PPC campaigns are an effective way to promote your business to potential customers with offers and products (or services) guaranteed to make them want to know more. In fact, many businesses couple PPC advertising with SEO to increase traffic to their websites and eventually convert visitors into loyal customers.
Given the effectiveness of PPC campaigns, it is common for businesses to aggressively pursue targeting their potential customers with lucrative ads, unmissable offers, and a strong sense of FOMO. These tactics constantly push your customers to engage with the brand. It is often due to this seemingly never-ending push that makes your customers feel overwhelmed whenever they see your ads.
Over time, as exposure to ads increases, your customers feel saturated and will start ignoring your ads. This occurrence is known as ad fatigue and usually continues for weeks. While white-label PPC management strategies will ensure you are careful, creative, and strategic with your campaigns, understanding when to pause is crucial.
But what is ad fatigue, after all, and why is it bad for your PPC campaign strategy? And is there a way to avoid it? Here’s everything you need to know about ad fatigue:
What Is Ad Fatigue in PPC
Ad fatigue in PPC occurs when your target audience sees the same ads repeatedly without any breaks. It’s similar to hearing the same ad multiple times in an hour on the radio or on TV. Ad fatigue is overwhelming, making people want to stop using the platforms where the ads are visible. It often leads to higher ad budgets to get the same results before the ad fatigue strikes.
There are several negative effects of ad fatigue every business should know about. These include:
- Decrease in engagement: Indicates a decrease in click-through rates and noticing fewer interactions with your ads.
- Frustration with your brand: When your target audience repeatedly sees your ads, the feelings of excitement get replaced with frustration.
- Lower ROI: As the engagement rates decrease, your ad budget will no longer attract your potential customers.
What Usually Causes Ad Fatigue in PPC
Ad fatigue is similar to reading the same book every week. While the first few weeks are exciting, as days pass, you will start to feel bored and eventually overwhelmed whenever it’s time to read the book.
The same happens when your customers are frequently exposed to your ads. They initially ignore the ads, later feel frustrated, and prefer not to come across your brand. Aside from excessive ad exposure, another aspect that leads to ad fatigue is the lack of creativity in your ads. It often arises due to your PPC ad campaigns using the same ad creatives and copy for months.
How To Avoid Ad Fatigue
PPC campaigns are a vital component of any digital marketing strategy due to their ability to retarget and remarket your business to nurture your leads. Ad fatigue can discourage you from running further ads in the future, as you fear their effectiveness. While the fear is valid, without regularly being seen by your target audience, your business runs the risk of being forgotten.
To avoid such situations, you can try:
1. Update Your Ad Creatives Frequently
Visuals are the first element of your ads that people notice. They are, in fact, the hook that immediately attracts your target audience’s attention, keeping them interested in the ad. The excitement of seeing an advertisement for the first time gradually decreases over time.
To avoid causing ad fatigue, consider updating your ad creatives frequently. Make sure the updates are strikingly different and not merely varied copies of previously used creatives. Using a combination of dynamic and static ads can help bring variety while reducing the chances of ad fatigue. Practice changing your ad creatives every 2 weeks.
2. Create Multiple Variations of Ad Creatives
Creating multiple variations of ad creatives and copies ensures your target audience sees something new every time they come across your ad. Also known as A/B testing, it allows you to experiment with different versions of ad sets to determine which version works best. The data from A/B testing enables you to plan future campaigns more accurately.
3. Be Careful With Ad Frequency
A higher frequency of ads will overwhelm your target audience, resulting in ad fatigue. Instead, consider pausing every 2 weeks before restarting your campaigns. By doing so, you are giving a break and not bombarding your target audience with ads at all times. You can choose to cap every campaign using platform-specific ad managers.
4. Utilize User Generated Content
If you are looking to make money with PPC ads while also winning trust and hearts, user-generated content is the ultimate way to achieve your goals. People want to know what others like them have experienced with your brand. By using reviews and testimonials, your business can validate its claims and win the trust of your potential customers. Make sure to leverage every review you have received (on the website and social media).
5. Don’t Include Custom Audience
Avoid showing your ads to custom audiences, people who have already interacted with your business. It is better to retarget them using dedicated retargeting campaigns. This will ensure they are nurtured to take specific action towards becoming a loyal customer instead of being reintroduced to your brand and its offers repeatedly.
6. Closely Monitor Your Ads
Ad fatigue shows signs before it finally becomes evident. For instance, a drop in click-through rates (CTR), reduced engagement (likes, shares, and comments), declining conversion rates, increasing cost per click (CPC), and even negative audience feedback are signs that your audience is getting overwhelmed and exhausted by continuously seeing your ads. To avoid spending excessively before the strong signs of ad fatigue become apparent, make sure you’re continuously tracking the performance of your campaigns on all platforms.
The Bottom Line
Ad fatigue is a nightmare for businesses actively wanting to increase their brand presence while targeting potential customers with lucrative offers. Many businesses end up losing hundreds to thousands of dollars solely because they aren’t able to identify when their campaigns are causing ad fatigue.
If you are seeing a sudden drop in click-through rates, no longer getting engagement as you used to, and the revenue is dropping despite having multiple campaigns running, revisiting the frequency and extent of ad creativity can help. Ensure you always keep an eye on your campaigns so that when the wind changes direction, your business is quick to act. If you are uncertain where to get started, don’t hesitate to reach out to professionals.
