How to Combat Ad Fatigue on Facebook & Instagram
Are your ad conversions starting to slow down? Is your audience tired of seeing your ads?
Sounds like you are experiencing ad fatigue. Ad fatigue is a common issue that plagues marketers at some point in their campaign’s lifetime. It occurs when ads have been running awhile and your audience has grown tired of seeing them, usually making your CTR go down and your cost per click (or conversion) go up. If not addressed, ad fatigue can negatively affect your campaign performance and overall ROI.
Luckily, there are a few quick changes you can make to combat ad fatigue to keep your ads fresh, your audience interested and your conversions up!
One of the easiest ways to fight ad fatigue is to update your ad creative in some form. Ad creative is the first thing your audiences sees and interacts with – it is what most likely grabs their attention in the first place and what causes them to stop scrolling, read your copy or click on your ad. Refreshing your ad creative can be as simple as switching your image, changing the background color, or adding a small text overlay. A small change in ad creative can really make a big difference and keep your audience engaged!
2. Try New Ad Format
Another easy way to refresh your ads is to test out a new ad format. If you were running a single image ad, try creating a carousel ad! The carousel ad format is available for Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network, and allows you to showcase up to 10 images or videos within a single ad, each with its own link. Even if you are promoting one product or service in your ad, you can use the card options to showcase different angles of the product or information about your service. Other ad formats to test out include slideshows, video, Instagram story & Facebook story ad formats.
This worked for us when one of our carousel ads started to lose traction and the cost per result started to rise. We changed the ad format to an Instagram story and generated more add to carts and sales.
Carousel Ad: Instagram Story
3. Test New Ad Copy
Similar to changing the ad creative, changing the ad copy is a quick way to update your ads. If your current ad is using short messaging, test out longer form copy and vice versa. Adding emojis is another option that can make your ad feel more like an organic post. You can also change your CTA button if there is another that applies to your product or service.
An example that worked for our team was updating the ad copy to tell more of the brand story with longer copy than using a brief messaging
4. Adjust Audience Targeting
Another effective way to combat ad fatigue is by updating your audience targeting. If one of your ad sets starts to experience a decrease in conversions and an increase in cost, then you could be oversaturating your audience with ads. Monitor your ad frequency in ads manager to check how many times your audience is seeing one of your ads. If your frequency is high you can add new relevant targeting options to your current audience to grow your audience size and lower the frequency.
For example, when one of our retargeting audiences had a high frequency rate, we increased the audience size by adding new relevant locations which decreased the frequency and drove down costs.
You can also test out an entirely new audience and target pertinent users who share similar interests to your best performing audiences. Lookalike audiences based off of first party data are another type of targeting used to refresh your audiences and get your ads in front of new eyes.
In the end, ad fatigue is an annoying aspect of running social campaigns that we all experience, but can easily be alleviated with a few simple optimizations. Keep experimenting with different combinations of the above tips to find what works best for you and your campaigns.