Frequency capping
Advertising mechanicsDefined term
A frequency cap bounds the number of times a single person is served the same creative within a time window, trading raw reach for diminished-annoyance and better marginal response. It is enforced by the delivery system at auction time.
The hard part is the word 'person': caps rely on identity resolution across devices and contexts, which privacy changes have steadily narrowed. Where identifiers are absent the cap degrades to per-device or per-context approximations, and effective frequency rises invisibly.
Browse the glossary
Advertising mechanics6 of 28 terms
- Ad rank⦿ liveThe auction score that orders ad positions — in the classic model, bid × quality — and sets what the slot above pays.Advertising mechanics
- Generalized second-price auction (GSP)⦿ liveThe multi-slot auction behind most search advertising: each winner pays just enough to keep its position, not its own bid.Advertising mechanics
- First-price auction⦿ liveAn auction where winners pay exactly what they bid — the rule most programmatic display moved to in 2019.Advertising mechanics
- Learning phaseThe exploration period after a campaign change when a delivery algorithm spends budget gathering data before optimizing on it.Advertising mechanics
- Budget pacingThe control loop that spreads a fixed ad budget across a period, throttling auction entries to avoid early exhaustion.Advertising mechanics
- Frequency cappingA delivery constraint limiting how often one person sees the same ad within a window — an identity problem as much as a rule.Advertising mechanics