The right frequency cap varies sharply by format and vertical — how to set it and when to revisit it before it quietly burns budget on audience fatigue.
Frequency caps usually get set once at campaign launch and never touched again — worth reconsidering, since the optimal cap changes noticeably by format and vertical, and a stale default value quietly burns budget on audience fatigue.
Push and native ads tolerate higher frequency
Push notifications and native placements can usually run 2–3 times a day per user without a sharp CTR drop, while the same frequency in the Meta or TikTok feed usually causes fatigue much faster — feed-based formats compete for attention against far more content per session than a push notification does.
Fast-converting verticals need tighter caps
Nutra, sweepstakes and dating — offers with a short decision window — usually show diminishing returns after 1–2 daily impressions per user: someone who hasn't converted after the second impression usually doesn't convert after the third either.
Verticals with a long decision cycle tolerate more
Finance, education and higher-ticket e-commerce, where a user may genuinely need several touches before converting, often perform better with a somewhat higher cap than the standard for fast verticals would suggest.
Watch frequency alongside the CTR trend
A frequency cap that looked fine at campaign launch can become too loose as a specific audience segment saturates — a falling CTR alongside rising frequency is a clearer signal to tighten the cap than any fixed rule.
A practical default approach
Start conservative (1–2 impressions a day) on fast verticals, deliberately test raising it, and treat the frequency cap as a variable worth revisiting during the campaign, not a setting you set once.
In short
- Push and native ads tolerate higher frequency than social platforms.
- On fast verticals (nutra, sweepstakes, dating) keep the cap at 1–2 impressions a day.
- On verticals with a long decision cycle, the cap can be raised.
- Watch the CTR trend against rising frequency instead of a fixed rule.
There's no universal recipe here, but the mistakes listed above cost the most and repeat the most often.