What is Facebook ad fatigue?

When an ad or ad set becomes fatigued it means that its target audience has grown tired of seeing it. This leads to a reduced clickthrough, lower conversion rates and an increase in cost per acquisition (CPA). These changes can affect the whole campaign’s return on ad spend (ROAS).

How to gauge Facebook ad fatigue?

One of the first indicators that something is amiss with your Facebook ad campaign is an increase in frequency. When people start to see ads too frequently, their feelings about those ads may change for the worse and this could eventually lead to your brand's ad fatigue.

Remember, high frequency is good for creating brand awareness, but a lower frequency is beneficial in case of an acquisition campaign.

It is therefore time you tested the ABCD of your campaign– audience, budget, copy, and design (or creative) against a new set of prospective customers and make sure they're still interested in what you have to offer.

The second indicator is Facebook's "Inspect tool" feature that allows you to see critical data concerning your ad sets' performance.

If you want to review information concerning your campaign in general, select "Ad Sets" and then your target campaign for a full overview. If you would like to view the same info for a specific date range, select the date range and campaign from the drop-down menus provided.

Ways To Overcome Facebook Ad Fatigue

The minute you start sensing that something is off with your campaign, you might want to look at ways to overcome those issues.

1. Refresh your creatives

The way that your ad creative is presented is just as important as the message it sends. The creative is the first thing a prospect sees when they click on it, so it needs to be truly captivating to hold their attention. One way to make your ad more appealing might be by testing out different images, or by mixing up the formats of some of your ads. Try out carousel ads or add-in video content as the algorithm.

If creating new content pieces seems tedious, you can even switch up the background and text colors to break the monotony.

Pro tip: It is best to have at least 3-4 alternatives for your ad set creatives.

2. Update your copy

Ad fatigue is one of the biggest challenges advertisers experience on social media. The internet has reached its saturation point with ads and your current ad copy might be outdated and ineffective at sparking people’s attention.

Luckily, you can always revamp your ads to keep them fresh and up to date. Changing the way you convey your brand message by updating your ad copy helps in sparking the consumers’ interest back and helps drive customer acquisition rates.

Pro tip: Try experimenting with different CTAs in conjunction with updating your ad copy to see which ones pique your customer’s interest.

3. Alter your budget

If your ad has begun to feel tired, lowering its bid or budget is like giving it much-needed relief. It’s a good way to make sure you are not spending unnecessary amounts on a fatigued ad that may have overrun your budget unknowingly.

After you have done this, the reduced budget will mean that the number of people that will see your ads will be less than before. This might help relieve some of the fatigue it had been under.

Pro tip: Try experimenting with different budgets on different campaigns to see which one provides a higher ROI.

4. Grow your audience

Unfortunately, the Facebook advertising world has been oversaturated with all kinds of ads. The widespread nature of your ad campaigns could make it tricky for you to fully reach your ideal audience, and this is where remarketing comes in.

For example, if you have a certain client for which you created an advertisement but didn't achieve your goals, simply remarket that ad to custom audiences that are similar to the targeted audience so that it becomes easier for them to notice it when scrolling through their newsfeed. The similarity could be in terms of their interests, age, location, etc. This will make your ad more effective overall and lower both the frequency and cost per click.

Pro tip: Use Facebook’s  ‘lookalike audience’ feature to target similar customers as it uses an algorithm to help you reach your closest match.

5. Analyze new placements

If you are suffering from Facebook ad fatigue, you may want to try pivoting to other platforms like Instagram or Audience Networks. This is a great option for advertisers who want to expand their reach.

Focusing on creating different ad sets for diverse social media placements can speed up and better the results of your campaign.

Pro tip: It is best to avoid using Automatic Placements unless your audience is large enough that being spread out across multiple platforms doesn't negatively affect your Facebook or Instagram campaigns.

6. Cap your frequency

When Facebook is showing your ad to the same people too many times in a short amount of time, it can lead to fatigue and potentially negative results. One way that you can deal with this is by decreasing your frequency cap. This will slow down the number of times your ad gets shown so that you do not wear out your welcome before the ad's message effectively reaches your target audience.

Pro tip: If you are not sure how often to run your campaigns, try fine-tuning the frequency of the ad set as you go.

Finally, try updating your ads once a month for the best results - but make sure that all your decisions are data-driven.

‍