, you might find yourself looking for an equivalent score and coming up empty. This article will show you exactly what Facebook uses instead of a Quality Score and how you can find and use these diagnostics to improve your campaign performance.

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Does Facebook Have a Quality Score?

The short answer is no, not in the way Google Ads does. Facebook doesn't use a single “Quality Score” metric from 1 to 10. Instead, it offers something more granular and arguably more useful for troubleshooting your ads: ad relevance diagnostics.

These diagnostics are a set of three specific metrics that compare your ad’s performance to other ads competing for the same audience. Pinpointing exactly why an ad is underperforming is easier when you see how it stacks up in three separate areas. Rather than one generic score, Facebook tells you if you have a creative problem, an engagement problem, or a conversion problem.

The three ad relevance diagnostics are:

• Quality Ranking: This measures the perceived quality of your ad compared to other ads targeting the same audience. Factors like clickbait, sensationalized language, or negative feedback from users can lower this score.
• Engagement Rate Ranking: This metric compares your ad's expected engagement rate (likes, comments, shares, clicks) to other ads targeting the same audience. It helps you see if your creative is grabbing attention.
• Conversion Rate Ranking: This compares your ad’s expected conversion rate to ads with the same optimization goal targeting the same audience. This is crucial for understanding how effective your ad is at driving the actual result you want, like a purchase or lead.

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How to Find Your Ad Relevance Diagnostics in Ads Manager

These diagnostics aren't visible by default, so you'll need to customize your columns in Ads Manager to see them. It's a simple process that will make analyzing your ad performance much faster in the future.

Here’s the step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Navigate to the Ad Level Go to your Facebook Ads Manager. Select the campaign and ad set you want to analyze. Click into the Ads tab. Your diagnostics are reported at the individual ad level, not the campaign or ad set level.

Step 2: Customize Your Columns On the right side of the screen, just above your ad data, click the “Columns” dropdown menu. From there, select “Customize Columns…” at the bottom of the list.

Step 3: Search for and Select the Diagnostics A search box will appear. Type "ranking" into the search bar. You’ll see the three relevance diagnostics pop up. Check the box next to all three:

• Quality ranking
• Engagement rate ranking
• Conversion rate ranking

You can drag and drop them on the right-hand side to reorder how they appear in your report. It's helpful to place them next to other key performance metrics like "Cost Per Result" or "ROAS".

Step 4: Save Your Column Preset Once you’ve added the columns, click the blue "Apply" button at the bottom right. To avoid having to do this every time, save it as a custom preset. Click the “Columns” dropdown again and choose “Save as Preset.” Give it an easy-to-remember name like “Ad Diagnostics” and you’ll be able to access this view with a single click in the future.

Decoding the Ad Relevance Diagnostics

Okay, so you’ve found the diagnostics. Now what do they actually mean? Facebook uses a simple ranking system to tell you how your ad compares to the competition.

For each diagnostic, your ad will receive one of the following rankings:

• Above Average: Your ad's expected rate is better than the majority of ads competing for the same audience. Great job!
• Average: Your ad's expected rate is typical for ads competing for the same audience. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if the ad is profitable.
• Below Average (Bottom 35% of ads): Your ad ranks in the bottom 35% of ads. This is a clear signal something needs your attention.
• Below Average (Bottom 20% of ads): A more urgent warning sign.
• Below Average (Bottom 10% of ads): The lowest possible ranking. Your ad is significantly underperforming in this specific area.

Let's break down how to interpret a low score for each of the three rankings.

Low Quality Ranking

A low Quality Ranking means Facebook's systems perceive your ad as a poor user experience. This isn't just about pretty images, it's about trust and meeting user expectations.

Common causes for a low score:

• “Clickbait” tactics: Using sensational headlines or withholding information to manipulate users into clicking (e.g., "You Won't BELIEVE What Happens Next!").
• Bait-and-switch: The landing page doesn't deliver on the promise made in the ad.
• Too much text in the image: While the strict "20% text" rule is gone, images overloaded with text are still penalized.
• Negative user feedback: If users are frequently hiding your ad or reporting it as spam, your quality ranking will suffer.
• Policy violations: Using prohibited language or imagery, even if the ad gets approved, can drag your score down.

If you see a low Quality Ranking, first review your ad creative and copy to remove anything that feels gimmicky or misleading. Then, scrutinize your landing page to ensure it's a seamless and trustworthy experience for the user.

