Creative fatigue is when people see an ad enough times that they stop responding to it – which is often not considered enough when running digital campaigns. While focusing on the importance of targeting the right audience, it is also vital to ensure the creative you are running is keeping your audience engaged. There are a few different factors to consider to avoid fatigue.
Different ad formats have different warning signs than others. Knowing what to look for can help you determine which areas you need to focus efforts on.
Here are some of the common warning signs of creative fatigue:
An essential item to note is understanding the difference between creative fatigue and ineffective creative. Creative fatigue results are typically gradual. Usually, you would see an increase in ad frequency, but conversions would begin to drop. That steady decline is a clear sign that creative fatigue is likely occurring.
Before making any creative changes, it is best to check the targeting setup of your campaign. Adjusting the geographic location, age range, education level, behaviors, and intent can help improve performance by focusing solely on the correct audience.
However, if you have been running a specific ad for a long time, it may be time to make some changes to your creative.
Here are a few ideas:
Maybe the most critical step in avoiding creative fatigue is starting with the creative itself. Is your creative campaign as effective as it could be? That comes down to the design. While rotating ads, adjusting targeting, and adding video are all important, it is best practice to start your campaign strong with ads viewers will remember.
Allow your design to tell a story and include entertainment, education, and a call to action in your visual ads. Entertainment allows people to enjoy the ad, education informs them, and the CTA encourages them to act.
No matter the story you want to tell, you want to be sure your ad elements are transferable to different ad sizes to run successfully via Google, Facebook, and on mobile devices.
Reach out to one of McClatchy’s marketing experts to learn how they can help you launch successful and enticing ad campaigns.