The Newest Facebook Feature to Scope the Competition and Improve Your Paid Social Strategy

Ever wondered what your competitors are promoting through Facebook and Instagram ads when you’re building out your Facebook ad strategy?  What type of ad creative should you use? Specific messaging to really drive your CTA home? Or have you seen powerhouse ads from a brand you love that inspired you but you didn’t have a chance to take a screenshot?  

After the Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year, Facebook’s mission has been to provide transparency to their users.  Resurfacing his original mission to bring people closer together – through your newsfeed. This change doesn’t just impact your personal feed though.  

Facebook is making the competitive landscape of ads more transparent than ever, which means as a marketer you’ll need to stay super dialed in on your creative, ad copy, offers and overall strategy.  

As a consumer…you can do your due diligence in scoping the competition when you’re searching for a specific product or service.   If you haven’t seen this cool new feature yet…Facebook has rolled out tab on the company page sidebar called the “Info and Ads” tab (screenshot below) that allows you to scope the competition. This is giving marketers a true insight into identifying areas of opportunity from competitor ads within your own strategy, so you can further customize your messaging and ad creative to really beat the competition.

Whether you’re part of a brand’s target audience or not…this feature allows you to see what a brand is promoting to ALL audiences at that moment in time on Facebook, Instagram, and Facebook Company Products (see screenshot below).  

From a consumer facing standpoint, one of the challenges with the newfound transparency is new and returning customers will be exposed to ads where the offers don’t apply to them.  For example, if you’re running a retargeting campaign to your existing customers offering a specific discount or promo, everyone who clicks into the “Info + Ads” section will see it.  

 There IS a workaround as a marketer if this is something you’re truly concerned about. As a Page Administrator, you can change the template of your Facebook page to the “Video” template which will remove that feature… but it’s not all bad! As a marketer, you should take pride in your message, strategy and creative – so my vote is you keep it there.

Wrapping Up

This is hands down one of the most valuable tools you can use when evaluating your ad strategy and overall aesthetic against the competition, especially when you start to think about the major ecommerce holidays like Black Friday,Cyber Monday, Green Monday, etc.  

Check out some of the exclusive offers from your competitors.  Is your offer aligning closely with the competition? Or is your offer stronger? These are all key pieces to look for when utilizing this tool. All in all, as a marketer this is a great way to keep your overall paid social strategy innovative, fresh, and totally buttoned up…as it should be always!