Low Engagement Rate Ranking

A low Engagement Rate Ranking means your ad isn't compelling people to interact. It's failing to stop the scroll and capture your audience's attention.

Common causes for a low score:

• Weak creative: The image or video is boring, generic, or doesn't stand out in a busy feed.
• Unclear message or hook: People don't know what you're offering or why they should care within the first three seconds.
• Audience mismatch: Your ad creative might be good, but you're showing it to the wrong people. The message isn't resonating with the audience you've selected.
• Ad fatigue: If your audience has seen the same ad over and over, they will stop engaging with it, causing this score to drop over time.

To fix this, go back to basics. Are you addressing a real pain point? Is your visual thumb-stopping? Test different hooks, images, videos, and headlines to see what resonates most with your target audience.

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Low Conversion Rate Ranking

This is often the most frustrating one. A low Conversion Rate Ranking means that even when people click your ad, they are not taking the desired action on your website or landing page. Your ad did its job (it got the click), but the post-click experience is failing.

Common causes for a low score:

• Landing page disconnect: The ad promises "50% off all shoes" but the link goes to your homepage, forcing the user to hunt for the deal. The message, offer, and branding should be consistent from ad to landing page.
• Slow page load speed: If your site takes more than a few seconds to load, people will leave before they ever have a chance to convert.
• High-friction conversion process: Are you asking for too much information on a lead form? Is your checkout process confusing and multi-stepped?
• Unclear call-to-action (CTA): Does the user know exactly what you want them to do on the landing page? Is the "Buy Now" or "Sign Up" button easy to find?

If this ranking is low, your focus should be almost entirely off of Facebook and onto your website. Analyze your landing page experience from the customer's perspective. Make it as easy and seamless as possible to complete the conversion action.

Practical Scenarios: Putting It All Together

The true power of these diagnostics comes from looking at them together. Different combinations tell you exactly where to focus your optimization efforts.

Scenario 1: Everything is Low

Scores: Quality: Below Average, Engagement: Below Average, Conversion: Below Average. Diagnosis: Your ad and offer are completely missing the mark. The audience isn't interested, the creative isn't engaging, and the landing page experience doesn't work. Action: Go back to the drawing board. Re-evaluate your core offer, your audience targeting, and develop a completely new creative concept. Don't waste time tweaking this ad - start fresh.

Scenario 2: The Ad Grabs Attention but Doesn't Convert

Scores: Quality: Average/Above Average, Engagement: Above Average, Conversion: Below Average. Diagnosis: This is a classic "post-click problem." You've successfully captured people's interest - they're liking, commenting, and clicking. But the moment they leave Facebook, the experience breaks down and they don’t convert. Action: Your #1 priority is optimizing your landing page. Check for consistency between your ad and page, simplify your forms, and improve page load speed.

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Scenario 3: The Ad Seems Fine But No One Engages

Scores: Quality: Average, Engagement: Below Average, Conversion: Below Average. Diagnosis: Facebook sees the ad as medium-quality, but it's not connecting with users. This often points to a creative or targeting issue. The message might be fine, but the hook isn't strong enough or it's being shown to people who don't care about it. Action: Test new creative. Try a different format (video vs. image), write more compelling copy for the first two lines, and test different audiences that may be a better fit for your offer.

Remember, always prioritize your main business objective over these diagnostic metrics. If you have an ad with a “Below Average” Quality Ranking that is consistently delivering profitable ROAS, don't rush to turn it off. These rankings are tools to help you fix underperforming ads, not definitive rules for what to keep running.

Final Thoughts

While Facebook may not have a single "Quality Score," its ad relevance diagnostics provide a far more detailed roadmap for improving your ads. By analyzing your Quality, Engagement, and Conversion Rate Rankings together, you can quickly identify whether you need to fix your creative, adjust your targeting, or optimize your landing page.

We know that keeping tabs on these diagnostics - along with dozens of other metrics across platforms like Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Shopify - is a huge part of the challenge. That's why we built Graphed. We connect all your marketing and sales data in one place, so you can stop spending hours manually pulling reports. You can simply ask a question like, "Show me my Facebook ad performance, including Quality and Engagement Ranking, for all campaigns driving sales on Shopify last month," and get an instant, real-time dashboard that gives you the full picture without ever leaving our platform.