The Question
Your campaign is in the learning phase and frequency is already at 3–4. Should you refresh the creative, or wait it out?
The answer depends on two things: what kind of campaign you’re running, and whether the money still makes sense.
Remarketing Is a Different Game
If you’re running a remarketing campaign, higher frequency is expected. The audience is small by definition — you’re targeting people who already took a specific action, like signing up for a webinar.
Say 500–1,000 people registered. Now you want to show them testimonials from companies that used your product. That’s your remarketing audience: 1,000 people, maximum. Even with a modest budget, the platform will cycle through that group in a week. With a larger budget, every person in that pool could see the ad several times in just a few days.
That’s not a bug. That’s how remarketing works with small audiences. Frequency will climb faster than in a prospecting campaign, and that’s fine — as long as the numbers hold.
Top-of-Funnel: Keep It Under 2.5
For prospecting campaigns — broad audiences, top of the funnel — the rules are different. Here, I aim to keep frequency at 2 to 2.5, depending on audience size.
Why? Research consistently shows that repeated brand exposure works, but only when the messages vary. Seeing the same image, the same headline, the same jingle over and over doesn’t build familiarity. It builds irritation. We all know those ads — the ones you can recite from memory and skip on reflex. That’s frequency working against you.
If your frequency hits 3–4 on a top-of-funnel campaign, it’s usually a signal to either:
- Refresh the creative — new visuals, new hook, different format
- Expand the audience — widen targeting so the platform has more people to reach
- Reduce the budget — slow the delivery to stretch impressions over more time
Multiple touchpoints are good. Repetitive touchpoints are not. Rotate your messaging so each impression adds something new.
The One Rule That Overrides Everything
If ROAS holds, frequency doesn’t matter.
This is especially true for remarketing. You have a defined audience that keeps rotating — some people convert, new people enter the funnel from your prospecting campaigns. Frequency climbs, but the return on ad spend stays stable or even improves. In that scenario, don’t touch anything. The numbers are the numbers.
The moment frequency starts correlating with declining ROAS — rising cost per acquisition, dropping conversion rate — that’s when you act. Until then, the only metric that matters is whether the campaign is profitable.
The Takeaway
- Remarketing campaigns: expect high frequency. Small audiences burn through impressions fast. That’s normal.
- Prospecting campaigns: aim for 2–2.5 frequency. Above that, refresh creatives or widen the audience.
- Regardless of campaign type: if ROAS is healthy, don’t panic about the number. Frequency is a signal, not a verdict. Treat it as one data point among many — and always follow the money.