Unlocking frequency capping to transform your CTV and cross-screen campaigns

In the fast-paced world of digital advertising, ensuring that your ads reach the right audience without oversaturation is critical. By setting limits on how often an individual user sees your ads within a specific timeframe, you can prevent ad fatigue and keep your message impactful and engaging. Frequency capping is your secret weapon, helping to optimize your Connected TV (CTV) and cross-screen campaigns for maximum impact. But, as powerful as it is, frequency capping has its challenges. Let’s dive into how you can master this tool and overcome common hurdles.

Why frequency capping matters

Frequency capping is more than a strategic tool—it helps you deliver successful CTV and cross-screen campaigns that resonate with your audience. Here's why it matters:

Enhanced user experience

Overexposing your audience to the same ad can lead to ad fatigue, diminishing the impact of your campaign and potentially damaging your brand's reputation. Frequency capping reduces this risk by limiting how often users see your ads, improving their overall experience.  For example, setting appropriate frequency limits ensures viewers remember your ad for the right reasons—positive engagement and clear messaging—rather than irritation from overexposure.

Improved audience engagement

By controlling how often your ads are shown and on which screens, frequency capping keeps your audience engaged without bombarding them with repetitive messages. For instance, in a CTV campaign promoting a new product, limiting ad exposure to one ad on CTV and another synced ad on Mobile per day prevents overexposure. This approach ensures that each time the audience sees your ad, it's fresh and engaging, keeping them interested.

Optimized ad spend

Frequency capping also plays a crucial role in maximizing your advertising budget by avoiding excessive ad impressions, you can increase the reach and thus allocate your budget more efficiently. Imagine you are a car dealer advertising a new car model. Without frequency capping, most of the budget could be spent on a few users who have been watching CTV for a long time, leading to ad fatigue and a smaller impact. If the same ad runs too many times in one evening for the same users, it is likely to be ignored. With frequency capping, say one ad per day per device, you could ensure your budget is more evenly distributed and your car launch not only reaches the intended target segment (i.e. high-end neighborhoods or particular CTV models and makes) but also a larger audience pool within those targeting specifications. Frequency capping ensures your budget isn't wasted on impressions that no longer add value, allowing you to reach more potential customers effectively and keeping their interest piqued without overdoing it.

In essence, frequency capping is crucial for maintaining a balanced and effective advertising strategy. It not only improves audience engagement and optimizes your ad spend but also enhances the user experience, ensuring your campaigns leave a lasting, positive impression.

How frequency capping works 

Frequency capping's implementation can vary across different screens and campaign types due to the unique nature of devices. However, its primary goal remains the same: to maintain a positive and memorable viewing experience for your audience.

This mechanism works by setting predefined limits on ad exposures to ensure that users do not experience ad fatigue or annoyance due to repetitive advertisements. This process is seamless and rapid, occurring within milliseconds during the real-time bidding process. The frequency capping data is stored and updated in real-time, ensuring that every bid offer is evaluated against the most current exposure data. 

When a user navigates on a CTV, a web page, or an app, the Demand-Side Platform (DSP) evaluates whether the user has already been exposed to the ad according to the frequency capping rules. If the user has not reached the maximum number of allowed impressions, the DSP will consider serving the ad. Conversely, if the limit has been reached, the DSP will refrain from bidding on that ad impression, thereby adhering to the frequency capping constraints. 

In mediasmart, for Mobile and CTV campaigns, you can set maximum impressions:

• per user/hour
• per user/day
• per user/week
• per user/campaign
  
  

By implementing frequency capping, advertisers can optimize their ad spend by focusing on reaching a broader audience while maintaining a positive user experience. This balance not only enhances the effectiveness of advertising campaigns but also helps in building better brand perception and engagement among users.

Solving common frequency capping challenges

Privacy-related identifiers blocking

Consent management can often block the DSP’s access to native identifiers needed for effective frequency capping, as we’ve seen with the implementation of Privacy laws like GDPR or CCPA or new industry standards (iOS’ SkADNetwork). Along with this, anonymized non-standard identifiers are rotated daily and mobile web IDs are usually non-unique, not to mention the whole cookies arena. These frequent changes make it difficult to maintain consistent frequency capping over the campaign’s duration. There are several avenues to solve this challenge. 

