Platform · Metrics · Frequency
Frequency: Average impressions per person reached
How often the same person sees the same ad. The early warning for creative fatigue, especially in smaller APAC audiences.
What it is
Frequency is impressions divided by unique people reached. It is not a goal. It is a constraint. Past a point, more impressions from the same asset train people to skip you, and CTR, hook rate, and CPA all get worse together.
Why it is worth tracking
Dashboards celebrate reach while the same 40,000 people in Singapore see the ad nine times. Operators watch frequency with CTR and CPA so they rotate creative before the auction punishes you, instead of after the weekly report.
How to read it
A single number is not a brief. These splits are what change the work.
Frequency up, CTR and CPA worse
Fatigue. Do not raise budget. Ship new variants of the winning angle and retire the burned asset.
Frequency low, CPA high
You have not given the ad a fair look, or the audience is too broad. Diagnose creative and targeting before you blame frequency.
Frequency healthy, results still fall
The angle itself is tired, not just the cut. Brief a new concept, not a colour-swap of the same line.
What the Operator does
Diagnose, act, then draft. The stats pick the job. Brand voice stays locked.
Diagnose
The Operator checks frequency by campaign, ad set, and market. A blended 2.1 can hide a Hong Kong retargeting pool sitting at 8.
Act
Cap frequency on tight geo pools. Exclude converters from prospecting. Shift spend to fresher ads when CTR decays at rising frequency.
Draft
Generate rotation packs from the still-winning claim: new hooks, new first frames, new proof lines. Keep brand voice locked so volume does not mean drift.
Example brief
“Singapore Meta retargeting frequency is 7.4, CTR down 40% week on week. Prospecting is still healthy. Write a 6-ad rotation from our free-shipping offer, new hooks only, same proof. Exclude existing customers. Tone: direct, not shouty.”
Paste a brief like this into a Basis Operator. Connected account context and brand rules apply automatically.
Related metrics
Read it with these, or you will optimize the wrong surface.