It doesn’t matter how great your ads are; your target audience will eventually tire of seeing them. Ad fatigue is an alarming problem that can prove disastrous for mobile companies trying to make their app or game garner more prominent attention. If you have noticed that your ads are not getting the same numbers they used to, it may be time to breathe new life into your mobile ad creative.

In this article, we will cover:

  • Ad Fatigue and how it affects ad performance
  • Ways to keep mobile ad creatives fresh and stimulating
  • How often should ads be changed or altered

Even the most interested consumer can only see the same ad so many times before the product begins to feel stale. To avoid this inconvenient reality, let's go into ways to prevent disinterested customers in mobile apps and ads.

What is Ad Fatigue?

A uniquely exceptional advertisement gets shown to the perfect audience that adores the idea and product. This ad creates a buzz around the product, and several of your focused audience receive it positively. As time passes and that same great advertisement continues playing ad nauseam, it creates a negative impression.

This happens because the ad overstayed its welcome to the target audience, so they no longer receive new information. Instead, there is increasing pain in their temples whenever they have to suffer through the same creative they didn’t agree to watch. Over time, this will create a harmful brand image that could negatively affect your product.

This process is called ad fatigue, and it has existed since the inception of commercials. Unlike traditional television commercials, however, the chance of ad fatigue is far higher nowadays. This is because ads have more availability, so consumers see the same targeted commercials far more often than they prefer.

Nowadays, it isn’t uncommon to see the same ad 3 - 5 times in a regular session on Youtube, Tiktok, Hulu, or Instagram.

This monotonous repetition of the same advertisements has not only been noticed by mobile marketing agencies but consumers themselves. Several people have reported that they will regularly see the same ad multiple times during their daily mobile scroll, damaging their opinion of the original product.

This harmful effect cannot be avoided without fresh content and must be addressed by marketers who want to maintain a good CTR (Click-Through Rate).

Similarly, several social media platforms (Facebook, TikTok, etc.) will no longer present ad campaigns for mobile apps that have already been installed by the user. If a person who sees your ad downloads your mobile app or game, then they will no longer be met with advertisements. Regrettably, those that have seen your ad multiple times and scroll past it will continue to see your ad campaigns.

This is a waste of digital space and will burn through money as your ad creatives are wasted on an apathetic audience.

How To Spot Ad Fatigue

It is easy to recognize ad fatigue when someone is personally experiencing it. It can be more difficult to gauge whether your audience is slowly turning away from your own ad creatives. Thankfully, there are a few distinct ways to tell if you are lulling your consumers to sleep with your ad creative.

Poor Engagement

There is no word more overused than engagement when discussing digital content. This is for good reason, however. If you notice a distinct lack of interest from your consumers in the form of downloads, purchases, comments, shares, or social media likes – your customers are growing apathetic.

The lack of connection between your ads, product, and consumer is a likely sign that the creative has grown stale or your target audience has grown disinterested.

Decreasing Impressions

A fairly simple way to measure ad fatigue is by looking at the impressions on your mobile ads. If you notice that fewer people are responding to them, this will decrease the likelihood of social media, streaming platforms, and websites showing your ad creatives regularly.

If you are noticing consistently diminished impressions, it is imperative that you switch up or alter your advertising campaign. This will not only help freshen up your marketed content but also help it stand out and get more looks from your target demographic.

Ad Frequency or Visibility

Mobile ad frequency is the measurement of how many times one consumer has seen your advertisement. While a higher frequency isn’t necessarily bad, it can help establish whether the intended audience is watching or interacting with your ad too much.

If you notice that your advertisement frequency is still quite high while your CTR is plummeting, it means that your ads have grown stale and should be altered to reengage your audience. This may also help keep your CPM (Cost per thousand/cost per mille) down.

Decreasing Click-Through Rates

Click-through rates determine how often people click on your ads. If this percentage is high, your ads work, or your product is enticing enough to push past subpar advertisements. If the opposite is true, your ads have grown stale or are being marketed to the wrong demographic.

CTR is invaluable for measuring the success of ads and ad creatives, as upward momentum is a key indicator that your campaign has proven effective.

The best way to measure ad fatigue is to see how high your frequency is compared to the CTR. If your ad frequency remains high while your CTR is plummeting, you need to change up your ad creatives.

Ways to Remedy Ad Fatigue

To the collective relief of everyone in marketing, this problem has several clear solutions to alleviate a stagnant consumer base. In the world of mobile marketing, there are no one-step solutions to fixing consumer burnout – though there are several easy-to-follow methods to bring disinterested consumers back into the fold.

