What frequency actually tells you
Frequency is the average number of times a person sees your ad in a time window. Rising frequency with falling CTR often signals creative fatigue or an audience that's too narrow.
A simple fatigue diagnosis checklist
- CTR down, CPM stable: creative fatigue or message-market mismatch.
- CTR stable, CVR down: landing page/offer mismatch or traffic quality shift.
- CPM up, frequency up: audience is saturating (auction pressure inside a small pool).
Best practices that usually work
- Refresh creatives on a schedule (weekly for fast-moving channels; biweekly/monthly for search/long cycle).
- Expand audience before forcing spend higher; narrow audiences inflate frequency and CPM.
- Use a break-even CTR target so you know when a creative becomes unprofitable (not just 'low CTR').
What not to do
- Don't chase CTR with clickbait if CVR and profit drop.
- Don't reset everything at once (new creative + new audience + new landing page) or you won't learn what worked.
- Don't assume fatigue is the only explanation; check tracking and on-site conversion before rotating ads blindly.