What Marketer’s Need to Know About Ad Fatigue

by QuickFrame

Oct 06, 2021 · 3 min read

Here’s the top level fact: Marketers have only a small window of time to capture attention and drive meaningful engagement – before their target audience gets hit with ad fatigue and views and conversions drop off.

But what is ad fatigue? Think of it like this. What was the last commercial you saw while browsing social media or streaming a show on an OTT or CTV service? Now ask yourself: when was the last time you saw that ad? Once? Twice? Most likely, you’ve seen it way more times than that. When you begin to grow weary of seeing the same commercial again and again, then you know ad fatigue is setting in.

Ad fatigue is a real issue plaguing marketers and it will only get worse as the media landscape continues to be saturated with content. You can counteract this trend through creative analytical data surfaced through broad concepting. This will allow you to generate a stream of fresh, relevant video content that your target audience won’t tire of quickly!

QuickFrame can help you generate and leverage creative analytical data. Contact us today to learn more.

Critical Facts About Ad Fatigue

After a year analyzing the performance of almost 3,000 videos on Facebook and Instagram, we’ve recognized four eye-opening trends:

On average, video completion rates max out on day five, and then rapidly taper off with an average decrease in delivery by 5% day-over-day.
Sales and conversions are highest within the first 14 days of a campaign. On average, 0.32% of consumers will convert in the first 14 days. After the two-week mark, however, conversions decline dramatically and cost per acquisition (CPA) jumps by 18%.
In the first three days of a video campaign, audiences are willing to download apps if they are encouraged to do so in the ads. However, after about three days, the rate of installs drops off sharply, and cost per impression spikes.
In the first eight days of a video ad campaign, 64% of users will stop and watch at least 25% of a video — and 1.5% of them will complete the entire video. However, after the eight-day mark, viewership declines sharply. This means that marketers need to broadly optimize their creative to garner as much engagement as possible within the first weeks of a campaign.

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When asked about the troubling ad fatigue trend, QuickFrame Chief Revenue Officer Spencer Weinman said, “A big reason that ad fatigue has increased is the proliferation of all the different platforms. In years past, a brand would create one video, likely for broadcast, and use that video on other platforms. And as a user, I would go online and say, ‘Oh, I saw that ad ten different times.’ And it kind of creates ‘ad blindness’.”

Ken Weiner, Chief Technology Officer for contextual intelligence company GumGum reiterated the need to engage Contextual Advertising tactics to combat ad fatigue in the new era of data-depreciation, “[Contextual is] about understanding the environment the consumer is in and aligning the ad to that specific environment so that it is a seamless and non-intrusive experience. Sophisticated contextual intelligence technology can understand the environment the consumer is in and help to place a relevant ad that will enhance the consumer’s experience rather than hinder it.”