In advertising, frequency refers to the average number of times each person is being shown your advert.
If the frequency for your campaign is 2, that means the average person who has seen your ad has seen it twice!
Unfortunately there's no way to cap frequency on Facebook and Insta ads, so it's important that you understand what it means and react to it when it changes.
Why would I want an ad frequency above 1?
If someone has already seen your ad and hasn't bought/streamed/liked anything, you might wonder if it's worth paying to show it to them again.
Well, there are many reasons why someone wouldn’t perform your desired action the first time they saw the ad, for example:
They’re at work and can't watch a video
They’re travelling without headphones
They’re multi-tasking/watching TV
So it’s normally good to show the ads 2-3 times to the same people, as they may just need to be reminded of it at a convenient time.
When is ad frequency too high?
After the average ad viewer has seen it 4 times, you can probably take the hint!
By this point the viewers will either be clearly uninterested, or will be subconsciously scrolling past it because they've seen the video/image already. It's time to either pause the ad or change the image/video you're showing them.
On Fan Builder, we'll pause the ad for you automatically once your Frequency hits 3.5, and recommend changing the content. This helps to keep your ad-spend efficient.
How do I reduce ad frequency?
If your ad frequency is high, it's normally because your audience size is too small and/or your daily budget is too high.
If you're running a HypeLink/Pre-save campaign with high frequency, we recommend just lowering your budget, as it's likely that you've hit most of your warm audience already.
If you're running a cold audience campaign e.g. Grow Facebook or Instagram Followers, you most likely need to expand the audience you're targeting.