How To See Who Competitors Facebook Ads Target

STEPS TO DETERMINE WHO YOUR COMPETITORS ARE TARGETING WITH THEIR FACEBOOK ADS 

Want to know who your competitors are targeting on Meta Ads?

We are going to share a trick with you that will completely change the way you advertise.

It will also give you the ability to steal customers or clients from your competitors.

We have put together a video tutorial that will take you through how to stalk your competitors and find out who they are targeting with their Facebook and Instagram Ads so you can target the same people.

Want to know the best part?

You can then advertise an offer that is better than your competitors whether it be more value or a better price on the same product or service and win those customers or clients.

Watch the YouTube video below or read the instructions to see exactly how to see who you competitors Facebook Ads are targeting.

FIND A COMPETITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT

1. First-up, scroll through your feed until you find a competitor’s advertisement.

SELECT 'WHY AM I SEEING THIS AD'?

2. Once you find a relevant advertisement, simply click the three dots on the top right-hand corner and select ‘Why am I seeing this ad’.

REVIEW COMPETITOR TARGETING INFORMATION

3. From here, you’re going to get shown some very insightful information on targeting parameters the advertiser (your competitor) has set for this ad from location, age, gender, language, and interests. Of course, we are based in Australia, so for the ads targeting our account, we will see that specific location parameter. You will see something different if you are from another country.

 Advertisers may also use broad targeting where there are no specific parameters set for targeting around age, gender etc. This has become an extremely popular way of targeting post iOS 14.5.

Advertisers could also be targeting based on custom audiences (retargeting users who have interacted with their brand such as visiting their website or Instagram profile).

Watch the video tutorial below to see some different examples.

REVIEW INTEREST BASED TARGETING SELECTIONS

4. Take this one step further by delving deeper into the interests being targeted. Select the ‘Shown interest in…’ button. You will then see the specific interests this ad is targeting.

MANAGE YOUR OWN INTEREST CATEGORIES

5. If you’d like to manage the ad topics you’re being targeted for, select ‘Update your ad preferences’. Here you will see all the interest categories you have been classified into as a user. Check they are all accurate as sometimes they aren’t. You don’t want to be served advertisements that aren’t relevant and waste the budget of the advertiser.

Note: you’ll often see your advertisement campaigns improve over time. This is because first Meta may show your ads to all people within a certain interest category. As it starts to gather data and results from the campaign, Meta will build a better picture of who to target within that interest category, optimising the performance of the ads over time.

HIDING ADS FROM ADVERTISERS

Facebook and Instagram users can also hide ads from advertisers. Again, go to the top right-hand corner of the advertisement on either platform and scroll down and select ‘Hide all ads from this advertiser’. The user will then no longer be served ads from that specific advertiser.

The reason a user may choose to hide an advertiser is if the ad isn’t relevant, or the frequency of the advertisement being show is too high. Hint: you can check the frequency in the Meta Ads Manager. This signals to Meta that the user doesn’t like your ads or is getting too many which unfortunately could result in higher costs and lower results overall.

HOW TO GET COMPETITOR'S ADS TO SHOW UP IN YOUR FEED

You want to use this technique to discover who your competitors are targeting but to do this, you first need to be served your audiences ads. You don’t want to directly go to your audience’s website to then get served the ad. This hack will then only show you information based on retargeting because you visited your competitors website (not the the interest and demographic based targeting you need).

Instead, search Facebook or Instagram pages, profile and groups that are closely related to topics of your competitors but not their specific pages or profiles. For example, if you sell organic baby products, search pages, profiles, or groups on that topic (not your competitors) and interact with them. You’ll then likely be classified into these interests very quickly.

THE META ADS LIBRARY

You can take this one step further and check the details of the advertisement in the Meta Ads library by selecting the ‘See ad details in the Meta Ads library’. Advertisement that have been running for a decent amount of time are likely to be successful otherwise why would they still be running and wasting money?

If you want to see all the advertisements running by a brand or competitor to benchmark them against your own, head to the Meta Ads library and run a search.

Combining this stalking technique with searching your competitors ads in the Meta Ads library is a powerful way to research your competitors, model ads from and almost guarantee success of your very own campaigns.

Not sure if your brand is ready to run Meta Ads? Download our free Meta Ads Starter Checklist to determine if you are ready to invest in Facebook or Instagram Ads (before you spend a cent).