If you haven’t heard of ad fatigue, you probably intuitively know what that means. And, if you know that, you know why it would be bad for your campaign. Decreased engagement, decreased conversions, and decreased sales overall are all a result of ad fatigue.
Let’s look at what it is, what it does, and what you can do about it.
Defining ad fatigue
Surely you the reader have experienced this — as have we, as has pretty much everyone using the internet. Ad fatigue is when someone has seen the same ad too many times and so not only becomes unreceptive and unengaged, but could also form negative opinions.
As is self-explanatory, this occurs when the ad is served too often to individuals. But what causes that? There are two main culprits.
The first is if the advertiser sets too small of an audience, meaning the showing-per-user is higher i.e. each user sees the ad more often (too much). At the same time, if you don’t have creative variety in multiple ads but rather just have one version, users don’t see varieties of your “pitch” in your ad — variety which would otherwise keep them engaged and their interest piqued.
In a related way, low quality creative assets similarly make an unengaging ad from the get-go. Generally, the more forgettable the ad creative, the more immediate the ad fatigue. (Although on rare occasions the, uh, “less” forgettable creative is worse — think how quickly you spring for the mute button when 1-877-kars4kids. But heck, here we are, remembering it.)
The last main contributing factor is another related detail: not updating your creative, or updating it infrequently. Once again, if you don’t update it, people justifiably get bored and unengaged.
As you can see, these factors, while presenting differently, are essentially different manifestations of the same cause, or at least a recurring theme: Ad fatigue happens when you show the same thing to the same people over and over again.
Image source: henkinschultz.com
How to spot ad fatigue
Ad fatigue is obviously something you want to avoid, because it means both A) you’re wasting money B) you’re potentially creating a longer-lasting negative image of your brand in people’s minds.
Ideally, you’d like to avoid it all together by starting out with the components we discussed above: a large enough audience and a variety of compelling creative.
At the same time, keep an eye on the ad frequency stats. Although the exact numbers that lead to ad fatigue vary, we’d say a frequency of over four showings per user borders on over-serving your audience.
Meanwhile, you should still be on the lookout for changes in metrics that imply increasing ad fatigue. Some telltale signs:
- Decreasing click-through rates
- Fewer conversions
- Lower overall engagement
- Negative comments on the ad
The last one of course is the worst — if people are putting in the effort to leave negative comments on your ad, your constant barrage of an ad has gone beyond fatigue to active frustration and hostility. And frankly, if it’s gotten to that point, likely deservedly so.
Luckily, if you’re being diligent about your campaign, checking on the metrics, and keeping an eye out for those clues that users are tired of seeing your ad (or ads), your proactivity should keep it from getting that far.
Plus, you should be naturally quite motivated in that regard, since increasing ad fatigue subsequently causes an increase in costs per click, per result, per post engagement, per ThruPlay, etc.
Tips to combat ad fatigue
This starts with having empathy for your audience’s point of view so that you can have this in the back of your mind and combat it preemptively, before actual ad fatigue sets in. But, in order to do so, you have to follow the warning signs.
This starts with simply monitoring your ad’s performance and associated metrics — something we seem to say about every topic, because it’s true!
By keeping up with the metrics we mentioned above that can be warning signs, you can catch fatigue early and act accordingly to keep on top of it. This helps prevent it from festering and having a significant impact on your campaign. Particularly keep a note on click-through-rate, and frequency, and don’t be afraid to expand your audience in response to signs of ad fatigue.
In a similar vein, test often. You can do this on details like copy, medium, audiences, locations, and more, which can open up new insights.
At the same time, regularly update your creative assets. Regular creative refreshes help, well, keep things fresh so that your ads don’t just turn into something that makes your audience go “yeah, yeah, seen that same thing a dozen times already” and tune it out. On the flip side, once you’ve established the creative assets that work well for your audience, regular updates are minimally time consuming — new colors, imagery, media format, all can keep people engaged.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to rest your ad creative for a bit.
Giving it “time off” can breathe more life into its performance later. For example, at Fujisan we’ll sometimes see ad fatigue for LinkedIn document ads after long run periods — after letting them rest for a month or two, they’ll then pop back up into generating significant leads.
Sometimes all you need is a break!
In the end, the most important thing when dealing with ad fatigue is catching it early — or better yet, proactively staving it off before it can happen — and acting decisively when you see these indicators. By changing things up, broadening your audience, and even taking the occasional break, early detection and action can limit the impact and keep your campaign running smoothly.
