Want to know if your marketing is falling victim to ad fatigue? Here are a few indicators:
- CTR plummets. You used to have a stellar click-through rate (CTR), and now your ad isn’t performing as well. A declining CTR could be a symptom of ad fatigue. The ad used to capture the attention of the target audience and earned clicks, but now that same ad has stopped resonating with your consumer.
- Little engagement. You’ve noticed that followers aren’t liking, commenting or sharing your content and paid posts as much as before. Once the audience has seen or engaged in your creative, it might not garner the same action the next time around. This is especially true if you haven’t changed up your creative assets for a long time.
- Impressions are low. Most digital algorithms push relevant content, and that means that people need to interact with your posts for them to continue to be served to your audience. If CTR and engagement are low, it will impact impressions, too.
- Unsubscribes. An unfollow or a snooze is your target directly communicating with you. If followers are starting to disengage with the brand, or ads are getting snoozed for 30 days, listen to what your audience is telling you. They want to see something different.
The best defense
Here are a few best practices to make sure your ads have a long-lasting impact:
Confirm the audience. Make sure that you’ve found the right audience for your product and take a closer look at the platforms they frequent.
Reassess goals. If the brand has been pushing a hard sell and alienating customers, try swapping out to a brand awareness campaign or drive clicks to a blog that showcases how your product can help. A new campaign goal might help connect with prospects at different stages of the consumer journey.
Switch up your creative. Try new visuals, copy, calls to action (CTAs), different design, change up colors or make other creative edits. Essentially make sure the new creative is different enough so that it seems fresh.
Try a new format. Most platforms offer a variety of formats. Create a carousel ad of various products or deliver a short video showing the benefits of your service.
Monitor performance. This should go without saying, but monitoring performance is critical in not only spotting ad fatigue as it starts to happen, but in making sure that the changes you make are positively impacting the brand’s performance.
Reduce ad frequency. If your brand has been hitting up its customers a lot, give them a little breather.
Personalize wherever possible. Some platforms offer the capability to customize placements. Take advantage of delivering a message that speaks directly to your customer when available.
