All good things come to an end and good online advertising is no exception.
If there is one fatality that even the best Facebook Ads experts face, it is that a successful ad always ends up, sooner or later, seeing its results deteriorate.
Besides, this kind of emotional elevators may be familiar to you…
You are launching a new campaign. You test several variations, until you find the one that triggers a reaction from your audience. You then continue to refine every detail. At the same time, you also let the social platform’s AI work in the shadows, until you reach a ROAS that you wouldn’t even have expected when you started. The good life!
But, one fine morning, the performance of your star pub begins to decline…
Never mind. You tell yourself it’s just a bad day. You let it spin. Another day, a week. It will definitely go away. A campaign that has been performing at such a high level for months cannot lose its power overnight, even if the “free” days follow one another and start to look dangerously similar.
A successful ROAS can’t drop without warning, can it?
In fact, yes, he can. In fact, it can even go even lower, shrinking to a trickle. Because what looks like a fall is in fact akin to this notice that you are waiting for to trigger your reaction.
When it comes to Facebook Ads, your enemy has a name: Ad Fatigue.
And you will certainly agree that, to counter this enemy of all advertisers, it is better to know some self-defense techniques that have been proven to work. Here are 8 that we rely on at Ad Premier.
Summary
- 1. Constantly analyze KPIs
- 2. Vary the visuals
- 3. Leverage different ad formats
- 4. Regularly evolve copywriting
- 5. Duplicate top ad groups to new audiences
- 6. Exclude Custom Audiences from already engaged users
- 7. Show ads at the best times
- 8. Sponsor the best organic content
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
- What are the top causes of social and fatigue?
- How do you fight social ad fatigue?
- What are the best practices for maintaining high performance in social advertising?
1. Constantly analyze KPIs
Observing the performance indicators of your ads remains the best way to spot the first signs of weariness of a target that has been exposed to too much of the same content. All KPIs deserve to be followed, but, in this case, three KPIs are to be monitored as a priority to detect ad fatigue:
- The drop in the click rate: naturally, a falling CTR reflects a drop in the impact of the ad within the audience and often corresponds to the first sign of weariness.
- Lower engagement: fewer reactions and fewer comments on your ads is often the beginning of the end for an ad.
- The increase in repetition: an advertisement that has a high repetition rate among the audience is not always the victim of ad fatigue, but, if it is combined with the two previous indicators, this third indicator makes it possible to confirm the diagnosis.
2. Vary the visuals
It is no coincidence that we sometimes speak of “Global SEO Services” to designate ad fatigue: a large part of this phenomenon is played out at the level of the creation of ads. For once, at Ad Premier, we recommend not to be sparing in efforts on this essential aspect of Social Ads.
The secret of success? Test, test and test again.
Intuition is of little value in this matter. Only the CTR verdict counts. However, from this point of view, nothing is ever certain and it would be a bad idea to rest on your laurels. Instead, adopt a permanent optimization approach, continuing to regularly test new visuals, even when your campaigns are working well.
The idea is to always have backup solutions on hand when ad fatigue hits your best performing visuals.
Moreover, it is not necessarily necessary to review everything in depth. Sometimes, all it takes is a very slight change to bring a breath of fresh air to your creative… Reversing the main color and the secondary color, for example, is a practice that can bear fruit in certain campaigns.
3. Leverage different ad formats
Another way to diversify your Social Ads creatives and stave off ad fatigue is to take advantage of the different formats available to you. It seems obvious, but many advertisers are content with the “image” format.
To keep your audience alert, consider using carousels and videos in particular. Contrary to popular belief, these formats can be profitable for all accounts, regardless of their budget.
At Ad Premier, we often preach against the self-censorship of advertisers in terms of video (see our article on the subject). But this approach benefits from being extended to carousels, a format which companies still make too little use of, despite its good performance in terms of CTR and engagement.
4. Regularly evolve copywriting
An advertisement is a visual and a format, but it is also a text. Copywriting is therefore an essential aspect to make your ads as impactful as possible and to always be one step ahead of ad fatigue.
As for visuals, rule and test constantly.
Vary your marketing arguments, formulate headlines that are starting to run out of steam differently, try different approaches for your texts, innovate in your CTAs. A single objective: to constantly surprise your target and give them the best reasons to click on your ads.
5. Duplicate top ad groups to new audiences
To anticipate ad fatigue, a good habit to adopt is to regularly duplicate your successful ad groups to test them on new audiences.
When you’re new to Social Ads, you tend to want to target audiences with great precision. However, this is often counterproductive, because it is the best way to quickly saturate your audiences and see their results deteriorate after a few days of ad distribution.
In most cases, therefore, it’s better to aim wider and let Facebook’s machine learning do the selection work. This makes it possible to work with larger audiences, formed on the basis of real data and substitutable by other audiences developed using the same method.
6. Exclude Custom Audiences from already engaged users
The Facebook pixel that you have installed on your site is a weapon of choice against ad fatigue. It should indeed be used to create personalized audiences of users who are already engaged in your web environment, whether on your landing pages or on your ads in progress.
These users, who are no longer ordinary users, must be “retargeted” with specific ads. Without such a retargeting strategy, signs of weariness on their part will quickly be felt and your ad performance will inevitably decline.
7. Show ads at the best times
As you can see, ad fatigue is a phenomenon that always ends up affecting all ads. So, you might as well use our best PPC for Fencing Business.
Since each ad has a number of exposures beyond which it will begin to tire your target, you must play it strategic and optimize the conditions for each of these exposures. The goal: to display your ad when it is most likely to achieve the objective you have assigned to users.
If you haven’t already read our article on the best time to post on Facebook, now is the time!
For once, we observe general trends in this area, but your audience has its own characteristics. Knowing when she’s connecting and when she’s most likely to trigger a conversion provides valuable insight into the best times to expose her to your ads.
So, get to know your audience’s habits and you’ll be able to get the most out of your ads before their performance drops. From this point of view, your organic publications can help you see more clearly, and this is not their only interest…
8. Sponsor the best organic content
Sometimes the best way to diversify your ads is right in front of you, among the quality content you already create for organic purposes. A brand image is also built on the basis of these more natural contents, which show your company from a different angle and create quality connections with your audience.
However, among these contents, some may already obtain a good commitment… If necessary, they deserve to be sponsored to gain greater visibility. Especially since, since their impact has already been measured on a small scale, ad fatigue should reach them less quickly than many of your traditional ads.
Conclusion
To fight against the natural weariness of your audiences when faced with your online advertisements, there is no miracle cure. Essentially you need:
- Carry out a permanent and relevant analysis of the KPIs of your campaigns
- Constantly test new advertisements, renewing both your creative and your marketing arguments
- Constantly test new audiences and deploy specific retargeting on already engaged users
- Design a global approach, centered on your audiences, which combines organic and paid