Metrics and KPIs

What is ad frequency

Also known as: average frequency, frequency cap, frequency capping

Rodrigo Fávaro, founder of ROO3
Rodrigo Fávaro Founder of ROO3
Published
The words Ad frequency in large letters on a dark background, with the address roo3.co/marketing
Short answer

Frequency is the average number of times each person saw an ad in a period: impressions divided by reach. Too low, and the message goes unnoticed; too high, and it wears out the audience and wastes budget. A frequency cap is the setting that defines the maximum number of times the same person can see a campaign's ads.

Formula

Average frequency = impressions ÷ reach

With 24,000 impressions and 3,000 people reached, average frequency is 8. The average hides extremes: part of the audience may have seen it twice, another part twenty times.

Hypothetical example

A remarketing campaign targets the 3,000 people who visited a site last month, with a budget meant for a much larger audience. In one week, each person saw the ad eight times on average.

Click through rate halves and annoyed comments appear. The team sets a cap of three impressions per person per day, creates two new ad versions and moves part of the budget to another audience.

Frequency capping in Google Ads

In Google Ads, frequency capping applies to Display and Video campaigns and limits how many times ads appear to the same person. For video, the cap can be set in impressions, views or both, per day, week or month, and is configured at the campaign level.

For measurement, Google recommends average impression frequency per user over 7 days and the frequency distribution, which shows how many people saw the ad once, twice, three times or more, as the preferred metrics.

Ad fatigue

When these signs appear, the remedies are refreshing creatives, widening the audience or capping frequency.

What the right frequency is

There is no universal number. A launch campaign needs enough repetition to be remembered; remarketing with a small audience saturates fast; a simple message wears out sooner than a complex one. The way forward is tracking frequency together with click through rate and cost per result, and adjusting when both start to worsen.

The average hides extremes

An average frequency of 3 can mean everyone saw the ad three times or that half saw it once and the other half five times. The frequency distribution shows that difference and tells whether the cap is working.

Frequently asked questions

What is ad frequency?

The average number of times each person saw an ad in a period, calculated by dividing impressions by reach.

What is a frequency cap?

A setting that defines the maximum number of times the same person can see a campaign's ads in a period, such as per day or per week.

What is the ideal ad frequency?

It depends on the goal, audience size and creative. Track frequency along with click through rate and cost per result to know when it is too high.

What is ad fatigue?

When an audience sees the same ad so often that it stops responding: click through rate drops and cost per result rises.

Does remarketing need a frequency cap?

It usually does, because the audience is small and the budget concentrates on the same people. Without a cap, frequency climbs fast and becomes annoying.

Related terms

Sources
Rodrigo Fávaro

Rodrigo Fávaro

Founder of ROO3, a marketing and technology agency in São José do Rio Preto, Brazil. Builds AI products running in production (Tobia, gerar.app, Pense Mercado) and maintains the AI Benchmark, a public ranking of AI models.

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