CTV Frequency and Reach: Getting the Balance Right

How many times should a household see your ad? Too few and they won’t remember you. Too many and you’re wasting budget (and annoying people). CTV lets you control this balance with precision broadcast TV can’t match.

What is Frequency Capping?

Frequency capping limits how many times a specific household sees your ad within a time period. You might set a cap of 3 impressions per day or 10 impressions per week. Without frequency capping, some households could see your ad dozens of times while others see it once. That’s inefficient. The 25th impression to one household adds less value than the 2nd impression to a new household.

Optimal CTV Frequency

Most CTV platforms recommend a range that balances brand recall with budget efficiency. For law firms running awareness or consideration campaigns, the targeting zone is clear.

These targets vary by campaign context. A personal injury firm running a two-week flash campaign on programmatic CTV might lean toward 7-8 impressions per week to maximize frequency while in-market. A mass tort defendant running a 12-week sustaining campaign could operate effectively at 4-5 impressions per week to stretch reach. Creative fatigue also matters. If you’re rotating three different video assets, households tolerate higher total frequency because they’re seeing variety rather than the same ad repeatedly.

CTV vs Broadcast Frequency Control

This is where CTV significantly outperforms traditional broadcast.

Broadcast frequency rests on estimates. Media buyers use GRP targets and audience panel data to project household exposure, but you don’t know which specific households see your ad how many times. Heavy viewers get over-exposed. Light viewers see it once. You can’t prevent it.

CTV frequency control operates at the actual household level. When you set a cap of 6 impressions per week, the platform logs which households have seen your ad and prevents delivery beyond that threshold. That enforcement works across multiple publishers and apps within your buy, so you’re not letting one household see your ad 6 times on Peacock and another 6 times on Hulu.

Reach vs Frequency Tradeoffs

With a fixed budget, you’re always trading off reach against frequency. More impressions to fewer households, or fewer impressions to more households. Neither extreme works for law firms.

Too low frequency, and households forget you after one or two exposures. For law firms, where people aren’t always actively in-market for your services, that single impression might hit someone who doesn’t need you yet. Without reinforcement, they won’t remember your firm when the injury does happen.

Too high frequency, and you’re paying to reach the same households repeatedly while missing prospects entirely. MNTN’s research on CTV campaigns found that increased investment in CTV correlates with better performance, but that’s because the investment reaches more households, not because the same households see ads more often. Stretching reach matters more than piling frequency.

The sweet spot depends on your campaign length and market. Shorter campaigns can run higher weekly frequency. Longer flights should moderate frequency to avoid viewer fatigue and stretch the reach of your budget.

Diminishing Returns and Cost Per Action

Each additional impression to a household yields less incremental impact. The first impression introduces your firm. The second reinforces it. By the seventh, you’re adding minimal incremental value while the cost per new contact stays flat. That’s the diminishing returns curve for CTV.

Research from Innovid on video advertising benchmarks shows that impression sequencing matters. Early impressions in a flight drive disproportionate lift. Later impressions prop up the overall frequency average but don’t move the needle on conversions. You’re paying the same CPM whether it’s impression 2 or impression 12.

For legal services, where conversion intent is often latent (someone injured today might not search for a lawyer for weeks), frequency supports memory. But once you hit the sweet spot of 4-8 weekly impressions, additional frequency doesn’t justify the cost.

Setting Frequency Caps for Law Firms

Here’s a practical workflow to implement frequency discipline in your CTV buys.

Start with a weekly cap of 5-7 impressions per household. This range provides sufficient frequency for recall without extreme over-exposure. Your DSP or programmatic platform will enforce this across all publishers in your buy.

Monitor delivery velocity. If you’re hitting caps quickly and the platform can’t reach new households, you’re over-capping. Dial the weekly cap down to 4-5 and let reach expand. If delivery is slow and you’re reaching fresh households consistently, you have room to hold at 5-7 without waste.

Adjust based on creative rotation. If you’re trafficking one hero creative, wear-out happens faster. Households see the same ad four times and stop paying attention. If you’re rotating three different videos, the same household seeing version A, then B, then C feels like fresh content, and you can tolerate total frequency of 8-10. Variety prevents the diminishing returns you’d hit with a single asset.

Consider flight length in your frequency strategy. A two-week sprint campaign can afford 7-8 impressions per week because the flight ends before viewer fatigue sets in. A 12-week evergreen campaign should moderate to 4-5 per week to sustain performance across the full duration without wear-out.

The Bottom Line

CTV’s precision in frequency control is a major advantage over broadcast. You decide exactly how many times each household sees your ad, and the platform enforces it. No guesswork, no panel data uncertainty, no uncontrollable over-exposure to heavy viewers.

For most law firm campaigns, aim for 4-8 impressions per household per week. Start at 5-7, monitor how your specific market and creative perform, and adjust based on whether you’re hitting caps or reaching new households. The goal is enough frequency to be remembered without wasting your CTV advertising budget on diminishing returns.

References

1. IAB. "2025 Digital Video Advertising Spend Report." 2025.
2. IAB and Innovid. "CTV Takes Center Stage: Video Benchmarks." 2022.
3. MNTN Research. "Increased Investment in CTV Leads to Better Performance." 2023.