Social networks are undeniably the perfect place to put something in front of people. By advertising on a platform like Facebook, you could be confident your ad reaches more people than any other traditional method. Social media advertising, or specifically, Facebook advertising, is a no-brainer for brands trying to achieve multi-channel marketing.
Facebook owns one of the most flexible advertising platforms with tons of options to target millions of different users. Yet, many businesses fail to meet whatever marketing goal they’ve set for their FB campaigns. There are numerous things to be considered when developing campaigns. From basic factors like who to target, to more advanced ones like what copy, creative, and CTA to use or how to design landing pages that do well at generating leads. You either have to figure this all out on your own (and waste precious time and money) or take time to learn everything first (which is again expensive and time-consuming).
The intelligent choice
Keep this in mind: Even if you have tons of experience and creativity, there’s always someone with a better idea than yours. Creating and launching campaigns is no less than an art. Mastering the art of launching successful Facebook ads means you need to learn many tips and tricks. Even if you do, there’s still no guarantee your ads will convert.
The market is always changing. What worked for you in the past is likely outdated for the present. Checking out what’s trending and what methods right now are hot between marketers helps you to stay on top of the game. Luckily, if you’ve been out of touch with winning strategies in your niche, you can always follow the competition to find out what’s working right now.
Competitor analysis will save you valuable time and money
Although there is no magic formula for creating successful ads, there is still a lot of know-how for making a good ad. Learning all of it means you need to spend much valuable time and money; resources that could have been allocated to expanding your business. Furthermore, possessing all the knowledge and tools to create “High-quality Ads” does not mean you have everything it takes to create “Winning Ads.” The current trends in your niche, your customer’s needs, your rivals’ status, and many other factors impact the performance of your campaigns. Relying on trial and error just doesn’t make sense at all.
From customer behavior and needs to top trending products, the market is constantly changing. Even hugely successful past strategies are unlikely to work in the present. Whether you’re a newcomer or an experienced player, you need to know exactly what grabs customers’ attention, what language is currently popular in your niche, and which markets are the most promising.
The difficult challenge of creating high-converting ads
Numerous factors make up what is considered a good ad, each of which has an entirely different world of its own. Some of these factors don’t even have to do anything with the ad itself. In terms of advertising, Facebook is such a flexible and versatile platform you might even find it overwhelming. There are several ad formats, properties, placements, and CTAs to play with. Coming up with the perfect combination is not an easy task. But with the right amount of competitor research, you can easily learn from the best. You can collect the ideas that have worked, customize and tweak them, and come up with your own killer ads with high conversion rates.
Competitor research is now easier than ever
For the past few years, Facebook has been busy responding to authorities and users alike about privacy violations and illegal data harvesting. After going through hard-hitting scandals and facing a severe impact on its reputation, the company decided to shake things up and provide more transparency for users. As a result of the changes in Facebook’s policies, everyone can now see who is advertising what on the platform.
Facebook has even created a free archive called “Ad Library” that contains all the ads running on all of its channels, with additional info like publish date, variances, ID, etc. You can search for advertisers in this library, or access their archive directly via the Page Transparency section on their Facebook page. Ad Library enables you to keep tabs on your competitors, see what creatives and ad copies they’re using, and for how long they keep their ads active.
If you wish to gain more insights into the competition and thoroughly analyze their strategies and campaigns, Facebook Ad Library probably can’t help you that much. The archive lacks some important information like targeting properties, and viewer engagement data. Ad Library’s search abilities are limited and you won’t be able to look for ads or advertisers based on vertical, network, target interest, etc. To access this information, you gotta try the more capable Facebook ad spy tools. These apps are designed specifically to retrieve ads from Facebook with full detail about the target demographic, timeline, performance, landing pages, and more. Spy tools may not be free, but they’re arguably the best way to conduct thorough and continuous competitor research. You can track campaigns, keep up with the latest trends in your niche, and get inspiration from the best advertisers in your line of work.
