Whether you’re new to advertising or you’re a veteran, Facebook Ad fatigue is something you’re going to run into. It’s a natural part of marketing and it’s not something you can avoid.
You can, however, handle it in ways that minimize the impact it has on your campaign. Steps can be taken, strategies can be implemented, and you can almost forget that ad fatigue is happening if your strategy is designed in a specific way. In this post, we’re going to explain what ad fatigue on Facebook Ads is, and 7 tips for beating it.
What is Facebook Ad Fatigue?
Facebook Ad fatigue, in the simplest form, is when your ad frequency gets too high. This value is how often the same people are seeing that ad. So, if you’ve got an ad with a frequency of 5.5, this means that on average, users in your audience have seen that ad 5.5 times. This is particularly problematic with cold audiences.
Think about it. If you’ve never heard of a company before and you keep seeing this same ad over and over again, how likely are you to click on it? You’re not. If anything, you’re going to click Hide Ad so that it stops appearing.
If someone in your cold audience didn’t care the first or second time, they won’t care the fifth or sixth time. A high frequency signifies ad fatigue. It will reduce your CTR (Click-Through-Rate) while also increasing your CPC (Cost-Per-Click). So, what happens when you repeatedly show people the same ad?
Take a look at the graph above. You can see that, to begin with, the ad was getting an increasing number of conversions. This is what catches most people – they think that since the ad is doing great, they’ll just keep running it. It doesn’t work like that. The more time goes on, those conversions start to drop. You haven’t changed the ad so why does this happen? It happens because you’re getting Facebook Ad fatigue.
What Causes Ad Fatigue?
Running an ad on repeat isn’t the only cause of ad fatigue. Take a look at the ad itself. It could be that the ad itself just isn’t that great and doesn’t do enough to get engagement. Maybe you’re using a bad Facebook ad creative or your ad copy is poor. Point being that you might need to take a step back and take a different approach to your ad.
Without straying too far from the point, it could also be that your problem isn’t with a single ad. In fact, the fact that some people are only running one ad is often part of the problem – you need to be running several ads. This usually takes place in the form of Facebook Retargeting Ads.
For example, your first ad could offer a free eBook and the second ad could show your product in action without going for the sale. Going straight for the sale with a cold audience is a huge mistake, even bigger than fatigue. You’ll get better results and ad fatigue will barely need acknowledgment.
Going back to frequency; if you’re getting an ad frequency of 6 on a cold audience, you’ve got a big problem. There’s no easy way of putting it: people are sick of seeing your ad. To clarify, when you’re retargeting this isn’t that much of an issue. This is because the people you’re retargeting have already engaged on some level, so seeing your ads again doesn’t bother them nearly as much as a cold user.
But when it comes to a cold audience of people who haven’t already engaged with your ads or don’t know anything about your business, this high of a frequency is unacceptable and you can’t get anywhere with that.
How to Recognize Facebook Ad Fatigue
So, how do you know if Facebook Ad fatigue is happening? It’s very easy to do. Just head over to Facebook Ads Manager, go to your Campaigns tab, click Columns > Customize Columns, and enable the Frequency column.
Now you can click on the Frequency header and see the ads which ads need your attention. General rule of thumb is that if the ad frequency is higher than 2, you need to look into it. Ad fatigue is likely playing a role there and even if it isn’t, you need to find out what the problem is.
To reiterate our previous point: treat your retargeting campaigns differently. Obviously, if your frequency is hitting around 10 then that’s a problem, but you can be more relaxed when it comes to retargeting campaigns.
How to Deal with Fatigue
#1 - Refresh Your Ad Creatives
The best thing you can do to combat Facebook Ad fatigue is refreshing your ad creatives. This is good practice anyway as you should be trying different ad creatives often, but it’s particularly useful when fatigue is a concern.
When you refresh your creatives you do two things. First, you start getting a new batch of data about how your audience responds to ads. Maybe you tried a new color scheme or took a different tone in the ad copy. Whatever you’re doing, do it differently and use that data to figure out what the perfect ad looks like.
