A Comprehensive Guide to Competitor Research for Social Media Ads

How to Perform Competitor Research for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok Ads

Learn how to track and analyse competitor ads for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to improve your own social media advertising strategy.

If paying astronomical sums for a marketing agency to conduct social media competitor research isn't feasible, don't worry. You can research your competitors' Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok ads yourself. And the best part is, it doesn't have to cost you a penny.

Why Should You Analyse Competitor Ads?

It might be tough to admit, but your competitors are probably doing social media advertising better than you, in some aspects at least. Whether it's more experience, financial resources, or a more refined targeting strategy, there's probably something you can learn from them. And that's where competitor ad analysis comes in.

After performing a competitor analysis, you'll most likely gain one or more of the following benefits:

Gain creative insights, like which ad formats and visuals work to get the most conversions.
Locate successful target audience segments that you may have missed or completely overlooked.
Discover untapped market opportunities, i.e., new product features that customers are currently craving for.
Learn from your competitor's lousiest ads and avoid making the same mistakes.

In this competitor analysis guide, we'll guide you through the essential elements of each advertising platform and what to watch out for:

Meta Platforms (Facebook and Instagram)
TikTok
LinkedIn
X (formerly Twitter)

Meta (Facebook/Instagram)

Link to the Facebook Ad Library.

This advertising platform displays all Meta advertisers currently running ads on Facebook and Instagram. It's certainly among the most comprehensive ad databases online, providing up-to-date information on any ad's copy, design, and targeting.

Furthermore, its latest features enable marketers to analyze more data on businesses marketing their services in the EU. This includes viewing an ad's reach and detailed demographics of the targeted audience, such as age, gender, and location.

Facebook Ad Library Key Features:

Displays a near unlimited number of competitor ads via search terms and keywords.
Reveals competitor's preferred ad formats, such as video, carousel, or collection ads.
Filtering tool to narrow down results by market (country), ad type, ad platform, and more.
Shows how long your competitor has been advertising on Meta platforms.

When researching Meta ads, pay attention to the following:

Ad duration: Longer-running ads indicate that they're performing well.
Campaign Objective: Are they running brand awareness, retargeting or conversion campaigns?
Ad format and Creatives: Do they prefer a specific type of ad format and creatives? If so, are they frequently changing it up?

If you're checking ads targeted in the EU, click on 'See Ad Details' and analyse their ad delivery and demographic performance. You might discover possible markets you haven't considered before.

Let's analyse HubSpot's group of ads as an example:

Search Ads: HubSpot focuses on keywords related to marketing and sales alignment, B2B orchestration, content marketing, and digital marketing trends.

Paid Social (Facebook/LinkedIn): HubSpot attracts leads with free guides, whitepapers, and industry insights. It also promotes events and highlights marketing trends in specific regions, like the Philippines. Its ads focus on aligning marketing and sales teams, improving customer retention, and using key apps for content hubs.

Differentiation Strategy: Personalised content that emphasizes unique tools and features. It feels highly exclusive and valuable, encouraging engagement and lead generation.

TikTok

Link to ad library: TikTok Ad Library

TikTok was popularised for its short-form personalised content and highly engaged audiences. As such, agencies and businesses can invest relatively low amounts of ad spend to acquire significant engagement.

TikTok Ad Library Key Features:

Displays demographic data like age and gender, users reached, and more.
Potential for businesses with a younger target audience (Gen Z and early millennials)
Displays all ad formats, such as in-feed ads, brand takeovers, and branded hashtag challenges.
Allows users to select the ad's time frame.

To perform your analysis, click on 'Ad Details, and pay attention to the following:

How many users does the ad reach vs its targeted audience size?
Their target audience is size - larger audiences indicated broader targeting parametres.
Who they've targeted, i.e., men between 18-24 and 25-34.
Which countries the ad was displayed in.

You should also note additional parameters such as interests and video interactions the advertiser has included. These can help you tailor your ad targeting strategy.

Another TikTok advertising tool you can use is the TikTok Creative Center. This platform provides access to the top-performing ads, which can be filtered by industry, objective, ad format, and so on. It also displays trending hashtags, soundtracks, and creators, giving deeper, more nuanced insights into your target market's preferences.

Read our comprehensive guide here to learn more about the TikTok Creative Centre.

