Every paid playbook says 'refresh creative every 1–2 weeks.' We tested that against three other cadences across 11 client accounts for six months. The 1-week cadence lost. Here's what won.
The myth of weekly
The 'refresh weekly' advice came from a 2019 era when CPMs were lower and creative fatigue showed up at day 8 reliably. With 2026 CPMs and broader audiences, fatigue arrives differently — and refreshing too often kills your learning loop before the algorithm has anything to learn from.
What we tested
- 01Cohort A: refresh weekly (5 new creatives/week)
- 02Cohort B: refresh fortnightly (8 new creatives every 2 weeks)
- 03Cohort C: refresh on a CTR threshold (when CTR drops 30%)
- 04Cohort D: refresh on a CPC threshold (when CPC rises 25%)
The cadence that won
Cohort C — refresh on signal, not schedule — beat the others on CAC by 22% and on creative ROI by 41%. The losers all had one thing in common: they were refreshing creatives that were still working.
"A creative is finished when the data says so, not when the calendar does."