How to battle creative ad fatigue (and win)

Hey everyone,

It’s time for another bite to chew on. 

Let’s get right to it - creative fatigue. 

If you advertise on Meta (and we know you do), you’ve had to battle this challenge at some point in your journey.

Or if it hasn’t happened to you yet - it will. 

This is important because fatigue can crater your efficiency and kill an entire ad set or campaign if it’s not kept in check. 

Now creative (or ad) fatigue is a term we give to a certain symptom in your Facebook ads manager.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t just have a single cause. 

Which means, it also doesn’t (always) have a simple fix. 

Today we’re going to take you through what Meta creative fatigue is, how to diagnose it, and what steps you can take to fight it.

On the Menu 🍽️

• How to diagnose fatigue

• Consider your audiences!

• Tactics & solutions

How to diagnose 🩺

We should define what we mean by “creative fatigue”.

Traditionally, it just meant your audience had seen a certain ad too many times and tuned it out. 

But at Obvi we consider “creative fatigue” to mean any winning ad that just…stops producing results. 

So, yes, the first thing to do is check your ad’s frequency. 

Pull back a reasonable amount of time in your ads manager. Say, 6 months. 

And then look up your chosen ad’s (or ad set’s) frequency. 

Ads landing around 4 might need your attention. 

Anything above 7 means you’re definitely hitting a saturation point. 

Especially if you are using Meta for prospecting at the top of the funnel, you need your ads to find new audiences, not just hammer the same group of people over and over.

BUT - sometimes frequency isn’t the culprit. 

Let’s say a previous winner’s frequency is steady at around two, But the CPA has increased into unprofitable territory over time.  

Hmm…

Some stuff to check:

• Random Meta changes. Yes, sometimes Meta flips a switch somewhere and it alters the settings in your ad.

• Social proof. Has your ad gathered a bunch of doubters and haters in the comments? The engagement might convince Facebook to keep spending on it, but that might also drive buying intent down.

• Post-click destination. Remember, your ad’s job is to get the click, not necessarily make the sale. That’s up to your landing page or site. You might need to buff up the post-click experience to get your CPA’s back down.

• Placements. Meta has all sorts of places it can display your ad, and sometimes where it’s being seen is more conducive to engagement than to purchasing. 

• Check your copy and messaging. Has your ad been scaling for a while? Your messaging may need a refresh. 

• Look at your cost per click (CPC). If Meta is charging you more and more to show your ad, it suggests your audience doesn’t really want it in their feed anymore. 

The takeaway here is - don’t just stop at frequency if an ad stops working. 

Take a look at the settings, the placements, the comments, the CPC, and where you’re sending users when they click. 

Consider your funnel and audiences 👩‍👩‍👦‍👦

Let’s pull back a bit and consider the Meta ecosystem and how most people structure their accounts. 

Back in the day, there was a lot of work put into prospecting vs retargeting campaigns, interest stacks, and lookalike audiences. 

This was like putting a fence around a certain group and telling Facebook “Only show my ads to THESE PEOPLE.”

It often meant you paid more on a CPM basis. And it was a lot easier to saturate these artificial audiences. 

“Going broad” was the technical fix for all that.

That way, you give Meta free rein to go out and find your audiences amongst everyone on their platform. 

But that doesn’t mean Facebook is just out there showing your ads to everyone. 

Your audience obviously isn’t every single one of their hundreds of millions of active users. 

Instead, the Meta algo is using other signals and information to narrow down its search. Especially if your objective is purchases - the platform needs to be pickier.

It will often designate certain ads as middle or bottom of the funnel, depending on their messaging (like, say, an offer for free shipping or a seasonal discount). 

Other ads will be tested at the top of the funnel, but may only appeal to a certain subsection of your demographic due to the nature of the creative or the messaging.

Meaning - maybe an ad scaled for a while and looked like a winner until it progressed beyond this core audience. 

Result: great results for a while, and then 📉

Meta is also taking cues not just from its users in terms of their online behavior and habits, but also from your website. 

• Who are your typical users? 

• Who tends to buy?

• When do they tend to buy after their first visit?

• How much do they spend?

At Obvi, we actually had to junk our first Facebook pixel and start fresh with a new one a few years into our journey. 

We had doubled down with a major influencer and their audience ended up flooding our original pixel - 

Basically “seasoning” it in a way that made it very difficult to scale beyond a single persona as we grew. 

It worked, but - yikes!

We’re not saying you have to do this whenever a winning ad stops working. 

Only that you need to keep in mind how the machine works and how it’s interpreting information and acting to get you results. 

Tool of the Week 🔧

Alright. This is probably a good time to talk about leveraging audiences on Meta.

Yeah, we know…

“Going broad” is the new best practice. All you need is a variety of creatives + wide open targeting and Facebook will do the rest, right? 

Honestly, this was how we structured our FB account for a while.

It worked well enough, but we were still hungry for more efficiency as we scaled. And just switching up our ad creative wasn’t getting it done. 

So when Proxima approached us about testing audience targeting, we were interested - but skeptical. 

Here’s why we gave them a try:

The Proxima platform creates enriched audiences from a massive aggregated dataset

(70 million shoppers + $17 billion in transaction data across thousands of ecom stores). 

With this aggregated data, Proxima can find new, high-intent shoppers for Obvi that Meta is blind to.

