Understanding the optimal frequency for automated site checks is crucial for balancing timely detection of outages with minimizing system overload. The ideal cadence depends on various factors, including the service's criticality to business operations, its characteristics, and regional distribution. A well-calibrated monitoring strategy should consider both pinger checks and more comprehensive health checks to provide a holistic view of service health. By understanding Service Criticality, assessing Service Characteristics, scheduling dynamically based on region, balancing with Comprehensive Monitoring, refining with Feedback Loops, and avoiding inadequate probing rates, engineers can configure heartbeat checks that set themselves up for success and effectively defend their SLA.