SOP 087: How to Reverse engineer your competitor's Facebook Ads Strategy

Goal:
To reverse-engineer your competitor’s Facebook Ads strategy.

Ideal Outcome:
You have a standardized audit that shows you what your competitor is doing on Facebook.

Why this is important:
Your competitor (especially if he has been investing in ads for longer than you) might have optimized their Facebook Ads strategy throughout time, and he might have strategies in place that you might want to apply yourself.

Where this is done:
On Facebook Ads Library.

When is this done:
As soon as possible, ideally when you start your business or Facebook Advertising. After that, you should be monitoring your competitor’s moves at least every month.

Who does this:
The person responsible for Facebook Advertising.

Check how important social media traffic is to your competitor’s strategy

Head over to SimilarWeb
Enter your competitor’s website on the search box above

Note: If you get the message below you won’t have the information you need on SimilarWeb—in that case, just skip to the next chapter — “List out every ad your competitor is running on Facebook”. What this message can tell you is that chances are your competitor is not driving too much traffic to his website (both from Facebook Ads or any other channel) or your competitor started very recently.

3. Scroll down to ‘Traffic Sources’ and check which % of your competitor’s traffic is driven by social media. Keep in mind that all social media traffic is aggregated here, organic and paid

4. Now scroll down a bit further down to ‘Social’ and check the percentage of ‘Social’ traffic that comes specifically from Facebook:

Note: This will aggregate both organic and paid traffic. In most cases, organic social doesn’t drive a substantial amount of traffic though, so usually, you can safely assume that the largest portion of that is paid.

With this, you can estimate the % of overall traffic that your competitor gets from Facebook by multiplying the two percentages.

Example:

SimilarWeb: Percentage of traffic from social: 25%

SimilarWeb: Percentage of social traffic from Facebook: 50%

Calculation: Percentage of Facebook traffic of overall traffic sources of your competitor: 50%*25% = ~12.5% of your competitor’s traffic comes from Facebook.

List out every ad your competitor is running on Facebook

Importance of Facebook Traffic: How important is Facebook as a traffic source for them?

Example: Brand: Wish.com Comment: 10% of their traffic comes from Social, and 95% of their Traffic from Facebook, so roughly 9.5% of their traffic comes from Facebook. In total they have an estimated 150M visits a month, meaning roughly 14M visits are coming from Facebook.

Page Managers: How many people are managing their page? Where are they from?

Example: Brand: Headspace Comment: They have 33 people managing their page, mostly from the US. Their ads are likely managed professionally.

Ads Volume: How many ads are they currently running?
Countries: How many countries are they currently targeting and which countries?
Recurring CTAs: What do their ads promote at each stage of the funnel?

Example: Brand: Headspace Leads CTA: Signup for Headspace Free Free Users: Sign-up for a 30-day Headspace Plus Trial Paid Users: Share the Love (Offer 30 days to a friend) // Get some Headspace (Meditate now) Note: Sometimes you won’t be lucky enough to find the funnel stages on your competitors UTMs, so you’ll need to make a few assumptions here.

Promotions: Do they run sales or promotions frequently? What do they offer?

Example: Brand: Headspace Comment: Currently not running any promotions on Facebook Ads.

Content: Do they promote content on Facebook Ads? What kind of content?

Example: Brand: Headspace Comment: They’re promoting 5-minute meditation videos and blog posts to learn about the benefits of meditation.

Split-Tests: Are they running obvious split-tests on their ads?

Note: In order to be able to identify split-tests, you will want to look at their ads and identify groups of ads that share a lot of similarities but only one or two small differences while having been launched on the same day. Example: Brand: Headspace Comment: They seem to be running split-tests with different videos using the same voice-over but different graphics.

Formats and Placements: Are they running ads specially designed for specific platforms? (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Mobile, Desktop)

Example: Brand: Headspace Comment: They don’t seem to be segmenting by platform or placement.

Landing Pages: Which landing pages are they driving traffic to? Which ones are the most recurring?

Example: Brand: Headspace Comment: They seem to be driving most of their traffic to the App Store/Google Play URL (https://apps.apple.com/app/id493145008) but some ads point to their homepage as well (https://www.headspace.com/)

Creative Type: What kind of creatives do they typically use?

Example: Brand: Headspace Comment: All currently running ads are video ads. Both 9:16 and 1:1.

Products: Which products are they promoting the most (if it’s multi-product)?
If they are running political ads:

- What’s their typical audience?
- What’s the average budget per ad?

That’s it! You now have a comprehensive overview of your competitor’s Facebook Ad strategy.

Summarize your findings into an Audit Report

Importance of Facebook Traffic: How important is Facebook as a traffic source for them? Example:
- Brand: Wish.com
  - Comment: 10% of their traffic comes from Social, and 95% of their Traffic from Facebook, so roughly 9.5% of their traffic comes from Facebook. In total they have an estimated 150M visits a month, meaning roughly 14M visits are coming from Facebook.
Page Managers: How many people are managing their page? Where are they from? Example:
- Brand: Headspace
  - Comment: They have 33 people managing their page, mostly from the US. Their ads are likely managed professionally.

Ads Volume: How many ads are they currently running?
Countries: How many countries are they currently targeting and which countries?
Recurring CTAs: What do their ads promote at each stage of the funnel? (Note: Sometimes you won’t be lucky enough to find the funnel stages on your competitors UTMs, so you’ll need to make a few assumptions here.) Example:
- Brand: Headspace
  - Leads CTA: Signup for Headspace Free
  - Free Users: Sign-up for a 30-day Headspace Plus Trial
  - Paid Users: Share the Love (Offer 30 days to a friend) // Get some Headspace (Meditate now)

Promotions: Do they run sales or promotions frequently? What do they offer? Example:
- Brand: Headspace
  - Comment: Currently not running any promotions on Facebook Ads.

Content: Do they promote content on Facebook Ads? What kind of content? Example:
- Brand: Headspace
  - Comment: They’re promoting 5-minute meditation videos and blog posts to learn about the benefits of meditation.

Split-Tests: Are they running obvious split-tests on their ads? Example:
- Brand: Headspace
  - Comment: They seem to be running split-tests with different videos using the same voice-over but different graphics.
- Note: In order to be able to identify split-tests, you will want to look at their ads and identify groups of ads that share a lot of similarities but only one or two small differences while having been launched on the same day.

Formats and Placements: Are they running ads specially designed for specific platforms? (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Mobile, Desktop) Example:
- Brand: Headspace
  - Comment: They don’t seem to be segmenting by platform or placement.

Landing Pages: Which landing pages are they driving traffic to? Which ones are the most recurring? Example:
- Brand: Headspace
  - Comment: They seem to be driving most of their traffic to the App Store/Google Play URL (https://apps.apple.com/app/id493145008) but some ads point to their homepage as well (https://www.headspace.com/)

Creative Type: What kind of creatives do they typically use? Example:
- Brand: Headspace
  - Comment: All currently running ads are video ads. Both 9:16 and 1:1.

Products: Which products are they promoting the most (if it’s multi-product)?
If they are running political ads:

- What’s their typical audience?
- What’s the average budget per ad?

That’s it! You now have a comprehensive overview of your competitor’s Facebook Ad strategy.