Enabling us to take a more surgical approach with our ad spend.

So we gave them a shot - 

Annnddd they lowered our CPA by more than 20% and increased our ROAS by 31% 🤯 

That made it a pretty easy decision to go all in.  

Since then, we’ve moved 50%+ of our Meta spend over to Proxima’s audiences and driven over 7 figures in revenue (versus the 5-to-6 figures we would have managed with our Business As Usual setup).  

So if you’re trying to scale and the best practices just aren’t moving the needle for you, you should give Proxima a test.

They offer a 30-day free trial (that’s also why we tried them) so you have nothing to lose and a LOT to gain.

Book a free demo to find out.

Okay, let’s get back to curing your ad fatigue…

Creative fatigue tactics & solutions 🥱

Ideate and iterate

You will have to retire winners now and then.

That also means you also have to find new ones.

So battling fatigue always involves ongoing creative development. 

Here’s how we pull this off at Obvi - 

• First, we dedicate 25% of our time iterating on some of our top performers

• Then we spend the other 75% ideating completely new concepts

That’s right. 

You can’t just take what’s worked before and make minor changes if you want to unlock new, scalable audiences. 

At best, that just leads to slightly better performance over what came previously, so the gain will be marginal. 

This is why most of our effort goes to finding fresh, new ways to frame and message our products. 

Funnel and ad-type mapping

How do we look at creative diversity? We map it out - 

First, we start with messaging and how it relates to different funnel positions:

• Problem unaware ← Most miss this

• Problem aware ← Most miss this

• Solution aware ← Most focus here 

• Brand aware ← Most focus here 

• Product aware ← Most focus here

Take a look at your existing ads with this framework in mind. Are you hitting each type of funnel audience?

Most other brands we see have more of their creative aimed at the solution and brand/product aware users - 

but remember there may be way, way more of your target demo that isn’t even aware of the problem you’re solving yet. 

If you can effectively hook them with a problem awareness ad, you can move them “in market” for your solution, expanding your top of funnel.

Next, creative type 

Different kinds of angles, hooks, and ad types appeal to different people, so you want to test a variety of treatments.

Example: not everything needs to look sharp and high production. 

In fact, DTC marketing teams have leaned into “ugly ads” on social because they often look more native to the platform.

Naturally, some users prefer Lo-fi, “ugly”, or UGC-style creative. 

Others will be hooked by polished, direct-response style videos or statics that clearly communicate a value prop or benefit.

Here’s a grid we use internally at Obvi to understand our creative types:

Across these different types, you should try different concepts like “Us vs Them”, “UGC”, “Problem-Solution”, “Lifestyle”, “Reviews”, etc. 

Now ask yourself - 

• How many different ad concepts am I using? 

• Am I varying between video and static? Polished vs Lo-fi?

• Do I have enough diversity in my ad mix to support growth?

• Am I over-reliant on a handful of concepts? 

If you have low creative diversity, you’re missing out on reaching new pools of potential buyers. 

Some people are more convinced by social proof. 

Others, by comparisons to existing options, or a clear explanation of how your product makes their life better. 

And remember, you’re fighting against fatigue. 

So you need to be evaluating your funnel messaging and diversity mix regularly. 

At Obvi, we test and evaluate new creative weekly.    

Resurrection options

Maybe you want to see if there’s still some life left in that winner.

Here’s what you can do if you just can’t bring yourself to let go - 

Try refreshing elements of your ad

From new body copy and headlines to new landing pages or post-click destinations. Sometimes you can revive a winner with a bit of a facelift. 

Exclusions

Make sure you’re forcing Meta to look for new audiences and not just retargeting past customers or website visitors. 

Test new audiences

Broad targeting is the way to go and should be a key element of your account structure. 

But it’s worth trying out new, custom audiences with tools like Proxima to see if they can help you reach new (previously inaccessible) audiences. 

Sum it up 😎

If you’re spending money on Meta and looking to aggressively grow your brand, you’re going to have to contend with creative fatigue.

At some point, your ad, or ad set, or whole campaign will see a prolonged drop in effectiveness. 

Important Note - DO NOT just panic after a few days of down performance and start turning things off or changing things. 

!! Remember that Facebook CPAs are naturally variable over a small sample !! 

But, if you run into legit fatigue - 

✅ Check your ads and ad sets for frequency

✅ See if they have saturated their audience

✅ Make sure it's not a social proof or post-click problem

And then move on to more advanced stuff →  

• Where in the funnel is your ad best positioned?

• Are you refreshing your account with enough creative volume and variety?

• What data is your Meta pixel drawing from? 

• What else can you test (beyond creative) that could help scale?

Trust us, we get it - running paid media in DTC is complex and frustrating.

So watching a former winning ad sink like the Titanic is a kick in the gut. 

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. You just have to be prepared to do something about it when it does. 

One last thing… 👋

If you’re looking for clear, actionable ways to increase profitability on your website, our recent podcast with Drew from Intelligems is packed with powerful CRO tests and tactics. 

Here’s just a sample of what we go into:

• Highlighting value props on product pages

• A/B testing for the most effective design and messaging

• Pricing strategies like charm pricing and discounts

Don’t miss this one if you’re looking for the best ways to increase your revenue per user. 

All the best, 

Ron and Ash