Many advertisers want the holy grail to unlock the secrets to cheaper Facebook ads spending, and that’s where these spy tools come into play.
If you could figure out how to get the best price to pay, you’d gain an advantage over your competitors who also use Facebook to get customers.
Having data on the best ads available allows you to gain insight into what works best for others, and use it for yourself. Now, “best” here is subjective, as what works for one may not work for another, there are many factors in play. However, there are best practices that determine the success of an ad, such as the relevancy of an ad’s text copy tailored to a particular audience.
Conducting research beforehand helps to reduce cost and effort by finding out what others have done before. You can then either refine the process or avoid a failure altogether. You might even get an idea or two.
With that in mind, here are some of Facebook’s own free ad spying tools that you can use to improve your ads.
SOCIAL MEDIA COMPETITORS ANALYSIS
1. The “Why am I seeing this?” Tool
Facebook cares about your ad choices, because good ads make you happier and clicking on the ads, that’s good business.
To keep you happy, Facebook allows you to find out why you’re being shown a specific ad. All you have to do is to click on the downward triangle at the top right corner of an ad, and click on the “why am I seeing this” option.
A window will pop up to display the reasons why an ad was displayed to you. Here you’ll be able to figure out the specific topic that was chosen as well as the target age and location.
You have the choice to stop seeing the ad, or adjust your preferences. However, if you’d like to see more of your competitor’s ads, you can do that too. Simply visit their Facebook page, engage with their ads, visit their website, use their app, and you get the idea.
Once you’ve been tracked, Facebook will be more likely to show you your competitor’s ads.
2. Facebook Ad Library Tool
Facebook introduced its ad library tool for ad transparency to tackle its privacy issues lately, but it can also be used as an ad intelligence tool for marketers.
This nifty tool allows anyone to look into a page’s ads that are currently live. You can also filter ads by country.
Although you don’t get to see any sales data, nor can you download and sort ads based on engagement, it’s still a quick and easy way to figure out what a Facebook page is currently advertising.
3. Facebook Audience Insights Tool
Tailoring your ad copy and USP (unique selling point) to your audience is crucial to determine success.
Facebook encourages you to target their users as closely as possible with the quality score metric. It’s a metric that directly influences the cost of your ads so the more targeted your ads are, the less you’d pay for the same reach.
Facebook facilitates this progress with its Audience Insight tool. You can dive deeper into Facebook’s pool of audience to find out details such as the pages people like based on their demographics, interests, and connections.
Conclusion
These spy tools can offer insight and ideas to strengthen your own ads, however you’ll have to keep in mind that what works for others may not work for you. Always remember to stay true to your own brand guidelines, and focus on your own business’s benefits and offers to your customers.
