2018 has not been an easy year for Facebook. Increasing privacy concerns and political accusations have lead Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s Founder, to appear in front of Congress. Facebook realized they needed to address this issue head-first, and measures had to be implemented – quickly.
Facebook’s main focus was to provide more transparency in advertising. This last June 28th, they implemented a new feature called “Info and Ads” that lets Facebook users check the Ads that every brand and business runs on the platform.
As you can imagine, advertisers quickly realized that this is the perfect tool to spy on what their competition is doing.
It has never been this easy to keep an eye on the competition and take advantage of their efforts.
Let’s say, for example, that you run Adidas’ marketing campaigns, and you want to know what Nike is doing. “Info and Ads” is such an easy to use tool that you can do all that in only three simple steps:
- You need a Facebook account. If you do not have a business account (you should) you can also use your personal account. If you do not have it either, you can sign up here.
- You need to look up the business that you want to check out on Facebook’s search bar. In this case, we will search up “Nike”, and click on the official business page.
- On the left bar, under Nike’s profile picture, we will scroll down and click on “Info and Ads.”
…and voila. That’s it – so simple.
Now you can see every Ad that Nike has sponsored both in the United States and all around the world. But is that information worth anything to you as Adidas?
Absolutely.
Think about how incredibly useful it is to know exactly what your rivals are doing. If you know Nike is increasing their revenue from digital marketing (which they are), then you know that what they’re doing is working.
Why reinvent the wheel?
If they are using video ads instead of static images… then that is what works. If they are using long-form copy instead of short-form… then that is what works. Learn whether they focus on branding or the actual product selling. If so, what products do they feature? Find out anything else that comes to mind.
Now, we are not saying you copy them – but that you model them instead.
Learn from their success and their mistakes. That, like a good basketball or football coach would do, you “scout” their efforts – and adapt to them.
Finding your competitor’s Ads will make your business’ marketing campaigns more efficient. You will save loads of advertising money and time by skipping most of the trial and error phase.
Your competitors will carry that weight for you.
All in all, “Info and Ads” is a great feature that most of the businesses are overlooking. It lets you spy on your competition Ads, and it provides extremely valuable information that can prove to be very beneficial for your advertising strategy.
Marti writes about digital marketing and entrepreneurship. Find him with coffee and a laptop while traveling back and forth between Barcelona and Charlotte. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
