Creative fatigue is a common problem for Meta advertisers. It’s also one of the most misunderstood and avoidable.
In this post, I’ll help you understand what creative fatigue is, common strategies that are likely to cause it, and what you can do to avoid creative fatigue.
What is Creative Fatigue?
When Meta detects that an ad set’s audience has seen your ad too many times, resulting in degraded performance, you will see one of two messages within the Delivery column of Ads Manager:
- Creative Fatigue
- Creative Limited
Whether Meta identifies it as “creative fatigue” or “creative limited” depends on the severity of the problem.
Creative Fatigue: When Cost Per Result is at least twice as high as it’s been in the past.
Creative Limited: When Cost Per Result is higher than it’s been in the past, but less than double.
These are simplified definitions, and there are certainly many complex details that Meta leaves out to explain when these problems are detected. The Cost Per Result benchmarks are clear, but what Meta doesn’t clarify is when and how that drop in performance is tied directly to seeing your ad too many times.
And the fact that we don’t know more is likely by design because it’s complicated. While Meta ran a study in 2022 that suggested a 45% drop in performance after four exposures, there are a whole lot of caveats behind such a study. This is an average that isn’t considering the time window, placements, level of engagement, or commitment level.
But the bottom line is that in order for creative fatigue to be a problem, Meta must determine that performance is dropping and results won’t improve with more impressions.
What Causes Creative Fatigue?
There are several factors that are likely to lead to creative fatigue, particularly when multiple are present.
1. Restricted Audience.
If you only run remarketing campaigns that are capable of reaching a small, finite audience, the likelihood of exhausting the audience with your ad is extremely high. It will not take long before your frequency begins climbing and performance drops.
Of course, a restricted audience doesn’t need to be tied to remarketing, and it’s not always avoidable. An audience can be restricted if you’re promoting a local business that is only relevant to people within a small radius. Or maybe you can only serve people in one small state or country.
2. Budget
Advertisers with large budgets are obviously much more likely to exhaust an audience than those with small budgets. And reaching the point of fatigue will happen more quickly.
That doesn’t mean that large budgets are unable to avoid fatigue. But adding any of the other restrictions and limitations listed here with a high budget will guarantee that fatigue will happen — and happen quickly.
3. Restricted Placements.
Let’s assume that you only want to reach people on Instagram and in the feed, so you remove all other placements. When you do that, you are increasing the likelihood of fatigue.
You’ve eliminated an audience of potential customers who may be on Facebook, but not Instagram. You’ve also eliminated a version of your ad by limiting delivery to one placement. There are also levels of awareness that a person reaches by seeing your ad, depending on the placement. The feeds, for example, are much more difficult to ignore while the right column may be a more subconscious impression.
The main point here is that you are giving limiting the ways you can reach a limited audience by restricting by placement. And that will accelerate creative fatigue.
4. Limited Number of Ads.
If you only have one ad within an ad set, you are more likely to experience creative fatigue. That’s a very simple and obvious example.
But it’s also something that advertisers do frequently. They may do it because creating each ad takes up time and resources that they don’t have.
The most common reason this happens, however, is strategic and intentional. Advertisers create a single ad set with a single ad (and maybe multiple ad sets, each holding a single ad) for testing purposes.
While this may have made sense at one time, I argue that this approach is rarely necessary or beneficial today. We should no longer be in search of a single “winning ad.” One ad set should be composed of many ads that contribute to the aggregate performance.
That’s the simplified argument, but it’s much deeper than that. The bottom line is that isolating single ads will make the problem of fatigue more likely.
5. Limited Text and Creative Variations.
Ad creation is far different today than it was a few years ago. There was a time when an ad was composed of a single set of ad copy and creative. One primary text, one headline, one description, and one image or video.
But things are far different now. You can provide up to five primary text and headline variations for a single ad (if you include AI-generated recommendations, this increases to 10). You can customize any placement to change the creative. And creative variations can be found by accepting AI-generated images, backgrounds, or Advantage+ Creative enhancements.
If you refuse these opportunities for variations, you are increasing the likelihood of creative fatigue. More versions of your ad make it possible for a person to see different messages and creative so that fatigue becomes less of a problem.
How to Prevent Creative Fatigue
A common myth is that all ads fatigue, and that they need to be “refreshed” on a regular cadence. While a single combination of ad copy and creative is likely to fatigue quickly without available variations, an approach utilizing creative diversification can sustain for far longer.
The truth is that not all advertisers run into creative fatigue. In fact, you could reasonably run the same set of ads for months or more at a time without it becoming an issue.
But to accomplish this, you need to embrace at least a handful of these approaches…
1. Open Targeting.
This has been one of the most challenging shifts for advertisers to accept. But moving away from a need to control targeting will help with creative fatigue.
You can’t live on remarketing strategies alone, and remarketing itself is deeply flawed and often unnecessary. And this is coming from someone who absolutely lived off of remarketing back in the day.
But you should also prioritize limiting other restrictions on your targeting, like age and gender. That doesn’t mean that the algorithm is perfect. But if there’s a problem to be solved related to demographic distribution, you should start with value rules.
Otherwise, feel free to use detailed targeting, lookalike audiences, and even custom audiences as suggestions (many advertisers are using these inputs as suggestions now without realizing it). I have doubts that they do much of anything, but it won’t hurt performance unless you create several ad sets with this approach.
