What is contact frequency management?
How do you prevent too many advertising contacts?
In many companies, several teams plan campaigns independently of one another: product marketing, sales, service, regional units. Each campaign makes sense on its own – for the individual customer, they add up to too many messages. The result is declining attention, unsubscribes and complaints. This is particularly delicate when a channel is lost: anyone who unsubscribes from emails can no longer be reached with the really important message about the end of their contract.
Contact frequency management, by contrast, sets rules that sit above all campaigns: a maximum per customer and period across all channels, minimum intervals between two contacts, quiet periods, re-entry blocks per journey and a prioritisation of which message takes precedence. If a customer reaches the limit, the next contact is postponed instead of sent. A withdrawal stops everything anyway – regardless of all other rules.
The limits are not laws of nature but a deliberate decision by the company, often with exceptions for service and transactional messages. The guiding principle: relevance over volume – fewer, but more suitable contacts. What matters is that the rules apply across channels: a letter counts as a contact just as much as an email or an SMS.
The rule is: no more than four contacts per customer in 30 days, at least three days apart, no contacts on Sundays and public holidays. Jonas Weber has already received four messages this month. The fifth contact from the autumn campaign is automatically postponed to 14 October. (Sample values)
Distinction
| Term | Difference |
|---|---|
| Frequency capping (ads/email tool) | limits only one channel or one ad |
| Prioritisation | determines which campaign takes precedence; part of contact frequency management |
| Suppression of individual contacts | permanently excludes contacts from a campaign instead of controlling volume |
Related pages
-
Platform
Contact frequency management -
Blog In preparation
[BLOG: Contact fatigue – how too much communication costs revenue]