Performance

Frequency cap

Also known as: frequency capping · impression cap

Definition

A frequency cap limits how many times the same person sees an ad within a set period, such as three impressions a week. It protects against irritation and wasted spend, but only some campaign types and platforms let advertisers set one.

Frequency is a symptom of budget relative to audience size: spend a lot on a small audience and the same people are hit again and again. Where a cap exists, set it by funnel stage. A person who visited yesterday tolerates a reminder, while a stranger doesn't want the same ad five times. Say a cap of three a week for cold audiences and a higher one for people at the last step of checkout, then loosen or tighten from the results.

Where a platform offers no hard cap, control frequency through audience size, budget and creative rotation, and watch the frequency column instead. Each platform counts its own, so one person can see the same video on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok without any single cap noticing. In a small market where the same residents are reachable everywhere, combined exposure matters more than any one platform's number.

More in Performance

A/B testing

A/B testing compares two versions of one element, such as a headline, an offer or a page, by showing each to a randomly split share of traffic at the same time and measuring which produces more conversions. It needs enough traffic and one change at a time.

Ad fatigue

Ad fatigue is the decline in an ad's performance as the same people see it repeatedly, usually visible as rising frequency and falling click-through rate before cost per result climbs. The remedy is fresh creative or a wider audience, not a bigger budget.

Ad Rank

Ad Rank is the value Google Ads calculates in each auction to decide whether an ad is eligible to show and where it sits against others. It combines the bid with ad and landing page quality, minimum thresholds, competition, search context and the expected impact of assets.