Ad frequency: what it is and when it becomes a problem
Frequency is the average number of times each person reached saw your ad in the period. It shows whether you are talking to new people or repeating yourself to the same ones.
Formula
Frequency = Impressions ÷ Reach
Reach counts unique people. Frequency depends on the window: 7 and 30 days give different numbers for the same campaign.
Worked example
- Impressions over 14 days: 60,000
- Reach: 15,000 people
60,000 ÷ 15,000 = 4.0
Each person saw the ad 4 times, on average, in two weeks. If CTR fell over the same period, the audience is tired of this creative.
What the agents do with your Frequency
Frequency of 5.6 on ad set "Prospecting LAL 1%", with CTR down 41% in 10 days.
Suggestion: swap the two oldest creatives and widen the lookalike to 3%. The current audience has seen the ads too many times.
How to read Frequency
Read it with CTR
Rising frequency with stable CTR is healthy reach. Rising frequency with falling CTR is fatigue.
Remarketing can take more
For people who already visited the site, seeing the ad a few times is expected. In prospecting, the same frequency means the audience is too small for the budget.
Big budget, small audience
If frequency climbs quickly right after a budget increase, the audience cannot absorb the spend. Widen the audience or split the budget.
When the number misleads
The average hides the distribution
A frequency of 3 can be half the audience seeing it once and a slice seeing it ten times. Breaking down by audience and placement shows who is saturated.
Different window, different number
Comparing 7-day frequency with 30-day frequency makes no sense. Fix the window before comparing.
Overlapping ad sets
Two ad sets talking to the same audience split frequency between them, and each looks healthy on its own.
Where Frequency shows up
Ask Sherlok
Which ads have runaway frequency?
Is my prospecting audience saturated?
Did frequency go up after I raised the budget?
Which ad sets are talking to the same audience?
Questions about Frequency
What is the ideal frequency?
There is no fixed number. The right signal is CTR: while frequency rises and CTR holds, the audience is still responding. When CTR drops, swap the creative or widen the audience.
Frequency vs reach: what's the difference?
Reach is how many different people saw the ad. Frequency is how many times, on average, each of them saw it.
How do I lower frequency?
Widen the audience, refresh creatives, cut the budget of the saturated ad set or remove the overlap between ad sets that reach the same people.
You already have the data. What's missing is the decision.
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