A solution for both advertisers and Facebook users

While adver­tis­ers want max­i­mum reach and val­ue for their ads, Face­book users wish to have per­son­alised online expe­ri­ences, unhin­dered by advertising.

These con­trast­ing needs pose a prob­lem for Face­book, but they’ve devel­oped a solu­tion that bal­ances the needs of both adver­tis­ers and users:

The Face­book algo­rithm sets out to deliv­er the most rel­e­vant con­tent and ads to users so that they aren’t over­whelmed or annoyed. Mean­while, the algo­rithm ensures ads are shown to the most qual­i­fied users, increas­ing the reach and val­ue of adver­tis­ers’ campaigns.

So, what are the cogs behind Face­book’s algo­rithm doing? And how can adver­tis­ers get the most from it?

What is the Facebook algorithm, and how does it work?

Face­book calls its algo­rithm “per­son­alised rank­ing,” which is a pret­ty good descrip­tion of what it does. The social media giant’s algo­rithm works to rank the dif­fer­ent con­tent shown in users’ News Feeds in a way that will be best for each indi­vid­ual user.

Rather than dis­play­ing con­tent chrono­log­i­cal­ly, Face­book will eval­u­ate every sin­gle ad, post, Sto­ry, and Reel and arrange them opti­mal­ly accord­ing to sev­er­al fac­tors (dis­cussed below). This process is repeat­ed every time a user refresh­es their News Feed.

The con­tent appear­ing at the top of feeds is what Face­book has deemed to be the most inter­est­ing, mean­ing­ful, or impor­tant to a giv­en user.

This whole process is actioned by arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence and machine learn­ing process­es, which are con­tin­u­al­ly improved and updated.

Ranking factors used by Facebook’s algorithm

So, how does Face­book’s algo­rithm decide the order in which posts should be dis­played? Well, there are three main rank­ing fac­tors as of 2023:

1. Who post­ed the con­tent (Face­book users are more like­ly to be shown con­tent from accounts and pages they’ve already inter­act­ed or con­nect­ed with in the past.)

2. The type of con­tent (Face­book users will see more of the kind of con­tent (e.g., videos) they most engage with.)

3. The inter­ac­tions with the con­tent (If a par­tic­u­lar post has had a lot of engage­ment, Face­book will show it even more to oth­er users.)

Do users have any control over their own News Feeds?

Along­side these rank­ing fac­tors, Face­book has giv­en users a cou­ple of ways they can cus­tomise their own feeds.

For instance, users can select up to 30 Pages and peo­ple they deem “Favourites”, which will appear high­er in their Feed. Addi­tion­al­ly, users can click on any post to hide it, snooze it, and add or remove it from Favourites.

Apart from these actions, users’ News Feeds are whol­ly deter­mined by Face­book’s algorithm.

The Facebook algorithm: News Feed and Reels

News Feed

Face­book pri­ori­tis­es the most mean­ing­ful con­tent and puts it at the top of users’ feeds. It uses a four-step algo­rithm to deter­mine the order in which dif­fer­ent pieces of con­tent are shown:

1. Inven­to­ry

This first step con­sid­ers the total set of posts a user could see when they open Face­book. It’s com­prised of all the avail­able con­tent from the groups, pages, and peo­ple users are con­nect­ed with, as well as any ads and rec­om­mend­ed con­tent based on their activity.

2. Sig­nals

Face­book then analy­ses the inven­to­ry, con­sid­er­ing who post­ed the con­tent, how a user has pre­vi­ous­ly inter­act­ed with that per­son and that con­tent type, and how oth­er peo­ple have inter­act­ed with it. These fac­tors are called signals.

3. Pre­dic­tions, and 4. Relevance

These sig­nals are then used to make pre­dic­tions about how rel­e­vant the con­tent will be to a par­tic­u­lar user, assign­ing a rel­e­vance score. Con­tent with high­er rel­e­vance scores will appear clos­er to the top of users’ feeds.

Reels

Less is known about Face­book’s Reels algo­rithm because it’s new­er. How­ev­er, there are some unde­ni­able best prac­tices that will improve the dis­cov­er­abil­i­ty of your reels that indi­cate the cri­te­ria that Face­book is look­ing for.

• High video qual­i­ty (not blur­ry or low resolution)
• Videos with good lighting
• Videos with­out water­marks from oth­er apps (e.g., TikTok)
• Videos made with pleas­ing camerawork
• Ver­ti­cal videos that fit the frame (not hor­i­zon­tal or boarded)
• Videos with music (trend­ing or otherwise)
• Enter­tain­ing and engag­ing videos (per­haps using trend­ing themes or discussions)

Read this page for Face­book’s full out­line of tips for adver­tis­ers using Reels.

What kind of content is demoted by the Facebook algorithm?

