What Is Frequency?
Frequency is the average number of times a person saw your ad within a defined window. It's the diagnostic that tells you whether your audience is under-saturated (not enough exposure to remember you) or over-saturated (fatigued, CTR collapsing).
Formula
Worked example
Over 7 days: 200,000 impressions to 40,000 unique users. Frequency = 5. That's fine for retargeting cart-abandoners (you want to be seen). It's high for cold prospecting — usually a signal to broaden audience or refresh creative.
Benchmarks
- Cold prospecting (7-day): 1.5–3.5 healthy; > 5 is fatigue.
- Retargeting (7-day): 5–12 acceptable; > 20 risks annoyance.
- Brand awareness campaigns: 3–8 is the sweet spot for recall.
Why it matters
Frequency is the earliest signal of creative fatigue. When frequency rises and CTR falls in the same week, the audience is saturated — refresh creative or broaden targeting before CPMs spike.
Common mistakes
- 1.Ignoring frequency until CPA breaks. By then you've burned budget.
- 2.Reading frequency in isolation — always pair with CTR trend.
- 3.Setting arbitrary frequency caps. Better to fix creative than throttle delivery.
Put Frequency to work
Related services
FAQs about Frequency
What's a good frequency?
Depends on campaign type. 2–3 on cold prospecting, 5–10 on retargeting. Judge by CTR trend, not the number alone.
How do I lower frequency?
Broaden audience, refresh creative, add exclusions to remove converters, or shift budget to a fresh audience.
Related terms
Number of unique users who saw your ad at least once.
Number of times your ad was rendered on a screen.
When an audience has seen the same ad enough that CTR/CVR drops.
Cost to serve 1,000 impressions — the auction's price signal.
Clicks ÷ impressions — measures how often your ad earns a click.