Reach vs Frequency: What’s The Difference and Which is Preferred?

Among the primary metrics that most marketers care about with any advertising is reach and frequency. While these are most commonly associated with TV, these apply in any medium.

Reach refers to the number of unique people (or in some cases unique devices or households) who were served an advertisement during a given time.

Frequency refers to the number of times the same individual (or again, device/household) viewed the advertisement. This is usually reported as an average. Frequency equates to repetition, it’s a consistent reminder of your brand and offerings.

So, if a campaign achieved a reach of 50,000 and frequency of 3, that means that 50,000 unique people saw the campaign an average of 3 times during the reporting window, which is usually broken by month.

Which is more important? Both reach and frequency are important for different reasons. Effective marketing aims to achieve both high reach and high frequency. Strong reach is always important. How much frequency is needed depends on many factors. Newer businesses without existing brand recognition, highly competitive categories, and industries with a long buying cycle are examples when high frequency is important.

The amount of required frequency is evolving with changing entertainment habits. With today’s platform diversification and high advertising penetration, higher frequency is needed more than it was in the not-so-distant past. There’s a lot of advertising white noise that only a compelling message and high frequency can cut through.

It’s important to consider reach and frequency across all platforms. Unfortunately, there isn’t completely accurate cross-platform tracking available for reach and frequency. Still, if one platform is delivering what seems to be a low 1-2 frequency monthly, assume your overall frequency is higher across your combined advertising platforms.

Concentrated advertising is a good method to increase frequency. This is selecting fewer platforms or programs to place your marketing message, and being consistent on those. For example, placing a television commercial several times a month in the same newscast will increase frequency better than placing in various non-fixed placed programming. This tactic improves frequency, but reach will quickly become capped. This is why a proper balance is needed to achieve both.

It’s important to understand the difference between frequency and frequently. An advertiser placing advertising across a dozen platforms and programming can actually perform worse than an advertiser placing fewer ads in only a handful of platforms and programming.