TORONTO – Frequency capping—or limiting the number of times any given surfer sees an ad—allows advertisers to expand their market reach by showing a creative to a wider audience. As long as a surfer’s browser accepts third-party cookies, an ad server can “count” the number of times he’s seen a particular ad. If the surfer has reached a pre-set threshold, the server will show him something else, freeing a paid impression for another set of eyes.

The technique is particularly important in advertising networks, which display the same ad across several—often many—different websites.

Traffic Force recently made frequency capping available to its advertiser clients.

“We understand that when advertiser creatives display on any website in our network, there is a chance that the same viewer who sees them there might also see that ad again at another time while visiting another site in the Traffic Force network,” said spokesman Ross. “Now, how often to show an add to a specific viewer is an option each advertiser can set for themselves. Whether you want to strengthen your brand in the mind of a potential customer via constant repetition, prefer to reach the largest audience by showing an ad only once, or wish to set the frequency capping anywhere in between, Traffic Force lets you decide with just a couple of clicks in your admin control panel.”

According to Ross, the most important part of any successful media buy is testing, tracking and fine-tuning to maximize results. Traffic Force already allows advertisers to set parameters like time of day, days of the week, specific publisher channels and ad location.

“The addition of frequency capping improves accuracy even more by taking a ‘per viewer’ approach,” he said. “Frequency capping is a great way to avoid campaign burnout while having your product viewed by a larger audience for the exact same ad spend.”

During the methodology’s soft launch with 20 participating clients, some advertisers with established brands reported a margin increase of more than 24 percent, Ross said.

“In many cases, capping has also turned losing campaigns into very profitable campaigns by allowing buyers to expand buys to include more channels for the same spend by reducing the repetition of ads shown to individual viewers,” he noted.

For more information, visit TrafficForce.com.