In order to pro­tect users from harm­ful, upset­ting, or unsafe con­tent, Face­book has devel­oped cer­tain process­es that can iden­ti­fy and remove it. If you want to avoid hav­ing your con­tent demot­ed, make sure you’re not guilty of pub­lish­ing any of the following:

• Click­bait links
• Engage­ment bait
• Links to sites that request unnec­es­sary user data
• Uno­rig­i­nal videos
• Spam
• Sen­sa­tion­al­ist health content
• Ad farms
• Con­tent that has­n’t been fact-checked
• Posts that use threat­en­ing, vio­lent, or harass­ing language
• Posts that use slurs and words relat­ed to harm­ful stereo­types — Con­tent that vio­lates Face­book’s Com­mu­ni­ty Stan­dards (includ­ing graph­ic vio­lence, hate speech, and more) or comes close to vio­lat­ing them
• Con­tent that spreads mis­lead­ing infor­ma­tion about COVID-19
• Con­tent that attempts to sell pro­hib­it­ed prod­ucts (e.g., endan­gered species, drugs, firearms, weight loss prod­ucts, haz­ardous goods, and more)

Learn more about pro­hib­it­ed con­tent via Face­book’s Con­tent Dis­tri­b­u­tion Guide­lines.

In some cas­es, the con­se­quence of pub­lish­ing pro­hib­it­ed con­tent won’t just be the removal of that con­tent. Some Pages will lose access to fea­tures such as Ads, which would be a sig­nif­i­cant set­back for many businesses.

So, it’s cru­cial that adver­tis­ers are aware of what Face­book’s algo­rithm does­n’t allow so that they can con­tin­ue with their ad cam­paigns unhindered.

What advertisers need to know about the Facebook Ads algorithm

Busi­ness­es should always aim to under­stand Face­book’s algo­rithm, but what about the Face­book Ads algorithm?

Busi­ness­es can’t just cre­ate ads and pub­lish them on Face­book. First, there are sev­er­al steps to go through relat­ed to how ads will appear on users’ News Feeds. Under­stand­ing these will be cru­cial to get­ting your ads seen by the right audi­ence so that you can max­imise the val­ue of your efforts and the reach of your ads.

Businesses need to provide key information about their ads

When cre­at­ing ads with Face­book, adver­tis­ers will need to make three choices:

1. Who their tar­get audi­ence will be

Adver­tis­ers can select their tar­get audi­ence from a few dif­fer­ent sources of data:

a) the infor­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by users (e.g., their age, loca­tion, or gender)

b) the infor­ma­tion gath­ered by Face­book about the behav­iour of users (e.g., those who have clicked on a par­tic­u­lar Page or joined a spe­cif­ic Group)

c) lists pro­vid­ed by adver­tis­ers them­selves (e.g., users on an email mar­ket­ing list)

2. What their busi­ness objec­tive is

Face­book wants to know what you hope to achieve. Your objec­tive could be increas­ing web­site traf­fic, build­ing aware­ness, or boost­ing con­ver­sion rate.

3. The price of their bid

The adver­tis­er needs to state what they’re will­ing to pay per user per suc­cess­ful com­ple­tion of desired action (e.g., click­ing a link that takes them to their website).

Don’t over­look this cru­cial step

It’s essen­tial that busi­ness­es take these steps seri­ous­ly and pro­vide Face­book with detailed infor­ma­tion about their inten­tions for their ads.

Though a busi­ness’s objec­tives and bid are cru­cial infor­ma­tion for Face­book to have, its tar­get audi­ence is per­haps more impor­tant. When it comes to an intend­ed audi­ence, be as detailed as pos­si­ble and take advan­tage of all the oppor­tu­ni­ties you have to describe your audience.

This way, you’ll ensure your ads are con­sid­ered by the Face­book algo­rithm more often, seen by the most qual­i­fied Face­book users, and get more oppor­tu­ni­ties for conversions.

How does Facebook choose what ads users see?

Face­book does­n’t just use the infor­ma­tion above to deter­mine who will see cer­tain ads. The next step is to quan­ti­fy dif­fer­ent ads with scores.

For exam­ple, when ‘Tim’ opens his Face­book app, Face­book gath­ers all the dif­fer­ent ads that have includ­ed Tim in their tar­get audi­ence. There are ads for moun­tain bikes, local music events, house­plants, and more.

Before Tim can be shown these ads, Face­book must hold an auc­tion. Auc­tions look at the “Total Val­ue” of ads, which is a score affect­ed by the fol­low­ing factors:

1) the adver­tis­ers’ bids

2) the ads’ Esti­mat­ed Action Rate

3) the ads’ quality

After these three fac­tors are con­sid­ered, Tim will see the advert that scores the high­est. And it won’t nec­es­sar­i­ly be the moun­tain bike busi­ness with the largest bud­get. Tim might be shown the house­plan­t’s busi­ness ad if it turns out to be the most rel­e­vant and engaging.

So how does Face­book score dif­fer­ent ads to come to this conclusion?

