Contents
- Frequency relates impressions to members reached.
- It rises faster than elsewhere: B2B audiences are narrow by design.
- Beyond a threshold on the order of 5, cost per lead degrades markedly on most accounts.
Definition
Average frequency measures the average number of exposures of one member to an ad over the period.
Formula
Average frequency = impressions divided by members reached.
Worked example
A LinkedIn campaign reaches a frequency of 5.8 on a segment of marketing VPs, while cost per lead doubles. The audience has 9,000 members: it's saturated. Changing the creative won't be enough, you have to broaden the targeting.
Orders of magnitude
A saturation threshold around 5 is often observed in B2B. It depends on the format: Document Ads and executive posts hold up longer than static images.
The most common mistakes
- Waiting for the cost to double before reacting. The degradation is gradual and shows first on CTR.
- Confusing audience saturation with creative fatigue. If reach is still growing, it's the creative; if it plateaus, it's the audience.
- Aggregating frequency across campaigns targeting the same audience. The real figure a member sees is well above the one shown per campaign.
Where to find the metric
In LinkedIn Ads, the Average frequency column, to read with Members reached. On Meta, the equivalent is called Frequency.
Frequently asked questions
The Adwise team connects Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, GA4 and Search Console so agencies and freelancers can run their campaigns from a single place.
