Sales Loves Marketing

What is Frequency Capping?

Frequency capping is a setting that limits how many times the same person sees an ad, or ads from a campaign, within a set period such as a day, week or month. It stops ad fatigue and keeps budget from being spent on people who have already seen the ad enough.

By Sales Loves Marketing teamOriginally written by Joran HofmanUpdated

Frequency capping limits how many times one person sees your ad in a given period. A cap of three impressions per user per week means that, once someone has seen your ad three times that week, the platform stops showing it to them and spends the budget on someone else.

Why does frequency capping matter?

  • It prevents ad fatigue. People who see the same banner again and again start to ignore it, or get annoyed by it.
  • It spreads your budget. Fewer repeat impressions to the same people means more reach for the same spend, which matters most on CPM buys.
  • It protects your brand. Being everywhere for one prospect can feel intrusive, especially in a small B2B market.

How does frequency capping work in Google Ads?

Google Ads documents frequency capping for Display and Video campaigns.

Display campaigns

  • You choose under "Frequency management" in campaign settings. You can let Google Ads optimize how often ads show, which Google marks as recommended, or set your own cap.
  • A manual cap limits impressions per day, week or month, at the campaign, ad group or ad level.
  • Only viewable impressions count toward the cap.
  • Google uses third-party cookies by default and first-party cookies to approximate the count when third-party cookies aren't available.

Video campaigns

  • Caps can limit impressions, views or both, per day, week or month, or a mix of these.
  • Caps are set at campaign level only.
  • They apply to signed-in users, or to devices when people are signed out.

Can publishers set frequency caps?

Yes. In an ad server such as Google Ad Manager, a publisher can cap how often a line item or a labelled group of creatives is shown to the same user. When two caps overlap, the stricter one applies. This is common on run-of-site deals, where advertisers ask the publisher to keep the same visitor from seeing an ad too often.

How do you choose a frequency cap?

There is no universal best number. A sensible process:

  1. Start from the goal. Awareness campaigns can allow more exposures than a short retargeting push.
  2. Set a moderate starting cap instead of none.
  3. Watch performance by frequency. If click-through and conversion rates fall as people see the ad more often, lower the cap.
  4. Refresh creative when performance drops, rather than only showing the same ad less.

An example from B2B marketing

A company selling accounting software retargets visitors who read its pricing page. Its audience is small, so without a cap the same finance managers would see the ad many times a day. The team sets a weekly cap and rotates three ads. Budget moves to people who haven't seen the message yet, and the regulars don't get worn out.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good frequency cap?

There is no single right number. It depends on the campaign goal, how many people you can reach and how long the campaign runs. Start with a moderate cap, watch how click-through and conversion rates change as people see the ad more often, and adjust from there.

Who sets a frequency cap, the advertiser or the publisher?

Both can. Advertisers set caps in their ad platform, such as Google Ads. Publishers can also set caps in their ad server, such as Google Ad Manager, to limit how often one ad or line item shows to the same visitor on their site.