Sure, people hates ads. But, what people hate more is seeing the same ad over and over again that they’re just not interested in. Ugh. This, in a nutshell, is the result of high ad frequency.
Ad frequency refers to the average number of times a user sees a particular ad within a specific timeframe. While a certain level of frequency is necessary to achieve ad recall and conversion, excessive frequency can lead to ad fatigue and decreased effectiveness. So please do note that a frequency over 1 isn’t always a bad thing! Regardless, ad frequency is probably one of the most misunderstood metric on the likes of Meta ads and TikTok ads. So, let’s clear things up in terms of what actually is a high frequency and what you need to do to combat it.
Benchmarking to check if your frequency is too high
So, how do you actually know if your frequency is too high? While this questions doesn’t have a particular black-and-white answer, we can give you some guidance to investigate your frequency to see if it really is an issue for your performance. Here’s some things that can make a difference to how you’re going to assess your frequency…
- Define if you’re reviewing data over a 7 day or 1 month timeframe
- Define what type of outreach you’re reviewing
- Define what level you’re reviewing (campaign, adset, ad)
Because it’s nuanced, here’s a handy chart you can use to map what frequency you should be aiming for (below). If your frequency is above these figures, it’s probably too high:
| Campaign type | Time range | Aim for this frequency range |
|---|---|---|
| Prospecting – Conversions | 7 days | 1-2 |
| Prospecting – Conversions | 30 days | 2-3 |
| Prospecting – Awareness | 7 days | 1 |
| Prospecting – Awareness | 30 days | 1-2 |
| Retargeting | 7 days | 3 |
| Retargeting | 30 days | 4-5 |
Where to find your frequency metric
On Meta ads
- Go to your main campaigns dashboard
- Go to your columns and “Customise columns”
- Search for “Frequency”
- Tick “Frequency” and hit “Apply”
- You’ll now see your frequency in your columns!
On TikTok ads
- Go to your main campaigns dashboard
- Go to “Default columns” and click “Custom columns”
- Search for “Frequency”
- Tick “Frequency” and hit “Apply”
- You’ll now see your frequency in your columns!
Things you can do if your frequency is too high
Check if your audience is too small
On Meta, when you’re setting up your audience, you can get an estimate of how many people are in your audience on the right-hand side of the screen. Handily enough, it’s in the same place on TikTok. We recommend this audience size is at least 400,000-500,000 users as when your ads start running, social advertising platforms like Meta will optimise down into a niche within this overall audience (so, it won’t actually ever hit everyone within this total audience size). This is just the nature of how Meta optimises. If your audience is too small and you keep running at a set daily budget, Meta will have no choice but to hit the same people over and over again with your ads – even if they’re not interested.
Check if your budget is too high
This one’s related to your audience. If your budget is too big for your audience, Meta will target the same users over and over as it runs out of new people to target within your set parameters. This one’s really common in retargeting campaigns where your pool of warm users is too small for your budget. It’s important to keep your audience size and budget size balanced. If you have a super high frequency and you can’t widen your audience at all, try downsizing your budget in this particular campaign/adset and reallocating it elsewhere – possibly to test other audiences and into a prospecting campaign if your high frequency campaign is retargeting.
Are you rotating ads and audiences?
The likes of Meta ads and TikTok ads should fairly fluid in terms of setup, targeting and ad content. While this won’t reduce your frequency as the likes of budget and audience size balancing will, by regularly switching out your ad creative, you reduce the chances of viewers becoming desensitised to your message. This can help maintain engagement and improve performance while you focus on improving your frequency.
How to avoid problems with high ad frequency in the future
Based on the above, here’s your best practises to ensure your ad frequency doesn’t get too high in the future
- Keep your audience size and budget balanced
- Rotate your ads frequently
- Set frequency caps (only available if you’re running reach type campaigns)