Second, you’re going to quickly reduce your ad frequency and backtrack the fatigue. It’s important that you don’t take a lax approach to this – don’t just change the ad copy. Refresh the visuals and try to convey a compelling message.
We can appreciate that many people struggle to make Facebook Ads that are appealing. That’s where our free Facebook Ads cheatsheet can help.
We’ve compiled all of our favorite Facebook Ads into a single collection which you can use to get some inspiration when designing your own. Whether you struggle with ad copy or picking the right colors, this cheatsheet will help guide you. What you shouldn’t do is copy these ads exactly. Not only should you avoid relying on other people’s work, but learning from these ads will help advance your skillset and improve your own abilities.
#2 - Duplicate & Relaunch Your Ad Sets
The next technique you can try is more tactical but if your performance is still slumping after refreshing your creatives, try duplicating and relaunching your ad sets. As simple as it sounds, this is really effective at reviving some campaigns.
It’s also a really easy thing to do and takes no effort at all, so it’s worth trying. There’s not much to it – just duplicate and let the ad set run. Either it’ll help reduce your frequency or it won’t, and you can move onto something else.
The reason why this works is that Facebook’s algorithm can predict whether or not your campaign will perform well. In some cases, this causes them to penalize you early on and really affects the campaign’s performance. By relaunching the campaign you’re forcing the algorithm to give you another shot.
We’d even recommend trying this out 2-3 times before moving on. It’ll take no time and again, it either works or it doesn’t – no harm done, no money wasted.
#3 - Rotate Multiple Ads
While this is something that you should already be doing, our next tip is to rotate between multiple ads. You should always avoid running just one ad and if you are, that’s probably why you’re getting Facebook Ad fatigue. Always try to AB test so that you’re constantly striving to improve the ads you’re running.
One benefit of running multiple ads is that if one ad loses momentum, Facebook will optimize and push the others more. In addition, this reduces the chances of someone seeing the same ad several times. They might see a few variations, but the chances of them seeing the same ad over and over again will reduce significantly.
#4 - Switch Up Your Offers
Next no our list: switch up your offers. Let’s say that the first ad you ran was offering a free trial for your software. For the next ad, switch your offer to a free webinar or whitepaper. After that, maybe add a sense of urgency by offering a limited time discount.
You don’t necessarily have to overhaul your ad, but tweaking it to offer something different will have an impact on Facebook Ad fatigue.
#5 - Change Your Facebook Audience
A different take would be to change the audience you’re targeting. Maybe you can expand your reach or even just make some refinements to who you’re targeting.
If you’ve been targeting a smaller audience then it’s no surprise that fatigue has become a problem, especially if you had some success to begin with. So, changing up who you’re targeting would be another viable solution in this situation.
A huge targeting overhaul isn’t necessary either. Something as simple as adding in another language or changing your interests can have a huge impact. On the other hand, you might be targeting the completely wrong people, which is why it’s important to create a buyer persona so that you know who your ideal customer is.
Facebook Ad Fatigue WILL Happen
One final note we need to point out is that regardless of what you do, ad fatigue is bound to happen. People will get tired of seeing your ads, that’s just how it is. The good news is that there are plenty of things you can do about it.
When you spot fatigue, you shouldn’t hyper-focus on getting that ad back to its peak performance. Even if you do bring it back to that level, it’s going to start fatiguing again in the future. You’re much better off creating new ads and trying out new ads and angles. Depending on your ad spend and how long it typically takes for your ads to fatigue, you’ll want to switch up your ads on a monthly or weekly basis. It differs for every business, so figure out what works best for you.
Have Professionals Handle Your Fatigue
A lot of people see Facebook Ads as a “set it and forget it” platform when it’s the complete opposite. You need to be actively monitoring your ads, seeing how they perform, and quickly adapting. This is ultimately the best way to handle Facebook Ad fatigue.
If you’re constantly battling with this problem and don’t know the best way to deal with it, you’ll experience fatigue yourself. That’s why it’s a good idea to get in touch with a Facebook Ads agency, like KonvertLab, who already know these techniques and can professionally manage your Facebook Ads. Book a call below and let’s talk about growing your business.