What is Frequency Capping?
Frequency capping is an ad delivery setting that limits the maximum number of times a single user can see your ad within a defined time period, preventing overexposure and creative fatigue.
How It Works
Frequency capping works by tracking how many times each user (or device/cookie) has been served your ad and stopping delivery once the cap is reached. A cap of "3 impressions per 7 days" means each person in your target audience will see your ad at most 3 times per week.
Not all platforms implement frequency capping the same way. Meta offers frequency caps at the campaign level for reach and frequency campaigns, but standard auction campaigns use algorithmic delivery that does not enforce hard caps. Google Display Network supports frequency caps by day, week, or month. LinkedIn allows frequency caps for sponsored content. TikTok's algorithm handles frequency natively with limited manual control.
There is an important distinction between frequency (how many times the average user has seen your ad) and frequency cap (the maximum times any single user can see it). Average frequency of 3 does not mean everyone saw it 3 times — some people may have seen it once while others saw it 8 times. Frequency capping addresses the tail end of this distribution.
Why It Matters for Advertisers
Without frequency capping, ad platforms will keep showing your ad to the easiest-to-reach people in your audience. This creates a lopsided distribution where a small portion of your audience sees your ad dozens of times while most of your potential customers never see it at all.
High frequency wastes budget (you pay for impressions that annoy rather than convert), accelerates creative fatigue, and can damage brand perception. Research consistently shows that ad effectiveness peaks around 3-5 exposures and declines after that. Frequency capping helps you stay in the sweet spot.
How Ad Superpowers Helps
Ad Superpowers lets you monitor frequency across all platforms in one place. Ask "What is the average frequency on my Meta campaigns this week?" or "Which campaigns have frequency above 5?" to identify overexposed audiences before they fatigue.
Our creative fatigue skills use frequency as a key input signal. When frequency rises above platform-specific thresholds (3+ on TikTok, 5+ on Meta), we flag the campaign and recommend either capping frequency, expanding the audience, or refreshing the creative.
Related Terms
Creative Fatigue
Creative fatigue is the decline in ad performance that occurs when your target audience has seen the same ad too many times, leading to lower engagement and higher costs.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-Through Rate (CTR) is the percentage of impressions that result in a click. It is calculated by dividing the number of clicks by the number of impressions and multiplying by 100.
Lookalike Audience
A lookalike audience (also called a similar audience) is a targeting option that uses machine learning to find new people who share behavioral and demographic characteristics with your existing customers or high-value users.
Learn More
See It in Action
Connect your ad accounts and let AI handle the analysis. Free to start — no credit card required.