Track Ad Analytics

How can you know if your ad creative is failing if you never know how your audience is consuming it? There is no shortcut to tracking analytics; it is incredibly important to your ads' overall longevity and success.

As mentioned above, the best things to measure to gauge creative fatigue would be Frequency, impressions, and CTR. This gives the added benefit of knowing which ads prove to be the most effective while others may not have the same impact.

Keep Creatives Fresh

When it comes to creatives, do not depend on the same five-second video for months at a time. In fact, it is likely better to shift or tweak your creatives at least once or twice a month. People catch on quickly and get bored quicker. Leaving the same ad creative up for a few dozen weeks will cause your engagement, CTR, and consumer interest to nosedive.

One way to spruce up your creatives is something simple as changing the layout of your creative. This can be accomplished by simply changing an ad's layout or background hue. This is ideal for ad creatives that have proven particularly effective in their messaging that simply need a visual refresh.

Contrarily, you can also elect to keep your visuals in exchange for better wording that includes recent promotions, discounts, or text that targets your desired audience better. Ideally, marketers would use this for stale creatives with a mediocre CTA (call to action).

Finally, you can elect to change your ad's image and overall appearance. To use an example, if you are trying to get people to purchase the app that allows you to listen to audiobooks, you could switch the image to an open book or a brief video of someone using your app.

You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when changing up your creatives, but they should always remain fluid and fresh.

Utilize A/B Testing

Whether or not you like an ad is important; however, it is far more critical that your audience finds it worthwhile. The simplest way to check and make sure that your ad creatives are working is by utilizing A/B Testing or split testing. This allows two groups to judge differing creatives to see which of your options is most appealing.

The process is relatively simple and allows an unbiased (though important) second opinion that can help distinguish which ad creatives are the most easily consumable to your target demographic. This can be as simple as running similar creatives that differ in color or image, all the way to entirely new versions of the ad.

Utilizing multiple creatives and monitoring their success will keep your creatives dynamic and show which ones perform the highest. This process helps trim the fat of less effective ad ideas and decreases the possibility of your audience growing tired of the same five-second video.

A/B Testing is a process that is almost essential in marketing mobile creatives and has been utilized by Google, Instagram, and TikTok ad agencies.

Change Your Ad Style

If your ad has not grabbed your audience as expected, the type of creative used may need to be altered. For instance, a large text box going over the newest top-rated mobile game may not show off all its high points as effectively as a video advertisement. Similarly, a video ad that doesn’t convey what it is selling with text can go unnoticed if the audience is scrolling through their phone without sound on.

If this applies to you, it can have a negative impact on your customer engagement and burn a hole in your pocket as your ad creatives fail to find their mark. Rather than switching up the color or changing the images on your display, it may be time to look into an alternate style of advertisement.

What proves the most effective will depend on the social media or streaming site you are on as well as the product you are marketing. With this being said, there is a big desire for more video ads from digital consumers, and they are widely considered one of the most effective ways to bring in new eyes.

Boost Your Budget

No one wants to hear that they have to spend more money, though it may help increase your marketing reach. This can go a few different routes in how it benefits the advertiser. The first is that you will extend the reach of your creatives to a broader market, which can help bring in new eyes. This will not only help keep the frequency of your ad creatives down but also improve the likelihood of more people seeing your content.

Secondly, you can put more cash behind your advertising outreach, allowing your ad creative to be shown with higher prevalence. Ideal for those who feel that they have not gotten enough attention from their ads and want the mobile ad display to be shown more often than it is currently.

Lastly, it allows you to show more variations of the same creative that will keep the ad fresh and interesting for potential consumers. This is one of the least preferred options, so we have elected to leave it at the bottom as a last resort. With that said, money talks, and one of the best ways to get an ad to the forefront of your target audience is still cold hard cash.

Final Thoughts

There is no such thing as simple when it comes to mobile advertising, though it shouldn’t have to be the monotonous migraine that some folks have to contend with. People are easily disinterested - there is only so much of the same thing someone can see before they start to tune it out. This is why keeping your mobile ad creative dynamic, attention-grabbing, and audience-focused is so important.

Changing your ad creative at least once every couple of weeks is widely recommended. While there is no golden rule, this is a comfortable guideline to follow. You can also elect to use multiple variations at once to test which are the most effective while your audience is quietly stimulated by the variety.

So the next time you are wondering how to spice up your mobile ads, try these marketing maneuvers to keep your ad campaigns relevant and effective.