The Tragedy of the Commons in Marketing: Shared Attention, Platform Overuse and Diminishing Returns

Introduction: When More Attention Means Less Impact

There is a well known concept in economics called the tragedy of the commons. It describes a scenario where individuals, acting in their own short term self interest, overuse a shared resource, until that resource becomes depleted or ineffective for everyone.

In marketing, the commons is attention. And right now, it is being overgrazed by the endless repetition of tactics: lookalike audiences, performance max campaigns, AI written blog posts, influencer seeding on TikTok, often deployed with no long term positioning.

When everyone uses the same channels with the same logic, results flatten. Diminishing returns set in. CAC rises. Organic reach falls. Clickthroughs shrink. The tactics stop working, not because they are broken, but because they are crowded.

How This Happens in Real Campaigns

Paid Ads

When ten competitors target the same intent keyword with the same headline and offer, the CPC spikes, CTR drops, and only the largest budget survives.

Email Marketing

When every ecommerce brand sends five step abandoned cart flows with 10% discounts, inbox fatigue sets in. What once felt tailored becomes expected.

Content Marketing

When ChatGPT floods the internet with summarised guides and SEO clones, search engines downgrade pages, bounce rates increase, and thought leadership gets lost in noise.

Influencer Channels

When every skincare brand sponsors the same ten creators with nearly identical briefs, authenticity declines, engagement weakens, and follower trust erodes.

These are not hypothetical trends. I have seen it firsthand in DTC, SaaS, agency and marketplace models across industries.

Why This Happens: Misaligned Incentives and Platform Optimisation

Brands often optimise for what is easy to measure: clicks, impressions, sessions. Not what is hard to replicate. Platforms like Meta and Google push automation tools that increase platform dependency and reduce creative surface area.

The result? Everyone moves in the same direction. And that is exactly when the market starts working against you.

The Attention Depletion Curve

I think of attention saturation as a decay function:

R_t = R_0 \cdot e^{-\lambda N_t}

Where:

$R_t$ is return at time $t$
$R_0$ is initial return when tactic was fresh
$N_t$ is number of competitors using the same tactic
$\lambda$ is the saturation sensitivity coefficient

As $N_t$ increases, $R_t$ decays exponentially. First movers win. Late adopters pay.

How I Apply Scarcity and Differentiation to Escape

1. I Identify Over Saturated Tactics Early

Using tools like:

Auction insights in Google Ads
Impression share diagnostics
Social listening and creative heatmaps
Organic CTR dropoff in Search Console

I map out when a tactic stops outperforming. This is not just about performance decline, it is about behavioural change. When the user begins to ignore, scroll past or bounce earlier.

2. I Build Scarce Assets and Unique Formats

Scarcity in marketing is not about fewer ads. It is about fewer predictable ads.

Examples:

Standard Tactic	Scarce Alternative
Signup form	Story driven quiz with personalised result
Generic promo email	48 hour video email to repeat buyers only
Feature list page	Narrative product page with one CTA
Influencer post	Co created product with creator attribution

The key is: make something the algorithm cannot replicate. That is what resets attention.

3. I Change Platforms More Often Than My Competitors

When others scale on Meta, I explore:

Niche affiliate programs
Product integrations in Shopify apps
Country specific publisher placements (e.g. DACH B2B blogs)
Partnerships with category adjacent brands

By diversifying where I show up, I avoid crowd dynamics. This also lets me test different tones, languages and intent levels, which are usually averaged out on mainstream platforms.

4. I Apply Spend Defensibly, Not Generously

Instead of flooding all campaigns with budget, I:

Use incrementality testing to identify real uplift
Pair paid spend with referral loops or invite systems
Build in natural virality and feedback triggers (e.g. reward content shares, use FOMO style product drops)

Scarcity is not just for copywriting. It is a structural principle I build into launch, scale and retention planning.

A Real Example: Breaking the Loop in Performance Max

A client in luxury homeware saw declining ROAS on Performance Max. Google kept auto optimising spend toward branded and remarketing queries, but no new customers were converting.

What I did:

Paused PMax for two weeks and ran brand awareness ads via Spotify and niche home design newsletters
Created a landing page only accessible via these partner links
Re launched PMax with exclusions for brand terms and fresh creative only

Result: ROAS rebounded by 63%. Scarcity of message and freshness of audience input allowed the system to reset. Without this, spend would have kept feeding noise.

Final Thought: Attention Is Finite, Treat It Like a Budget

The real tragedy of the commons is not inefficiency, it is erosion. When marketing tactics become commodified, they stop converting. When every brand acts the same, the user learns to ignore.

I work with businesses to escape this trap, by creating distinctiveness, protecting novelty, and avoiding race to the bottom channels. If your paid and organic results are slipping, it might not be your message. It might be the field you are shouting into.

I can help you find new fields, build new playbooks, and get back to compounding returns, not diminishing ones.