Use Your Competitor’s Ads Against Them

Following Zuckerburg’s appearance at Congress regarding Facebook’s use of privacy data, Facebook released a new update.

This new update was geared at creating a transparent platform, something Facebook has clearly struggled with.

My favorite tool of the new update is the ‘Info & Ads’ section that now appear on Facebook pages.

With this tool you can view the ad copy that pages are running.

For businesses you can directly see the ads your competitors are using, the ad copy, call to action, every little detail.

So how can you use this against them?

Here’s 3 strategies to use your competitor’s ads against them:

1) Copy then outbid

In marketing, there is nothing wrong with copying tactics and strategies.

So by viewing your competitor’s ads you can see what they are doing well then copy the strategy for your own business.

You’ll have to build it out on your own, but now you have a direct model to work off of.

Ok, so now you have the same ad as your competitor, how do we appear over them every time?

Simply outbid them.

You don’t want to leave it up to Facebook, as theoretically you’ll only appear first 50/50.

So mess around with the max & min bid until your ads are appearing over your competitors.

2) Do the Opposite

Now that we can see the ads your competitors are running, let’s do the opposite.

Why?

Because if they are using this ad copy, with this call to action, with this caption, etc… that will only appeal to certain parts of their target audience..

So, a different ad copy would hit a different part of the targeted audience.

If they are using an image with a call to action being an email sign-up on a landing page, then you should use a video leading straight to a Messenger bots.

Whatever they are doing, do the opposite.

You’ll reach the audience that has already seen multiple ads, but will connect with you because of your unique ad copy.

Being different will increase attention and conversion.

3) Beat Them on Another Platform

I recommend using any and every marketing platform.

But most of the businesses don’t listen to my on that.

Facebook ads are not the end all be all, there are other marketing mediums that may prove more successful.

So seeing that your competitors are investing in Facebook ads, check out what marketing they are doing on different platforms.

If they are spending time on Facebook ads, we can assume they are neglecting at least one of the endless marketing channels.

So test their SEO,

Check out their content,

Check out their organic social media,

Emails,

Etc…

Ultimately, this strategy is about using your competitor’s data & strategies against them.

However, if you don’t have a strategy built out for yourself, checking out your competitor’s will do you little good.

That’s why our team at Social Apex is launching our ‘Innovative Marketing Immersion’ — a team to team meeting discussing any and all things marketing diving into real strategies and execution plans.

Oh, and it’s free.

You can sign up here.

Thanks for reading,

Jake