On one hand, you could focus on targeting only traffic that includes consent and, thus, having access to identifiers. By doing so, you can accurately apply frequency capping, preventing users from seeing the same ad too often while respecting their privacy choices. This might prove to be a true challenge in several countries where privacy laws and iOS devices are more predominant. 

On the other, you could use alternative identifying solutions, namely, universal IDs. According to eMarketer, there are over a hundred universal ID providers, we recommend evaluating and identifying solutions to find the best fit for your needs. Notable examples include LiveRamp’s RampID and Zeotap’s ID+, both accessible through mediasmart, alongside our proprietary mediasmart ID. Our privacy-first approach, cross-screen identification, and real-time optimization and measurement set us apart for campaign success. The use of universal identifiers is a privacy regulations-abiding way to do frequency capping. 

The data center dilemma

The theory is simple enough: when a user receives an ad impression, a data center processes information about it in real-time, updating the user’s ad exposure coun to facilitate frequency capping. In practice, data centers could disrupt frequency tracking, as supply from different partners for the same region can come through different data centers. 

By way of example, imagine a family watching a show on their CTV. The OTT platform they're using is connected to SSP1, which informs the DSP through Data Center 1 that an ad placement is available. The DSP bids, wins the impression and marks the device as having seen the ad. After finishing the show, the family switches to another app to watch content. This new app is connected to SSP2, which sends the same DSP a bid offer through data center 2. Due to the urgency of the bidding process, the DSP cannot cross-reference data between data centers 1 and 2, and might inadvertently serve the same campaign again, despite a frequency cap of one impression per day per device. 

To mitigate this effect, you can either buy from a single source or ensure that the SSPs’ traffic your campaign buys only comes through the same data centers. 

Time lag and cached impressions

To ensure that every ad request is accurately checked against the user’s exposure history, DSP must be capable of handling high traffic volumes on extremely short notice. This is crucial because the entire bidding process, from ad request to delivery, typically takes less than 6 milliseconds. DSP must process and update user data in real-time to maintain the effectiveness of frequency capping, even during peak traffic times.

A time lag in impression reporting can lead to over-serving ads, as the system may not immediately recognize when the frequency cap has been reached. To mitigate this, mediasmart tracks both bids placed and impressions for frequency capping. This proactive approach ensures that users do not receive more impressions than intended, even if there’s a delay in the impression reporting. This adjustment helps maintain the balance between effective ad delivery and user experience.

By focusing on accurate tracking, available identifiers, and synced data centers, you can ensure that your ads reach the right audience the right number of times, maximizing both reach and impact. Addressing these common frequency capping challenges with targeted solutions will improve overall campaign performance and audience engagement. 

Real-world success story

Ethnix by Raymond, a large retail and fashion brand, outshined competitors with an award-winning campaign that positioned it as the standout choice during the Diwali festive season. In collaboration with mediasmart and Madison Media, the campaign leveraged mediasmart's cross-screen capabilities to synchronize ads across devices and target urban dwellers. The campaign included a strategic frequency capping of three, ensuring maximum engagement on CTV and Mobile without overexposure.

This savvy approach maximized budget efficiency, resulting in impressive outcomes. Brand search volume surged by an impressive 80% and, according to a brand lift study by Kantar, the campaign achieved 96% online ad awareness, 90% message with brand association, and 97% purchase intent (T2B). 

Ethnix by Raymond’s innovative marketing approach not only boosted brand visibility but also forged a powerful connection with consumers, driving significant engagement and solidifying its position as a festive favorite.

Master the cadence of your CTV and cross-screen campaigns 

By understanding and addressing the challenges of frequency capping, you can unlock its full potential to optimize your CTV and cross-screen campaigns. Stay ahead of the curve and ensure your advertising efforts are both effective and efficient.

Ready to transform your budget efficiency? Contact us to start mastering frequency capping today!