The Frequency Delusion
Every marketer has felt it. The numbers on the dashboard look fine. Reach is solid. CPM is efficient. The frequency is sitting right in that "optimal" zone of 3-5 you read about in a blog post from 2015.
Yet, the campaign feels… flat. The needle isn't moving.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: your "average frequency" is a vanity metric, dangerously hiding a toxic reality. You're overexposing a fraction of your audience , while the majority barely knows you exist.
The problem isn't just the average; it's that we treat frequency like a universal law of physics. It's not.A frequency of 5 is radically different depending on the context.
→ 5 banner ads a user ignores while reading an article? Background noise.
→ 5 ads interrupting their music on Spotify? Annoying.
→ 5 ads on the family CTV during movie night? Intrusive.
→ 5 ads on a digital billboard they pass on their commute? Surprisingly effective.
We pretend these exposures are equal. They're not. And by treating them as such, we're making bad decisions.
The Cross-Channel Mess
You're setting a cap of 3 on Meta and 3 on your programmatic buy, thinking you're being smart. But you're not capping it for a person; you're capping it in a silo. If you're targeting the right prospect, that might just push them to convert. However, if they’re not ready—or worse, not the right fit—you’re either annoying them or wasting impressions that won’t even register.
Different stages of the customer journey, different channels, even specific placements all demand different frequencies to strike the right balance. Without that nuance, you're not optimising.
We're optimising for platform-specific numbers while completely ignoring the actual customer experience.So, what's the fix?
It starts by admitting the old playbook is obsolete. The post-cookie world won’t let us get away with these linear tactics anymore.
The future isn’t about guessing the “magic” frequency number—it’s about precision, context, and strategic adaptability. Frequency should no longer be a default setting—it should be a decision.
Here’s how the most sophisticated teams are shifting:
From Audience Buckets to Dynamic Targeting
You can’t fix frequency if your audiences are a mess.
Most campaigns still run off static segments—broad demographics, interest tags, or "lookalikes" that were built quarters ago. That’s not targeting. That’s hoping.The fix? Real audience management.
Sync behavioural signals across platforms.
Update intent scores in real time.
Build audiences dynamically around actions, recency, and journey stage.
This lets you control who sees what and when, aligning message cadence with user mindset—not just media budgets.
From Static Caps to Dynamic Frequency Strategy
The right frequency depends on where the user is in the journey and what you're trying to achieve:
Prioritise Reach for new markets, simple messages, or large audiences with low awareness.
Prioritise Frequency for complex messages, niche segments, or bottom-of-funnel nudges.
But don’t guess. Model it.
Pull your performance data by frequency bucket. Calculate where marginal returns start to fall off. This inflection point is your frequency frontier—the moment when hitting the same user again becomes less efficient than reaching someone new.From Delivery Metrics to Impact Metrics
Frequency alone tells you nothing. Who cares if someone saw your ad five times if they didn’t remember it, engage with it, or convert? Replace shallow delivery metrics with business-aligned KPIs:
Media Efficiency Ratio (MER)
Brand lift and recall studies
Attention scores
Sales velocity by frequency cohort
From Siloed Frequency to Unified Identity
Invest in clean rooms, identity graphs, and CDPs that can track a person—not just a device ID or cookie trail. his is the only way to stop accidentally overwhelming your most valuable customers with redundant impressions across Meta, programmatic, and CTV.
An optimal frequency strategy isn’t static—it’s a living system. One that adapts to audience intent, market maturity, and message complexity. When done right, frequency becomes less about how often and more about how well.
Stop counting exposures. Start making exposures count.
First published here.