Frequency is the average number of times each unique person sees your ad during a campaign. It's calculated by dividing total impressions by total reach (unique viewers). Frequency tells you whether you're building awareness through repetition or wasting budget by oversaturating your audience - making it one of the most underrated metrics in performance marketing.

Why Frequency Matters

Frequency directly impacts your cost per acquisition (CPA) and campaign efficiency. Research shows people need to see a message 3-7 times before taking action, but beyond that threshold, performance typically collapses. High frequency (7+) accelerates creative fatigue, where your CTR drops and CPM rises as people scroll past your ad. The trick is hitting optimal frequency without crossing into oversaturation.

How Frequency Works

• Impression: Each time your ad appears on someone's screen (even the same person multiple times)

• Reach: The number of unique people who see your ad at least once

• Calculation: Total Impressions ÷ Unique Reach = Average Frequency

• Performance Impact: Frequency 1-3 builds awareness, 3-5 drives action, 5+ typically shows diminishing returns

Real-World Example

A DTC coffee brand runs a Facebook campaign targeting 50,000 people:

• Week 1: 150,000 impressions, 50,000 reach → Frequency 3.0, CTR 2.1%, CPA $18

• Week 2 (same creative): 200,000 impressions, 50,000 reach → Frequency 7.0, CTR 0.9%, CPA $42

• Week 3 (new creative): 150,000 impressions, 50,000 reach → Frequency 3.0, CTR 2.3%, CPA $16

By week 2, the audience had seen the same ad 7 times on average - performance tanked despite identical targeting. Refreshing creative reset frequency and immediately restored performance. This is why monitoring frequency is critical for creative rotation strategies.

Common Frequency Mistakes

How Hawky Helps

Hawky tracks how your creative performance score changes as frequency increases, showing you exactly when diminishing returns begin for each ad. Instead of guessing when to refresh creative, you'll see data like "CTR drops 47% after frequency hits 6.2" so you can proactively rotate ads before performance collapses. This element-level analysis helps you maintain optimal frequency while maximizing creative lifespan.

Learn More

• Creative Fatigue: How to Spot and Fix It - Understand the frequency-fatigue relationship

• Click-Through Rate (CTR) - Why CTR drops as frequency increases

Quick Takeaway

Frequency measures how many times each person sees your ad - aim for 3-5 to drive action, but refresh creative before hitting 7+ to avoid audience fatigue and wasted budget.