Ad Frequency

Businesses put a lot of time and resources into setting up successful ad campaigns. But how do you know if your target audience is even seeing it? Ad frequency is a metric that will help you understand the number of times your ad is seen, how successful your campaign is, and where to improve your social media strategy. In this article, we will outline everything you need to know.

TRACK YOUR AD FREQUENCY

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Templates using this KPI
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Integrations using this KPI

What is ad frequency?

Think about your own experience on social media. How often do you see the same ad more than once?

This is an example of ad frequency or the number of times your ad is shown to a unique user. It is a strong indicator of how well your ad is reaching the target audience as a whole. To understand the average number of times a user sees your ad, you will need to analyze your ad impressions and ad reach within the ads manager. Understanding this information can help you optimize your ad campaigns and find the sweet spot between high frequency and low frequency in a given period.

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How to calculate ad frequency?

Ad frequency is a ratio of your impressions—the total number of times your ad is viewed—to your ad reach, or the number of people who have seen the ad.

Ad frequency formula

Ad frequency = (Ad impressions) / (Ad reach)

What is good ad frequency?

A long-running school of thought says an ad frequency of 3 is ideal. This means that the user will have had time to familiarize themself with the brand, especially if you are a newer brand that needs to grow brand awareness, recognize the product, and realize if they care to engage with it. For some brands, a lower frequency may be better, especially if you are better known, whereas, for others, a higher frequency may be necessary if your audience is new to your products.

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What is bad ad frequency?

A bad ad frequency would be a number that is either causing ad fatigue in the viewers or the sensation of ignoring or being annoyed by an ad because they have seen it too many times. Furthermore, the bad frequency would be the number of times you do not convert viewers and help you achieve your campaign goals. If you are not seeing any return on your ad spend, you may not be reaching an effective frequency for your product or services within that specific campaign. But remember, there is no one-size-fits-all approach.

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Ad frequency KPI examples & templates

Add your ad metrics to these reports for a good view of all your online marketing strategy metrics and overall online performance.

See this KPI in action here!

See this KPI in action here!

PPC report template

Check your metrics from all your marketing channels and social media platforms from instagram ads, Facebook advertising, google search ads, bing ads, or Linkedin ads. You can also track this data alongside your business metrics and industry benchmark.

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Ecommerce report template

A report with all the most important metrics for your ecommerce site, like shopping cart abandonment, click-through rate, ad costs, and revenue.

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Executive report template

This template is filled with business metrics perfect for small business owners and bigger companies executives. Showcase your revenue, new customers, churn rate, and more.

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Ad frequency best practices

If you do not see the optimal frequency for your ad set, consider setting up different ad parameters to improve functionality.

Audience retargeting

Make sure that the right ads are connecting with the right viewers. Target specific ad sets so that your posts are showing up on the newsfeed of suitable viewers; otherwise, the funds you put into your Facebook ad campaigns may have high impressions but low performance and frequency.

Manual adjust the frequency

If you are seeing low facebook ad frequency and it's causing your campaign to perform poorly, you can opt to increase the frequency. There is no need to use the automated rules; work with the information you gather through the campaign to optimize your ad delivery.

Exclude irrelevant audiences

If your ad frequency is too high, on the other hand, exclude viewers who are not relevant and groups with a low click-through rate (ctr) with your content.

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