ad-fatigue-check

Ad Fatigue Check

PREREQUISITE: Read ../_mureo-shared/SKILL.md for auth, security rules, output format, and Tool Selection (Read/Write on Code, mureo_strategy_* / mureo_state_* MCP on Desktop / Cowork).

Find the ads whose audience has seen them too many times. Creative fatigue is a slow leak — the same creative keeps spending while frequency climbs, CTR erodes, and CPM drifts up as the algorithm works harder to place a tiring ad. This skill reads active ads per platform, measures the fatigue signals the tools genuinely expose, scores each ad against documented thresholds (with noise guards so a single slow day never triggers a rotation), and hands the fatigued ones to a creative refresh with the evidence attached.

Prerequisites

• STRATEGY.md and STATE.json must exist (run the onboard skill first)

Steps

Before you start: Run the Diagnostic preamble from ../_mureo-shared/SKILL.md — load learning insights (mureo_learning_insights_get) and consult advisors (mureo_consult_advisor) before drawing conclusions.

1. Load context: Read STRATEGY.md (Goals, Operation Mode) and STATE.json. Note any learning insights about fatigue thresholds — a VALIDATED insight ("this account tolerates frequency 5 before CTR drops") overrides the default rubric in step 4.

2. Discover active ads per platform:

   • Meta: meta_ads_ads_list (filter to ACTIVE/effective_status delivering).
   • Google Ads: google_ads_ad_performance_report scoped to ENABLED ads.
   • Also include any hosted connector (TikTok, key tiktok_ads) / mcp__mureo__<plugin>_* plugin platform best-effort, reporting only what its own tools expose and emitting analytics_not_available_for_<platform> for the fatigue value-adds below (see ../_mureo-shared/SKILL.md). BYOD data is reachable only through mureo MCP tools — do not look for raw CSVs in the project directory.

3. Measure fatigue signals — honestly, per what the tools expose:

   • Meta — frequency (derived, not a direct field). mureo's insights tools do not return a frequency field — but meta_ads_insights_report returns both impressions and reach, and frequency is defined as impressions ÷ reach. Compute it yourself from meta_ads_insights_report (level ad, window last_7d): frequency ≈ impressions / reach. This is Meta's own definition, so it is an honest derivation, not a guess. If reach is 0 or absent for an ad, the frequency is undefined — say so, do not divide.
   • Meta — CTR trend, week-over-week. meta_ads_insights_report (level ad) exposes ctr but no built-in trend. Get two adjacent weeks the same way weekly-report does: pull last_7d (this week) and last_14d, then derive the prior week as last_14d totals − last_7d totals. Compute the CTR change % between prior-week and this-week.
   • Meta — CPM drift. meta_ads_insights_report returns cpm; compare this-week vs prior-week CPM (same subtraction technique). Rising CPM on a flat audience is a fatigue corroborator. meta_ads_analysis_cost also decomposes a campaign's cost change into CPM inflation / CTR drop / creative fatigue drivers — use it to corroborate at campaign level.
   • Google Ads (Display / RSA whole-ad). Ad-level CTR trend from google_ads_ad_performance_report over adjacent windows (LAST_7_DAYS vs LAST_14_DAYS, same subtraction); Google Ads exposes no frequency at the ad level here, so score Google display/RSA ads on the CTR-trend signal only and say so.
   • Google Ads Search — RSA fatigue is asset-level, not ad-level. A Responsive Search Ad tires one asset at a time; whole-ad CTR hides it. Reference the RSA audit tools instead: google_ads_rsa_assets_audit (replacement recommendations) and google_ads_rsa_assets_analyze (per-asset performance_label + CTR) to find LOW/POOR assets to swap.

4. Fatigue scoring rubric (document the thresholds; let learning insights override them):

   • FATIGUED — frequency ≥ 3.5 AND CTR decline ≥ 20% week-over-week (both signals present).
   • WATCH — exactly one signal present (frequency ≥ 3.5 alone, or CTR decline ≥ 20% alone, or a clear rising-CPM + softening-CTR pair).
   • FRESH — neither signal. These are defaults, not laws — a VALIDATED learning insight for this account/Persona replaces them, and Google display/RSA ads (no frequency) can reach WATCH on CTR decline alone but not the two-signal FATIGUED bar unless corroborated by CPM drift.

5. Noise guards (apply before assigning any verdict):

   • Minimum impressions per window: require ≥ 1,000 impressions in each of the two adjacent windows before reading a CTR trend (the CTR sample floor from ../_mureo-learning/SKILL.md). Below that, the ad is insufficient-data, not fatigued.
   • Single-day dips never count — the comparison is week-over-week on 7-day windows precisely so one bad Tuesday cannot trigger a rotation.
   • Note confounders: a new competitor, a seasonal lull, or a landing-page change can mimic fatigue — flag them rather than blaming the creative.

6. Ranked table — worst first:

   Ad	Campaign	Frequency	CTR w/w	CPM w/w	Impr (this/prior)	Verdict
   Ad A	Prospecting	4.2	−27%	+14%	32k / 30k	FATIGUED
   Ad B	Retargeting	3.6	−8%	+3%	18k / 17k	WATCH
   Ad C	Brand	1.8	−4%	+1%	21k / 20k	FRESH

7. Recommendations — rotate / refresh, with the evidence as the brief: For each FATIGUED (and borderline WATCH) ad, hand off to a creative workflow, passing the fatigue evidence (frequency, CTR decline, the tiring asset) as the input brief:

   • New visuals + composed banners → /creative-generate.
   • Copy / headline refresh, RSA asset swaps → /creative-refresh. Do not silently produce new creative here — this skill diagnoses and routes; the creative skills generate under their own approval gates.

8. Pausing a clearly-fatigued ad — approval gate: Pausing is a write. Apply the Confirm Before Write Operations rule from ../_mureo-shared/SKILL.md: list the ad(s), their current spend/frequency/CTR, and confirm before pausing via meta_ads_ads_pause (Meta) or google_ads_ads_update_status (Google Ads). Prefer rotate-in-a-replacement over pause-into-a-gap unless the ad is actively harmful — pausing without a fresh creative ready starves delivery. Never bulk-pause without listing the total impact first.

9. Record outcome context: For each ad paused or queued for refresh, append to action_log via mureo_state_action_log_append with metrics_at_action (frequency, ctr, cpm, impressions, conversions, cpa) and observation_due 14 days out (the creative-change window from ../_mureo-learning/SKILL.md). A pure diagnostic run with no writes still logs a summary entry (the verdict table), with no observation_due.

10. Persist the report summary (best-effort): Call mureo_state_report_set with report="fatigue" and a concise summary object so the read-only dashboard can render this check without re-running you. Follow this convention:

    • generated_at: ISO 8601 timestamp of this run
    • period: the two adjacent windows compared (this week / prior week)
    • kpis: counts by verdict (fatigued / watch / fresh / insufficient-data) and the worst-frequency + worst-CTR-decline ads
    • flags: notable items (e.g. ["3_ads_fatigued", "meta_reach_missing_frequency_undefined", "google_display_ctr_only"])
    • narrative: the 1-2 sentence verdict (creatives fresh / rotation needed)

    Reflect the FINAL state, and persist this LAST — after every action_log entry and any pause you applied this run. This is best-effort: if mureo_state_report_set is unavailable (e.g. a pure file-mode host without the context MCP), skip it silently — the rest of this skill still works.