June 2024: How To Spy On Your Competitors’ Ads
June this year hasn’t much felt like summer, but that’s probably been a good thing given how much time I’ve spent in front of the computer – I’ve certainly been grateful for my standing desk!
This month I took on a new coaching client for six weeks; we’ve been focusing on how to use Google Analytics (GA4) so that they can access, and understand the data they need to make informed decisions about their website. We’ve explored how to exclude internal traffic, and how to set up key events and next month we’re looking at Google Search Console and how you can use them together.
How To View The Ads Your Competitors Are Running
On the agenda with one of my groups of learners was how to conduct a competitor analysis, and as part of this we looked at tools that allow us to see what ads businesses are running on social media and search.
This useful tools can help us to understand the competitive landscape as well as provide inspiration for our own advertising.
Why check your competitors' ads?
It’s incredibly useful to be able to see what ads your competitors are running as it allows us to:
- Identify Trends:
Spot emerging trends by observing competitors’ ad themes and messages, is there a gap in the market or a direction that we could consider our promotions to take? We can that use these insights to stay relevant and keep on top of what the competition are offering.
- Identify Trends:
- Benchmark Performance:
Compare your ad performance with competitors to pinpoint areas for improvement.
- Benchmark Performance:
- Be Inspired:
Not to copy our competition, but get inspiration for our own creative and learn from best practice. Pay attention to the visuals, language, and overall approach your competitors are taking. This allows you to adapt your own campaigns to stay relevant with your audience.
- Be Inspired:
- Avoid Pitfalls:
Learn from competitors’ mistakes to avoid making the same ones in your campaigns.
- Avoid Pitfalls:
Tools you can use to 'spy' on your competitors' ads
Fortunately for us, many of the ad platforms publish an ‘ad libary’ so we can see what other organisations are paying to advertise. Whilst we can’t see the audience targeting or budget for our competitors, we are able to check out their creative, calls-to-action (CTA) and headlines which can help us get a feel for who their intended audience might be and where they are focusing their promotional activity.
Meta Ad Library
The Meta Ad Library, allows you to see competitors’ ads on Meta’s platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
It was initially created for political ad transparency, and now includes all ads. Users can search by location, ad category, keywords, business names, or URLs to see competitors’ ads.
LinkedIn Ad Library:
The LinkedIn ad library is relatively new and very useful for B2B marketers to see active LinkedIn ads. You can search by competitor name or filter by industy and keywords to see what ads are prevalent in your sector.
Explore the variety of ad formats your competitors are using from text ads, sponsored content to video and carousel ads.
TikTok Ad Library:
The TikTok Ad Library allows you to see trending ads on the platform and what kind of content resonates with Gen Z users in particular; whilst you won’t get detailed data, it does tell you approximately how many unique views each ad has had. It can also help you to find popular hashtags that are relevant to your niche.
You can also see branded content from creators, however this is only available for EU countries and not the UK currently.
Google Ads Transparency Centre:
It’s not just social media ads from your competitors that you can get access too, you can view all active ads on Google platforms, gaining insights into keywords and targeting by visiting the Google Ads Transparency Center.
This is a is a searchable database of ads running on Google platforms like Search, YouTube, and their Display Network.
Microsoft Ad Library:
There is a similar tool for seeing what ads are running on Bing, useful for gaining insights on a different audience: The Microsoft Ad Library.
How To Search Influencer Partnerships
Not every platform has branded content publicised, however The Facebook Ads Library for Branded Content is a tool that allows users to explore and analyse branded content ads on Facebook and Instagram. It helps businesses understand how competitors are leveraging branded content, identify trends, and gather insights on influencer partnerships.
You can search by business to see who they have partnered with or by creator or influencer to see which brands they have worked with on Meta.
This helps you understand how specific influencers are partnering with brands and the kind of content they are producing.
Using Ad Libraries To Get Insights Into Your Competitors' Ads
Use these ad libraries can give you some super useful nsights into your competitors’ advertising strategies.
These tools don’t reveal audience targeting or budgets, but they do offer glimpses into the creative elements, calls-to-action, and headlines used in competitor ads which can really help with your competitor analysis.
