> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.smaq.io/documentation/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.smaq.io/documentation/features/creative-intelligence/audience-decay-monitor.md).

# Audience Decay Monitor

Audience saturation is one of Meta's most common failure modes: your ad set burns through the responsive portion of an audience, frequency climbs, CPA creeps up, and ROAS quietly bleeds. The Audience Decay Monitor watches for the canonical pattern across your active audiences.

### What you need

* A Meta Ads connection.
* Active audiences with at least 14 days of run history.

### Configuration

#### Lookback days

How many days of data to analyze. Default: 14.

#### Frequency threshold

Average frequency above which SMAQ considers an audience saturating. Default: 3.5.

#### CPA increase percentage

How much CPA needs to rise to trigger a flag. Default: 25% increase week-over-week.

> **\[Screenshot needed]** Audience Decay Monitor config form.

### Output

* Email listing saturated audiences with CPA trend, frequency trend, and recent spend.
* Snapshot in-app.
* AI-written recommendation: "Consider expanding this audience (current size 800K, frequency 4.1, CPA up 38%)."

> **\[Screenshot needed]** Example output showing two flagged audiences with charts of CPA vs frequency over time.

### How it differs from Ad Fatigue

|            | Ad Fatigue                     | Audience Decay                |
| ---------- | ------------------------------ | ----------------------------- |
| **Unit**   | Single ad creative             | Single ad set / audience      |
| **Signal** | Rising frequency + falling CTR | Rising frequency + rising CPA |
| **Fix**    | Refresh creative               | Expand audience or pause set  |

Run both. They catch different problems and the recommendations don't overlap.

### Tier availability

* **Scale & Agency** — fully available.

### Related

* [Ad Fatigue Detector](/documentation/features/creative-intelligence/ad-fatigue-detector.md).