The highest bid doesn’t always win

Face­book does­n’t just show the high­est-pay­ing ads to every user. If it did, count­less users would be frus­trat­ed by see­ing irrel­e­vant ads, and adver­tis­ers would­n’t be see­ing as good inter­ac­tion lev­els com­pared with if their ads were sim­ply shown to the most qual­i­fied users.

This allows small­er busi­ness­es to com­pete and for the most rel­e­vant ads to reach the most qual­i­fied users.

Calculating ‘Estimated Action Rate’

In order to show ads to the most qual­i­fied users, Face­book cal­cu­lates the Esti­mat­ed Action Rate (EAR). Machine learn­ing and pre­dic­tive algo­rithms cal­cu­late how like­ly it is that a user will com­plete the adver­tis­er’s desired objective.

The EAR is fig­ured out by look­ing at a user’s his­tor­i­cal behav­iour on Face­book and their behav­iour out­side of the app (if that infor­ma­tion is avail­able). It will also con­sid­er how oth­er users have inter­act­ed with the ads in ques­tion, and even the time of day.

Calculating ‘Ad Quality’

Machine learn­ing is used again to quan­ti­fy the qual­i­ty of ads and uses two fac­tors to do so.

First, Face­book exam­ines how peo­ple have already inter­act­ed with the ads in ques­tion. Sec­ond, it will cross-check ads against Face­book’s qual­i­ty guid­ance (dis­cussed below).

After the auction

The out­come of analysing Ad Qual­i­ty, EAR, and adver­tis­ers’ bids is an ordered set of ads. At the top of the list are the ads that have been deter­mined most rel­e­vant and most like­ly to suc­ceed. Busi­ness­es can make the most of this algo­rithm by increas­ing the qual­i­ty of their ads and inputting as much infor­ma­tion about their tar­get audi­ence as pos­si­ble. Of course, hav­ing a high bid­ding fig­ure helps – but it isn’t the most impor­tant thing.

Top tips for working with the Facebook algorithm

1. Know your target audience

Face­book will analyse how peo­ple inter­act with your ads to deter­mine their qual­i­ty, but you’ll need to put in the work before they’re published.

Face­book states on this web­page that its Feed aims to dis­play con­tent that is mean­ing­ful and infor­ma­tive. But what does that mean exactly?

Well, mean­ing­ful con­tent is that which users find rel­e­vant, inter­est­ing, and important.

And infor­ma­tive con­tent is detailed and accurate.

Since these descrip­tors are sub­jec­tive to each user, you’ll need to use your under­stand­ing of your tar­get audi­ence to cre­ate con­tent that meets these cri­te­ria. Use the data you have on pre­vi­ous ads to deter­mine what worked and per­haps cre­ate a Buy­er Per­sona if you want to go back to the draw­ing board.

What­ev­er audi­ence research you con­duct, it’s cru­cial that you take care in devel­op­ing a real­is­tic pro­file so that your ads res­onate with the peo­ple you’re tar­get­ing and increase engage­ment as much as possible.

Regard­less of audi­ence insights, ads should always pro­vide val­ue by offer­ing infor­ma­tive, enter­tain­ing, or inspir­ing con­tent. Grab users’ atten­tion with com­pelling head­lines, cap­ti­vat­ing visu­als, and con­cise, per­sua­sive copy that clear­ly com­mu­ni­cates the ben­e­fits of your prod­uct or service.

2. Maintain authenticity and transparency

Face­book val­ues authen­tic­i­ty and trans­paren­cy. With this in mind, avoid using mis­lead­ing or sen­sa­tion­alised lan­guage in your ads, as well as any decep­tive tac­tics that could erode trust with your audience.

Always be hon­est about your offer­ings and pro­vide accu­rate infor­ma­tion so that you can build your busi­ness’s cred­i­bil­i­ty and reputation.

3. Follow Facebook’s policies

Sim­i­lar­ly to the above, you’ll need to avoid break­ing any of Face­book’s poli­cies. So, famil­iarise your­self with them and don’t be tempt­ed to cheat the sys­tem. Adher­ing to these poli­cies will pre­vent your ads from being reject­ed or penalised.

4. Leverage custom audiences and lookalike audiences

Util­is­ing Face­book’s tar­get­ing options is a great way to boost ad per­for­mance. Use Cus­tom Audi­ences to reach peo­ple who already know about your busi­ness, and then lever­age Looka­like Audi­ences with that data to increase your reach further.

5. Start making videos!

Video con­tent is high­ly engag­ing and often receives pref­er­en­tial treat­ment from Face­book’s algo­rithm. Con­sid­er incor­po­rat­ing videos into your ads to cap­ture atten­tion and encour­age engage­ment. You might want to con­tribute to a cur­rent Reel trend or show users a “behind the scenes” peek into your business.

If you’d like help with opti­mis­ing your usage of Face­book Ads, our team at pur­ple­plan­et would love to help. Reach out or click the but­ton below to learn more about our services.

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