Creative fatigue is the drop in performance an ad goes through as it ages. The usual story is that people get bored of it, so CTR falls and costs rise. On Meta today, that's only part of it.
What fatigue looks like in real accounts
We tracked the top ads in 10 large US Meta accounts from July to October 2026:
- Only 34% of each account's top 10 ads were still in its top 10 two months later.
- 56% of the top 10 two months later were brand-new ads.
- Winners that kept running lost about a third of their share of spend, while their CPMs rose about 20%.
- Their CTR held roughly steady.
So fatigue mostly shows up as Meta moving budget to newer ads, not as people ignoring the old one.
What to do about it
Plan for most winners to be replaced within two months, and have new, genuinely different ads ready before the old ones fade. See creative diversity.
Full data: Creative fatigue on Meta and how long winning ads last.
Related: frequency, winning ad.
