Ad fatigue is a recent metric that has become popular on social networks, mainly TikTok, which defines the “fatigue” of users with repetitive ads. In this way, when they see that it is the same thing they have been seeing, they automatically reject it. Because of this, there is a psychological reaction that can have a negative effect on campaigns, being a threat and a growing problem for brands and e-commerce. Ad fatigue happens when users get bored of repetitive ads due to a different audience focus, low budget, similar ads, or lack of creativity.

Ad fatigue causes marketers to work to combat audiences not paying attention to their advertising efforts, with markets becoming desensitized to similar ads, subsequently having the effect of making them more selective in the ads that actually capture their interest. which are minimal compared to the number of advertisements they observe.

Effect of ad fatigue on users

Users are exposed to constant and similar advertisements, causing ad fatigue and less use of social networks. Likewise, it causes a negative reaction towards the brands they advertise, stopping them from paying attention to what they want to expose.

Ad fatigue in advertising campaigns does not only focus on the fatigue of the ads. Ad fatigue also focuses on the fact that advertising channels end up increasing the penalty cost. With the metric you can see through the algorithm when users have seen the ads more than once.

Once ad fatigue is identified, to overcome it, a creative renewal must be done. This occurs by constantly changing the creativity of the advertisements, making them innovative. Likewise, it works to give it a different context and attract different markets.

El ad fatigue puede afectar a las campañas publicitarias de diferentes formas, como lo son:

• Reduce the visibility of ads.
• The decrease in CTR and CPC. CTR is the percentage of people who click after seeing the ad, and CPC is the amount of money paid for each click on an ad. The decrease would increase the cost of the campaign, making it less effective, with fewer clicks and earnings per ad.
• Negative reaction towards the brand: Advertising fatigue can develop in users a negative attitude towards the advertising brand, preventing them from purchasing the promoted products, regardless of their quality or usefulness.

How to avoid ad fatigue in advertising campaigns:

In order to recognize ad fatigue, you have to:

• View consumer engagement and performance metrics, with a constant rotation of advertising creative.

Taking into account the following:

• They must use an appropriate advertising frequency, having the consumer seeing the advertisement as the number of times in a given time.
• They have to create attractive and relevant ads, to prevent them from being ignored and vary the ads so that consumers do not get bored, either by changing the text, images or video of the ads, using data to optimize campaigns.
• They must diversify their marketing strategies, invest in high-quality content and make organic content, according to the creator’s content in order to reach the user. By advertising ads that are integrated with the content, it is possible to make campaigns more attractive to users, with the product or service being suitable for promotion, with the target audience. (Sattler, M. 2022) This includes investing in high-quality content, testing different ad placements, and focusing on creator-generated content.

Los anuncios enfrentan el desafío de renovarse e innovar, porque los usuarios siempre acaban quitándoles atención e importancia, dañando la eficiencia de la campaña.

El ad fatigue en las campañas publicitarias se puede medir cuando los resultados de la campaña están estancados, con el CTR y CPC disminuyendo, dando a entender por parte del usuario aburrimiento y falta de interacción con los anuncios.

How to rescue the target audience?

In order to rescue the target audience from ad fatigue, creative updating is necessary. This, making a difference based on creativity and originality. Also to prevent the ads from always being the same and give each campaign its authenticity and making them unique. Making creative changes brings a new focus to each campaign (including stagnant campaigns).

Some creative changes that have been shown to be objective may be optimizing the visuals, making different versions of the ads with different images to see what the user finds most attractive, at the same time diversifying the ads, to be able to test different audiences using creativity as a basis by creating dynamic and different ads, taking advantage of special occasions, such as and current events (newsjacking).

What happens to stalled campaigns?

In the specific case of stagnant campaigns, this can be done by changing the campaign objective. In effect, having a greater reach by trying to have a low ad frequency. Likewise, the target audience must be analyzed, taking advantage of hyper-personalization. Many times the audience is experiencing excess ads and from there you can start to change the focus of the campaign.

The marketing team of the brands and those responsible for the campaigns have a fundamental role, since they are in charge of having a creative center, in which they can see what will really work for them to avoid ad fatigue in the campaigns. advertising, using collaboration to come up with concepts and ideas that are attractive to users and that also adapt to the content of the specific channels that are going to be used, with the sole objective of generating performance.

One of the brands that has managed to combat ad fatigue is Nike with strategies that keep ads relevant. They achieve this by using different ad formats (display ads, videos and interactive).

Nike has managed to combat this phenomenon by personalizing advertisements with the consumer’s interest and with a more creative approach. Consequently, it is possible to entertain consumers and capture their attention.

Key takeaways

In summary, ad fatigue is a growing phenomenon that affects brands in advertising campaigns. With users being exposed to an excess of similar ads, ignoring them or developing a negative attitude towards brands.

Ad fatigue can be avoided with simple, creative, and innovative changes, guaranteeing successful campaigns.

The increase in CPC and decrease in CTR are a great way to identify it, along with its frequency. If anything, the algorithm will see if the same ads are running for a long period of time. Consequently, more views are not acquired, reaching a smaller audience and a need to update creatively.

Periodic tests can be a prevention of ad fatigue, anticipating it so that the performance of the campaign is better. The latter comes with dynamic ads, helping to increase the variety of creative ads.

There is a wealth of content in creative ads, if they are properly tailored to the target audience. Using this in conjunction with creative updating and automation, repetitive ads can be eliminated. In addition, giving rise to new creative ideas that may interest and capture the attention of the audience.