The main thing is to prioritize limiting targeting restrictions when it can be avoided.
2. Advantage+ Placements.
Advantage+ Placements is on by default, which allows Meta to distribute your ad dynamically to any placement to give you the best possible results. Some placements are more competitive and expensive than others. Some may be less likely to lead to your desired result, but they can provide cheap impressions that may contribute to the eventual conversion.
The more placements you have, the more possibilities to reach people in different ways. Only remove placements if there’s a specific problem to solve related to the optimization (but even then, value rules would be the preferred option).
If you’re optimizing for conversions, you should almost always use all placements. More inventory can lower costs but also increase the variations of your ad that people see.
3. Multiple Text Variations.
When you create an ad, you can provide up to five primary text and five headline variations.
And if you accept AI-generated text recommendations, you could technically create 10 variations of each.
While we typically think of the format (image, video, or carousel) when discussing creative, the text variations also contribute to creative diversification. The more versions that are available, the less likely a single combination will become fatigued.
4. Customize Creative by Placement.
As of my last count, there are 26 different placements. Because of this, advertisers have the ability to create up to 26 different versions of a single ad.
Now, I wouldn’t advocate for this madness, of course, but I’d also push you to leverage the fact that people consume content differently depending on the placement.
The easiest step is to make sure that you provide variations by aspect ratio that are optimal. While I wish you could simply trust Meta’s flow that requests a 9×16, 1×1, and 1.91:1 version, I’ve found a better approach to optimally take advantage of potential real estate in each placement.
You could take this a step further. If you’re using a static image for all placements, that might not be the ideal format everywhere. In fact, a static image won’t even be eligible for some placements.
One option would be to submit videos (that fit within minimums and maximums) for video-first placements and static images for image-first placements.
5. Accept AI-Generated Images or Backgrounds.
I get that Meta has a dreadful reputation when it comes to their AI-generated image recommendations, but hear me out: This could be a great way to prevent creative fatigue.
When you’re building an ad using single image or video creative, there’s only one possible creative that can appear in each placement (unless you’re using Flexible Format or Dynamic Creative). But if you accept any of Meta’s AI-generated options, that number increases.
While I can’t say I’ve ever seen an AI-generated image good enough to accept, the same isn’t true for AI-generated backgrounds. I’ve found this to be far safer, and I’m accepting them much more often.
The AI-generated versions will also get better with time. Don’t give up on them since this will be a great way to manage fatigue.
6. Accept Advantage+ Creative Enhancements.
Once again, I understand that many advertisers have been conditioned to turn off all Advantage+ Creative enhancements. But when they’re on, more variations are created that can help avoid fatigue.
I rarely accept all enhancements, but I do accept most of them. Before you reflexively turn them all off, I encourage you to first review them in the Advanced Preview. Many of these are very minor adjustments.
7. Create a Diverse Set of Ads Per Ad Set.
You shouldn’t be creating a single ad in an ad set. But also don’t set limits on the number of ads you should create.
Within reason, of course. Meta has a 50-ad limit per ad set. Creating a ton of ads is also a ton of work, so I wouldn’t go to the effort without having a specific purpose and plan. And while there is no longer a clear tie between budget and the number of ads you create, a deep set of ads will surely be more advantageous for higher budgets.
But the days of Meta’s recommended 6-ad limit per ad set are gone with the emergence of Andromeda. I encourage you to approach ad creation differently than you once did. I’m now experimenting with ad sets of 20 or more ads, even while not dealing with very large budgets.
Your ad set should consist of a collection of ads that tell a story. Your ads should reflect diversification of customer personas, formats, messaging angles, and more. Move beyond minor tweaks and aim for very different text and visuals.
What to Do When it Happens
Even if you follow my recommendations, you may run into creative fatigue one day. So, what should you do?
The solutions isn’t particularly complicated: Create more ads.
If you’re running into ad fatigue, it typically suggests your results aren’t great at the moment. So you could either add completely new and unique ads to the existing ad set or turn off the fatigued ad set and start over.
But your goal, as always, should be creative diversification and variation so that fatigue can be avoided.
Don’t Obsess Over Frequency
While frequency is an element of creative fatigue, I want to be sure to make this point. A high frequency, by itself, is not problematic.
Do not spend time worrying about what the frequency is for a single ad, or ad set for that matter. If you’re following the best practices I map out above, you’re also likely to have many variations of a single ad. And when that happens, a single person may see four versions of one ad (or multiple ads).
There isn’t a “good” or “bad” frequency. The time window, where your ad was seen, performance goal, commitment level, and more all matter. If results aren’t tanking, I don’t care what your frequency is.
You shouldn’t either.
You Are In Control
In summary, you don’t need to be at the mercy of creative fatigue. If you’re running into fatigue issues, it’s likely that it’s happening due to specific choices you’re making. Go back and decide whether you can approach things differently to make fatigue less likely.
It’s time to abandon so many old advertising strategies, but certainly most of those related to creative. You don’t need to test individual ad copy and creative combinations anymore (many combinations will be necessary for an effective ad set). You don’t need to refresh your ads every few weeks.
Approach your initial ad creation planning with a creative diversification mindset. You should want fewer obstacles, fewer restrictions, and more variations.
Additional Resources
For more on how to approach ad copy and creative now, bookmark and read the following:
Your Turn
How do you approach creative fatigue?
Let me know in the comments below!
