What Is Facebook Ad Fatigue?
Facebook Ad Fatigue occurs when users repeatedly see the same ads in their feeds, causing them to lose interest and stop engaging. As a result, ad performance drops, and the overall campaign suffers.
How Does Facebook Ad Fatigue Affect Campaigns?
When ad fatigue sets in, the audience no longer responds to your ads as effectively. Your Click-Through Rate (CTR) declines, conversion rates drop, and costs per action (CPA) increase.
“Once people within your audience have seen your ads multiple times, they’re going to become bored of them… your results are going to drop off.” – Ben Heath
How to Spot Audience Fatigue in Your Facebook Campaigns
To detect ad fatigue, look at your ad’s frequency number. This metric shows how many times each person in your audience has seen your ad.
- Cold Audiences: A frequency number above 2-2.5 signals ad fatigue. For some industries, it can be a little higher, but 2.5 is often the tipping point.
- Warm Audiences: Higher frequency numbers (e.g., 10-12) may still perform well since these audiences are more familiar with your brand.
“For cold audiences, anything above a 2.5 frequency is where Facebook Ad Fatigue likely sets in.” – Ben Heath
How to Overcome Facebook Ad Fatigue
Here are the key strategies to refresh your Facebook ad campaigns:
1. Change Your Ad Creative
Switch up your ad creatives by changing the images, videos, or even background colors. Small tweaks like changing the background color from blue to red can prevent the audience from immediately recognizing the ad and scrolling past it.
“Changing the ad creative… gets past the filter that your prospects now have when they’re fatigued.” – Ben Heath
2. Expand Your Audience Size
Increase your audience size by adjusting targeting options like expanding lookalike audiences or broadening geographical targeting.
“Try increasing the size of your lookalike to a two or three percent… to give you much more people to advertise to.” – Ben Heath
3. Optimize Your Offer
If changing creative and expanding audiences don’t work, consider modifying your offer or introducing new products. This can give fatigued audiences something new to engage with.
“If you’re operating in a really specific niche… you may need to take a look at your offer.” – Ben Heath
Preventing Facebook Ad Fatigue
To stay ahead of ad fatigue, introduce new ads every 4-6 weeks, depending on your budget and audience size. For larger audiences, you may not need to refresh as frequently. However, for niche or local audiences, weekly or bi-weekly creative refreshes may be necessary.
Final Thoughts
Facebook Ad Fatigue is inevitable in long-running campaigns, but by refreshing ad creatives, expanding audiences, and optimizing your offers, you can keep engagement high and costs low.
