Analyzing competitors’ ads to get information about converting creatives that bring profit is necessary. The received ideas and insights can be used in the work. The results of competitor analysis allow you to build your marketing strategy, evaluate the existing one and make the necessary improvements if necessary.
There are many spy services for analyzing creatives, including the fact that in 2021 the functionality of the Facebook Ads Library was finalized and made more convenient. It can be accessed at www.facebook.com/ads/library/. The library is available to all users, anyone can view advertisements.
What is the Facebook Ads Library
The Facebook Ads Library is a repository of ads published through Ads Manager on all placements: Facebook, Audience Network, Messenger, and Instagram. The library has filters where you can find creatives of the desired vertical or field of activity. There are over 12 million ads in the Ads Library.
The library service can be used without a Facebook account. However, it is still desirable to start it because of some rules. For example, if there is a need to complain about an advertisement, this can only be done from a personal account. Also, Ad Library will not show certain types of ads to users under 18 years of age or those not verified.
How the advertising library is useful for an affiliate marketer
The advertising library allows you to see the creatives of competitors and thus analyze them. With it, you can take ideas and adapt them to your offer. You can also determine which specific target audience your competitors work with and how popular their creatives are.
The library’s functionality is free, which is a nice bonus for an affiliate marketer. No need to pay a monthly subscription fee for spy services. Ideas taken from the Ads Library help save time developing hypotheses. This is especially true when you have to work with a new offer, according to which it is not yet clear which creatives will become popular.
You can search for creatives in any country. They enter the library a day after they were published. This makes it possible to monitor the latest relevant ads.
You can see not only the ads themselves but also useful statistics on them. For example, through creatives, you can get to the advertiser’s page and see the basic information. For example, the date the account was created, ID, and the number of likes placed in the promotion of the publication.
The library also makes it possible to determine how often a particular creative is used in ads. You can evaluate user engagement by likes and comments. If an ad has been scrolled a few times, it was likely generating good conversions due to its design or copy.
FB advertising library components (filters)
There are two ways to search for creatives in the ad library:
- using the search bar;
- using filters.
You need to specify the geo and category to use the search bar. You can also enter a keyword — the name of the advertiser, brand, or offer. Ads Library will show up to 5,000 ads per page in search results.
Filters allow you to find published creatives by applications and services of the FB platform:
- Facebook itself;
- Instagram;
- Audience Network;
- messenger;
- everywhere – on all of the above platforms.
You can also sort creatives by file type:
- only images;
- video;
- text;
- memes;
- all.
It is possible to see creatives that are relevant for specific dates. For example, ads published last month, in 2020, 2021. If you use the option to display active ads, you can see all the ads used in the current period.
You can also view inactive ads from the archive that are no older than seven years. This will allow you to get ideas about what the audience generally expects from advertising and what is the typical presentation of the product on Facebook.
You can go to the Ads Library using the Page Transparency block from the official account of an advertiser or competitor. This will help save time on a long search for relevant sections and categories on Facebook. First, you must go to the company’s official page of interest. Then – click on the Page Transparency block in the menu. If you select All, you can go to the Ads Library and see all the ads posted by the company that owns the account.
Conclusions: advantages and disadvantages
The Facebook Ads Library is a useful tool for affiliate marketers, as it allows you to evaluate competitors’ ads for free and see the most successful ones. A convenient filter system helps you quickly find creatives in the desired geo and affiliate vertical.
Among the shortcomings of the library, it can be noted that it does not show ads for every category. In particular, it is impossible to see creatives that Facebook has placed under restrictions in it. Also, the library will not work if an ad blocker, such as AdBlock, is enabled in the browser. It is not yet possible to set up detailed targeting, for example, by cities, audience interests, and demographics.
