Ad frequency

Frequency = impressions ÷ reach.

Example: 90,000 impressions reaching 30,000 people is a frequency of 3.0.

Frequency on its own is not a problem. Awareness campaigns often aim for several exposures. The warning sign is frequency rising while click-through falls and cost per result climbs. That pattern means the audience has seen enough of this ad.

There is no single safe frequency. A small retargeting audience will reach high frequency quickly and may still convert; a broad cold audience may tire faster. Watch the trend in your own results rather than a fixed cap.

• Rotate fresh creative into the ad set before performance drops, not after.
• Vary more than the colour: a new hook or angle reads as a new ad.
• Widen the audience if frequency is climbing because the pool is small.
• Use frequency caps where the campaign type supports them.

Meta defines frequency as the average number of times each Meta account saw your ad, calculated as impressions divided by reach. Meta marks it as an estimate built from sampled data.

Meta says frequency may average 1 to 2 per ad set or be much higher, depending on budget, audience size and schedule, and advises that if performance drops as frequency rises, the audience may be experiencing ad fatigue and the creative or targeting should change.