So you’ve been hit with your first ‘Poor Ad Experience’ notice in your facebook ad manager and now you’re freaking out, am I right? Don’t worry, we’ve all been there. Every experienced FB advertiser has been hit with at least one of those.
This article is here to tell you what it means, how you caused it and how you can avoid it. So stop freaking out, get your notepad and start taking notes!
What does it mean?
When you receive the ‘Poor Ad Experience’ it means that facebook has learned (through their algorithm and/or user feedback) that users react negatively to your ad. In response, Facebook will show your ad to less and less people.
While Facebook makes most of its money through advertising, they still prioritise their userbase over everything else. This means that if they find that users react poorly to your ad, they will let you know and you get the chance to change the ad or keep it running for a lot less impressions.
How does Facebook determine that your ad is a poor experience on its users?
There are a number of ways Facebook determines the poor ad experience. Here are the most common:
- Sensationalized titles
- Witholding information
- Begging for comments and likes
- Poor Ad Creative
- Poor landing page
Sensationalized titles
Making exaggerated claims may look good from an advertising perspective, but Facebook (and many users) hate them with a passion. It’s only natural Facebook decides to act on these, making this one of the main reasons advertisers get hit with the ‘poor ad experience’ notice.
Here are some examples by Facebook of exaggerated claims:
Witholding information from the copy to get users to click the ad
While it’s your job to get the customers from the ad to your landing page, it’s facebook’s job to make sure users don’t get deceived into doing so. As I mentioned earlier, facebook wants to protect its users.
If you have ad ad copy that withholds information in a way that the customer HAS to click on your link, facebook will hit you with the poor ads experience notice.
Here are some examples by Facebook of witholding information:
Asking for likes and comments
Likes and comments are a way for advertisers to get their content displayed organically, it’s only natural that facebook decided to act on the select few that encourages their users to “like” or “comment” within the ad copy.
Asking for these will get you hit with the poor ads experience, so .. don’t.
Here are some examples by Facebook of engagement bait:
Poor Ad Creative
Facebook considers your ad creative to be poor quality if it consists out of too much text. I’m sure you’ve added a creative to your ad manager before and Facebook told you it would show it to less people because it consists of too much text. That’s what they mean.
Facebook basically wants the amount of text on your creative to always be 20% or less. Adding more might result in your ad being shown to less people (aka you’re wasting money), your ad being hit with the ‘poor ad experience’ notice or even the removal of your ad.
Examples of text in ads, taken directly from Facebook support:
Here are facebook’s tips on reducing text in your creatives:
- Use fewer words and/or reduce the font size
- Make sure most of the text is in your ad copy, not your ad creative
- Avoid spreading text all over the image
Poor Landing page
Many advertisers believe Facebook only polices the ad copy and creative, not your webshop but this is completely wrong. Facebook Admit’s even your landing page can result in you getting hit with the ‘poor ad experience’ notice in your facebook ad manager.
How does facebook determine your webshop landing page is low quality?
- Lack substantive and original content: aka the dropshippers with Aliexpress product descriptions but also dropshippers with product descriptions stolen from other drop shippers or even real brands.
- Misleading claims: If you’re lying about delivery times, product returns or make false claims about your product, it’s quality or the functionality, you will get hit with the poor ad experience.
Customer feedback
Aside from the Facebook algorithm determining the state of your ad, Facebook also reacts to customer feedback. This they do in a variety of ways such as:
- Report/hide ad function: Facebook users can use the ‘hide ad’ or ‘report ad’ function to report ads they don’t want to see or they think are a scam.
- Ad surveys: Facebook also surveys users who make purchases through facebook ads. This means that someone can buy from your store and Facebook will ask a number of things to conclude whether your product quality and customer service quality is up to par with Facebook’s standards.
Facebook gives each page a rating from 0 to 5. Once your page reaches a score below 2, less and less people might see your ads. If your page rating reaches score 1, your ad account will be disabled.
What to do once you receive the ‘Poor Ad Experience’ notice
The first thing you should do when receiving this notice is to kill the ad, instantly. There’s no point in keeping it live as facebook will kill the impressions of the so you’ll just be throwing money down the drain.
Next you’ll want to identify the reason you were hit with the notice by rating your ad on the 5 notes I’ve stated earlier:
- Sensationalized or exaggerated titles
- Witholding information
- Begging for comments and likes
- Poor Ad Creative
- Poor landing page
Odds are, you probably have used at least one of those. If not, it might just be that your ad copy or ad creative look’s like a scam or that you’re providing dishonest services to your customers, in which case Facebook users will report the ad or react badly to surveys.
This is common with dropshippers who steal footage from other dropshippers and then target the same audience as the original brand. In a lot of these cases, the original brand already has established themselves as the “authority” and “brand” behind the product.
If these Facebook users all of a sudden get the same ad from a different company, they will get suspicious and report the ad.
I’d also like to note that you might be biased and think there’s nothing wrong with your ad copy so it might be beneficial to you to show it to some family members and friends and get their opinion on it.
Once you’ve identified the source, change up the ad copy and creative and possibly your landing page as well. This time be truthful and not spammy or too salesy. Don’t use any engagement or clickbait.
Once you think you’ve really improved the ad, publish it once more.
Why you should avoid Poor Ad Experience
Obviously, you want to avoid poor ad experience as this will result in your ad getting fewer impressions and thus conersions which will end up losing you money.
But that’s not even the biggest reason. Facebook ‘remembers’ every time they hit you with the poor ads notice. A few of those, I stated before, could reduce your page score to 1 which results in your facebook ad account getting disabled due to violating policies.
Facebook gives pages with a low ad rating (below 2) a harder time, meaning they limit the reach they have on every single campaign.
Final thoughts on Facebook’s ‘Poor Ad Experience’
Don’t worry if you’ve been hit with a poor ad experience notice, it’s not the end of the world. Every advertiser will run into them at some point, it just means your latest ad has a few issues with it. It’s honestly no big deal and it’s better that they tell you than you having an ad around that no one reacts positively to.
Definitely don’t neglect the notice and fix your ad copy, creatives and possibly even landing page to comply with Facebook’s policies.