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Lifecycle: spot creative fatigue before it drains budget
Lifecycle shows how your creatives age. It ranks the ads that lose strength and shows where your spend sits by creative age. Open it from Performance > Lifecycle.
The page covers ads that had delivery in the date range you pick.
Problem and intended user
This page is for the media buyer (the person who runs your paid ads) and the creative strategist (the person who plans and makes ad creatives). Ads tire. Spend can keep flowing to an ad after its return falls. An account that leans on old ads can also have few fresh creatives ready when the old ones fade.
Current workflow
You export daily results from Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads. In a spreadsheet you group ads by launch date, chart return against days since launch, and watch frequency by hand. An agency can run a fatigue review for you.
Prerequisites
- Connect a Meta or Google ad account and let it sync. See Meta Ads and Google Ads.
- Your ads need delivery in the selected dates, with a few days of spend and performance.
If nothing shows, widen the date range at the top of the page.
How Nexus works
Nexus reads the synced ad data for the dates you pick. Fixed rules group your ads into launch cohorts, measure how each cohort fades, and rank the creatives to refresh. AI writes no figure on this page. Nothing changes in your ad accounts, and no step needs an approval.
Narrow the page
The date range at the top of the page applies to every panel. Four controls narrow every panel on the page.
| Control | Options |
|---|---|
| Platform pills | All Platforms, Google, Meta. A TikTok pill shows Coming soon when you point at it. |
| Format | All formats, Image, Video, Carousel, Collection, Reels, Stories |
| Origin | All origins, AI-generated, User-created, Refined in Lab |
| Brief | Start typing a brief name, then pick it from the list. The field reads Any brief until you pick one. |
Read the refresh reasons
Nexus gives each creative in the queue one reason: Declining ROAS, Aging winner or High frequency. It ranks the queue by spend times decay rate, so the ads with the most money at risk come first.
Exact output
A summary strip sits under the filters. It shows how many creatives had delivery in the window, their total spend and the dates. When your ad accounts use more than one currency, the spend lists one figure per currency. Six panels follow.
Cohort decay curves
A launch cohort is a group of ads that started in the same period. This panel plots one line per cohort. The lines show spend-weighted performance by days since launch. A line that falls fast marks creatives that tire quickly. Use the ROAS and CTR toggle to switch the measure.
Creative age mix
This panel shows the share of daily spend by creative age. A balanced account keeps room for fresh creatives. A mix that leans on old ads is a fatigue risk.
Hit rate per launch cohort
Each bar splits a cohort into winners and losers. A line shows the hit rate. A green band marks the 10 to 15 percent target zone.
Warning: this chart does not use your Winning criteria setting. A sentence under the title gives the ROAS and impressions floors the chart uses. They are a rolling benchmark across cohorts. See Winning criteria for your own definition.
Stickiness scatter
Each dot is a creative. The chart plots impressions against ROAS. The sentence under the title gives the median ROAS and median impressions that split the chart into four groups:
- Star: high ROAS and high volume.
- Niche: high ROAS, lower volume.
- Solid: high volume, lower ROAS.
- Average: the rest.
Refresh queue
The Refresh queue lists the creatives to remake first. A sentence under the title reads "Ranked by spend × decay rate", so the ads with the most money at risk come first.
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Creative | The ad name, its platform, format and days active. A small icon shows the origin. |
| Reason | Declining ROAS, Aging winner or High frequency. |
| Spend | Spend in the date range. |
| Platform ROAS | ROAS as the ad platform reports it. |
| Δ Platform ROAS 30d | The change in that figure over 30 days. A dash means no figure. |
| Action | A Duplicate in Lab button. It is greyed out for creatives that did not come from a Studio design. |
Cut by creative origin
This panel compares AI-generated, User-created and Refined in Lab creatives side by side. Pick Decay curves, Age mix or Hit rate. Use it to learn which origin holds up best.
What to do with it
| What you see | Decision or action | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| A top Refresh queue row with Declining ROAS or Aging winner | Plan a new version of that creative. See Generate a creative batch. | creative strategist |
| A Refresh queue row with High frequency | Rotate in a fresh creative or widen the audience in your ad platform, outside Nexus. | media buyer |
| Creative age mix with little spend on fresh creatives | Add fresh creatives to the account. | creative strategist |
| A Cohort decay curves line that falls fast | Plan to replace creatives from that period sooner. | creative strategist |
| A Niche dot in Stickiness scatter | Review whether it can take more spend. Change budgets in your ad platform, outside Nexus. | media buyer |
| Cut by creative origin shows one origin holds up best | Put new effort into that origin. | creative strategist |
Expected value and measurement
Lifecycle can help you refresh creatives before they fade, and keep fresh creatives in the mix. It does not change your ads. The refreshes you make do.
To check the effect, open Performance > Lifecycle and compare two equal date ranges, before and after your refresh. Read Creative age mix for the share of spend on fresh creatives. Read Hit rate per launch cohort for newer cohorts. Then open Performance > Ad performance and compare You spent and Platform-reported revenue.
You cannot isolate the effect of one refresh when budgets, offers, audiences or seasons change at the same time. Platform ROAS is the ad platform's own figure, not a figure Nexus matched to orders.
Limitations and exceptions
- Platforms. The page covers Google and Meta. TikTok shows as Coming soon.
- Benchmark, not your rule. The Hit rate per launch cohort floors are a rolling benchmark across cohorts, not your Winning criteria.
- Queue limits. Creatives below a minimum spend do not enter the Refresh queue. The queue shows only the top creatives.
INFO
A very long date range can hold more daily data than Nexus loads at once. Then a notice reads Some older days are not included. The newest days stay complete. Choose a shorter range to see every day.
- No lifecycle data yet. No creative had delivery in the window. The card lists A connected Meta or Google ad account, Your ads synced from that account and A few days of spend & performance. The button reads Connect ad account when no account is connected, and Go to Performance to sync when one is. Widen the date range if you already synced.
- No creatives match these filters. You have synced ads, but none fit your filters. Select Clear filters. This resets Format, Origin and Brief. Set the platform pills back to All Platforms yourself.
- Empty queue. The panel says every creative above the spend floor still earns.
- Load failure. "Couldn't load lifecycle data" means the load failed. Refresh the page, or choose a shorter date range.
- Demo Mode. The page shows a Sample data badge. The sample figures do not change when you set a filter.