Link to ad library: LinkedIn Ad Library

LinkedIn is a place for decision-makers, making it an ideal platform for B2B advertising. With over 1 billion users and a focus on professional networking, LinkedIn offers unique targeting options to reach the right audience.

Similar to Facebook's Ad Library, LinkedIn also has its own ad library that allows you to view all active ads running on the platform.

LinkedIn Ad Library Key Features:

For EU-targeted ads, the Ad Library shows additional details like ad impressions, targeting, and run dates.
Ads since June 1, 2023, stay in the Ad Library for one year and appear within 24-48 hours of their first impression.
Ideal for tracking and analysing competitors in the B2B space.

When using the LinkedIn Ad library for your research, keep these tips in mind:

Include specific keywords, filters, and parameters, such as your type of product or industry, to locate all of your competitors, rather than just any one.

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Click on 'ad details' to find their ad targeting and impressions for each country. In this example, the United States is the primary target of this ad, with 71% of the total ad impressions.

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Identify their Ad format to see they prefer to use video, image, conversational, or text ads.

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Conversational ads: View their templates and see how they personalise their opening message and responses.
Video & Image ads: See what type of message they convey and how their visuals are designed.
For text ads, read through their copy and see their tone of voice.

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X (Formerly Known As Twitter)

Link to ad library: Ads Repository

X may present users with a slightly more difficult interface to navigate, but once you get the hang of it, you'll have plenty of information to work with.

Key Features

X requires users to manually search for the advertiser instead of providing a general search bar.
Users will have to download relevant CSV files to view ad data.
Like other platforms, users can filter advertisers by country and date. However, other filters, such as ad type and creative orientation, are limited.
The repository includes details on the advertiser, funding entity, targeting parameters, impressions, and reach, especially for ads served in the EU under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
X allows users to request the name of the person paying for a particular advertisement via credit card.

General information for analysing competitor ads on X:

Your downloaded CSV file contains advertiser information such as chosen target segments, start and end dates, reach, and creative type.
If an advertiser hasn't targeted your selected country, your CSV will be blank. Therefore, check which countries they are currently advertising in to ensure your analysis is accurate.
To save time, you can use social listening tools like Sprout Social or Hootsuite to track your competitors' ads on X. These provide easy-to-digest visuals of their ad data.

MagicBrief: Your Ultimate Tool for Competitor Ad Analysis

Manually searching for competitor ads on individual advertising platforms is time-consuming, and often tedious. With MagicBrief, you can streamline the entire process and gain a competitive edge in your industry.

Our powerful features lets save ads from the Facebook and TikTok advertising libraries into our universal library with just one click. From there, you can organise ads into campaigns, analyse creatives, and generate detailed reports to share with your team.

MagicBrief also has its own in-built ad library, containing top-performing ads from various industries. Use our search options to filter ads by industry, brand, ad platform and even performance (our Ad Score is calculated based on benchmarking over 60 principles of performance advertising).

It's a one-stop-shop for all your ad analysis needs!

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If you're running your own ads, MagicBrief allows you to integrate and visualise your ad metrics in real-time. Get easy to read performance metrics, gain actionable insights, and facilitate seamless collaboration with your team.

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Don’t let manual ad analysis hold you back!

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Frequently Asked Questions

How do I research my competitor's ads?

If you don't want to pay an agency or use paid tools, you can use online resources like the Facebook Ad library or LinkedIn Ad library. They're free to use and provide ad information such as what ad platforms and formats they're using, their ad spend, and targeting parameters.

How can a competitor analysis be used to create effective advertising?

Performing a thorough competitor analysis lets you compare your advertising strategies and marketing metrics with your competitors. This helps to provide marketing benchmarks for you to aim for, and identify potential gaps or opportunities in your own advertising approach.

Furthermore, you'll be aware of what creatives and ad formats are working for your competitors, allowing you to test similar campaign strategies.

Why is competitor research important in marketing?

Competitor analysis helps marketers to recognise gaps in their own ad strategies and opportunities in the market. As competitors are the closest substitutes for your product or service, it helps to stay aware of their marketing tactics and adapt accordingly.

How to gauge a competitor's budget?

The various ad libraries mentioned earlier don't state your competitors' exact ad spend. However, you can use online tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush to estimate their monthly ad spend based on their site traffic and keyword rankings. However, this is only a rough estimate, and actual ad spend may vary significantly.

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