Can you serve an ad too often?

An interesting question came up during a recent RAB webinar. Grey Persons of Borrell Associates was asked if a frequency of 3 is enough to get results for advertisers given the increased number of advertising messages consumers are exposed to each day.

Grey had a good answer. He said the targeting of the ad to the right person available through digital can mean a frequency of 3 will still work. Putting the right message in front of the right consumer at the right time is most important.

In a recent article by Jim Conaghan in NetNewsCheck, sources including the 2014 Nielsen report on advertising and audiences as well as the Mobile Marketing Association report on mobile video were quoted as saying too much frequency creates negative reaction.

For several years, many dot-coms have limited frequency of ads using tracking cookies on websites. For example, sites will only display an ad 3 times to an individual. One reason is they don’t want to waste their valuable inventory if the user isn’t interested enough to click on the ad after seeing it 3 times. A second reason is the site doesn’t want the user to have a negative feeling toward the advertiser.

We know frequency works for advertisers using radio. When it comes to a website with its lower costs to buy frequency, use software to limit the number of exposures to a single user, limit the number of impressions you sell, or rotate multiple advertisers through the ad inventory.