Posted on the EyeBlaster blog this morning, an interesting article on balancing frequency of advertising impressions. The question is; how many times should you aim for users to see your ad? How many times does it take for the users [delete the s on users] to retain the information displayed in the ad? Also, how many times is too many? Then you can balance it…

In the book ‘Advertising Media Planning’ by Jack Zanville Sissors, Roger B. Baron, it is suggested that users need to see an ad 3 times to retain the information. This research was conducted in 1990, but is this still relevant and does it apply online? We now have what is called the ‘Hyperconnected’ generation, [I would put a full stop and start a new sentence here] these people consume multiple media channels at the same time. [and continue the sentence here rather than starting a new one] From watching TV, playing an online game and chatting on MSN all simultaneously. How does this affect the balancing act? Of course, this is just one audience, [doesn’t need this comma] but this highlights the fact that there is not only one balancing rule, but a rule for who you are talking to? [no need for a question mark]

EyeBlaster state that is is difficult to achieve a frequency of more than 2.5 times per user. An excerpt from the article is below;

Frequency is hard to balance.  Stretch your campaign too thin—and too few exposures per user may result in low retention of your marketing message.  Advertise with too few publishers and in a short timeline—and too many exposures may result in precious impressions over-targeting your exposed users rather than seeking additional fresh minds.  While the theory sounds logical, it requires a relatively high volume of impressions to have the flexibility to optimize frequency.