Understanding Net Promoter Score and Relevance Score: Metrics That Drive Smarter Business Decisions

Demystifying the Net Promoter Score (NPS)

The Net Promoter Score is one of the most widely adopted measures of customer loyalty. Introduced by Fred Reichheld in a 2003 Harvard Business Review article, the NPS is based on a simple yet revealing question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our product or service to a friend or colleague?” This question gets to the heart of customer sentiment—loyalty, satisfaction, and advocacy—all in one.

Respondents are categorized into three groups based on their score. Those who respond with a 9 or 10 are known as “Promoters.” They are highly satisfied customers who are likely to continue purchasing and will often refer others. Respondents who select 7 or 8 are considered “Passives.” They’re generally satisfied but not enthusiastic enough to promote the brand. And those who score between 0 and 6 are “Detractors.” These are customers who are dissatisfied and potentially harmful to a company’s reputation through negative word-of-mouth.

To calculate the NPS, you subtract the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. The result is a number between -100 and 100. For example, if 60% of your customers are Promoters and 20% are Detractors, your NPS would be 40. While there’s no universal benchmark, a positive score is generally good, and a score above 50 is considered excellent.

Why NPS Matters

The beauty of NPS lies in its simplicity and its direct correlation to growth. Companies that score highly in NPS often see higher customer retention, more referrals, and increased revenue over time. But more importantly, NPS is a catalyst for conversations. It doesn’t just tell you how you’re doing—it opens the door to understanding why. Pairing NPS with follow-up questions or open comment fields allows organizations to dig deeper into customer feedback. It provides a pulse on customer sentiment and can help prioritize changes in customer service, product features, or marketing messaging.

From a strategic standpoint, tracking NPS over time enables leaders to gauge whether their initiatives are having a positive or negative effect on customer perception. It’s a performance barometer and a roadmap rolled into one.

Exploring the Relevance Score (RS)

While NPS focuses on the customer experience post-purchase or post-engagement, Relevance Score lives primarily in the domain of digital advertising. Platforms like Facebook (now Meta), LinkedIn, and Google Ads assign this score to measure how well an ad resonates with its target audience. While the name might vary by platform—Meta, for example, has transitioned to more granular metrics like Quality Ranking, Engagement Rate Ranking, and Conversion Rate Ranking—the principle remains the same: it’s a real-time indicator of how relevant your content is to the people you’re targeting.

Relevance Score is calculated using a mix of positive and negative signals from your audience. Positive interactions such as clicks, shares, comments, and conversions improve your score. Negative interactions, such as users hiding the ad or reporting it as irrelevant, will lower your score. The score is typically presented on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being highly relevant.

The Importance of Relevance Score

A high Relevance Score doesn’t just reflect effective content—it directly affects the cost and reach of your ads. Advertising platforms reward relevancy with lower costs per impression or click, meaning your budget stretches further. Conversely, a low Relevance Score could mean higher ad costs or reduced visibility. This score becomes critical when allocating digital advertising budgets, selecting creative content, or defining audience segments.

More than just a technical metric, Relevance Score functions as a feedback loop for marketers. It shows whether the message is reaching the right audience and whether it’s compelling enough to prompt action. High-performing ads with a strong Relevance Score indicate alignment between the value proposition and the target audience. Poor-performing ones highlight the need for either content adjustment or a reevaluation of targeting parameters.

What Goes Into These Metrics

While NPS is calculated with a single question and a basic formula, what informs it is deeper. Organizations often pair the score with additional customer insights such as demographic data, purchasing history, or open-ended survey responses. Understanding patterns within promoter and detractor groups allows for meaningful segmentation and targeted improvement efforts.

Similarly, Relevance Score is shaped by a complex algorithm that considers engagement behavior, ad quality, audience response, and campaign performance history. The more tailored and engaging the content, the better the score tends to be.

Both metrics rely on honest, organic interactions—whether it’s how a customer responds to a survey or how a user engages with an ad. Artificially inflating either score is unsustainable and ultimately counterproductive. The real power comes in listening, responding, and adjusting based on what these scores reveal.

Using These Scores in Decision-Making

NPS and Relevance Score both offer powerful lenses through which to view performance, but their real value lies in how organizations use them. For example, a dip in NPS may prompt a closer look at a recent product change or service issue. It may lead to deeper customer interviews, revisions to staff training, or even design changes. A spike, conversely, might indicate that recent changes are hitting the mark and should be expanded.

Relevance Score can guide real-time ad optimization. If a campaign’s score drops, it may indicate misalignment between message and audience. Marketers can A/B test new headlines, change creative formats, or refine audience targeting in response. Over time, reviewing Relevance Scores across multiple campaigns provides a strategic view of what messaging, visuals, or calls to action consistently perform best with which segments.

When used together, these two metrics offer a robust view of the customer journey. NPS focuses on satisfaction and loyalty after interaction, while Relevance Score ensures that your message reaches and resonates with your target audience in the first place. The connection between the two is subtle but powerful: a relevant message is often the first step in creating a promoter.

Conclusion

In a landscape driven by perception, experience, and engagement, the Net Promoter Score and Relevance Score offer clarity. They distill complex customer behaviors into actionable insights that organizations can use to improve, evolve, and grow. They aren’t just numbers—they’re signals, stories, and opportunities wrapped in data.

Understanding what they are, how to calculate them, and how to respond to what they reveal can be a game-changer. By embedding these metrics into regular performance reviews, marketing assessments, and strategic planning sessions, organizations can move from reactive to proactive decision-making—shaping experiences that are not only seen and heard but deeply felt and remembered.