Ad Frequency/Unique

The Ad Frequency/Unique metric is calculated by dividing the total number of Ad Ended Plays in a selected time range by the number of Unique Devices that played at least one ad in that time range.

Updated 2026-08-07 ad-frequency-unique, ad metrics

The Ad Frequency/Unique metric is calculated by dividing the total number of Ad Ended Plays in a selected time range by the number of Unique Devices that played at least one ad in that time range. An increasing or higher number indicates that viewers watched more ads. Playing too many ads may impact viewer engagement.

Also, repeating the same ad multiple times to the same viewer negatively impacts viewer experience and is strictly limited by advertisers. You can find repeated ads by analyzing this metric through MetricLens dimensions, such as ad Id and creative Id.

A high ad frequency metric may be a symptom of the following issues:

  • The ad server (e.g. Freewheel) is misconfigured and unable to enforce the frequency.
  • The publisher does not have enough ads and hence is forced to repeat the same ads.
  • An ad delivery issue in the ad ecosystem is causing the same “default" ads to run repeatedly.

In the Analysis dashboard, this metric shows the average number of ads per unique device. In MetricLens, dimensions can be applied to analyze the average frequency by different ad dimensions to focus on repeated ads.

Metric Details Description
Dashboards and Metric Presentation Ads, Trends
Real-Time Support No
Historical Support Yes
Manual Alert Support No
AI Alert Support No

For the full Ads metrics catalog and related metrics, see Ads Metrics.