Think about the last time you saw a paid social media advertisement that would NOT stop appearing in your social feed. Did seeing the ad that frequently entice you into wanting to purchase that product or service? Or did you keep scrolling past it like the first 10 times you saw it?
The Battle Against Ad Fatigue.
While it may be time-consuming to create or update paid social media ad creative, the impact of not refreshing it often enough can be detrimental to your campaign. Seeing one specific ad a few times in a social feed can be beneficial to your audience if they are in the awareness stage. At this point, your target user likely subconsciously noticed your ad the first time they saw it and scrolled past it, but the second or third time they might stop to digest the content. However, when users begin to see that same ad in their social feed too often (generally more than 3 times), the ad loses its efficacy and impact. This phenomenon is called ad fatigue, and it’s the primary reason brands should refresh their paid social ad creative on a regular basis. When ad fatigue sets in, the best case scenario is that your ad becomes forgettable and something the user will routinely scroll past. At worst, it can negatively impact the audience’s perception of your brand thinking of it as intrusive or annoying.
How Often Should You Update Your Paid Social Ad Creative?
As a best practice, we recommend that paid social ad concepts should be refreshed with new imagery and copy or replaced with an entirely new ad every 4-6 weeks. This provides enough time for the social channel algorithms to learn from and optimize your ads and appear enough times to your target audience while avoiding ad fatigue. However, if after 4-6 weeks the ad is still performing well with your audience and delivering the results you are looking for, it’s okay to keep the ad running until you begin to see a decline in performance. Refreshing your paid social ad creative is also a great opportunity to communicate your brand messaging and explain new benefits, promotions, products, or news that may be relevant and exciting to your audience, and thus drive more conversions!
Each time you develop new ad creative, it presents an opportunity to learn from the successes or shortcomings of the previous ad content. Did the messaging in one ad resonate more with your audience than other ads? Did your audience respond better to UGC-style lifestyle images than the stylized product shots? Did the videos and gifs perform better than the stills? Taking the time to analyze the performance of past ad content will help you consistently improve your ads and ensure they are as effective as possible in driving people through the customer journey.
As with everything, we know it takes time and resources to update your paid social creative. Consistent refreshes are very important for your brand’s perception and to ensure your investment is put to good use. We would hate to see a brand spend so much time and money into launching a paid ad campaign, just to let it run for months on end without a refresh, wondering why their paid social ads aren’t delivering results. Creative ad refreshes should be seen as an opportunity to optimize your messaging and visuals to better connect with your audience. They are necessary for your campaign to keep driving conversions and make your ads worth the investment.
If you don’t have the time or resources to commit to consistent paid social ad content refreshes, then you need an extra hand! The BuzzShift team loves working as an extension of your team. We can help as much or as minimally as you need from conducting product shoots, to designing and animating paid social ad creative assets, to optimizing your paid social media strategy and managing your ad campaigns. Connect with BuzzShift to learn about our capabilities and level up your paid media game!
About BuzzShift
BuzzShift is a digital growth strategy agency with a focus on mid-market, scaling, purpose-driven DTC Brands. By combining the ideologies of branding, performance marketing, and retention agency, we are able to create memorable experiences with measurable results, and build long-term success for our clients with scalable, sustainable growth. Learn more about BuzzShift.
