Are you making the best possible use of the Facebook Ad Library to maximize your social media marketing campaign performance? Here are some tips to help your own ads stand out even more. The Facebook Ad Library is still making waves in the social media ecosystem.
It’s a great tool that gives marketers free access to “spy” on advertisements from any advertiser who is using the platform. You can find view facebook ads, including the imagery, headlines, copy, formatting, how long it has been live, A/B testing, video ads and more. It also lets you see the landing pages of any ad that is currently live on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram. This is a huge way to boost marketing transparency amongst your competitors. Given that Facebook is now one of the largest advertising platforms on the internet (an estimated 2.91 billion people) for an astonishingly competitive cost per click of $0.43, it is no surprise that marketers are spending more and more on the Facebook ad library and making new active ad campaigns.
How the Facebook Ad Library came about – political ads
Firstly, Facebook created the ad library to ramp up transparency on political ads in a bid to reduce claims of election interference. There is a lot more about this around, but essentially, political would use the Facebook ad to garner more votes, despite setting up an ads library that could be so much more useful to other industries, too.
Thankfully, the Facebook ad library’s purpose has evolved to be so much more than just swaying elections and focusing narrowly on social issues. Digital marketers now use this tool to revolutionize, optimize, and inspire their Facebook ad campaigns using the Facebook ad library. From choosing new ad creative, ad format, and multiple versions of the same ad, Facebook ads have become a mainstay in the digital marketing realm. That’s not to say that social issues have fallen away, but they’re no longer the only purpose to issue ads anymore.
How to use the Facebook Ad Library to boost your own Facebook Ads
This is not an exhaustive list of everything you can do in the Facebook ads library to boost your Facebook ads, but it will steer you in the right direction.
Read the step-by-step guide on how to use the Facebook ad library to your advantage:
1. Expose Yourself To Other Industries
The first thing you should do when visiting the on the Facebook Ad Library is to see what our direct competition is up to. To start, type a competitor’s name into your search bar and find their Facebook page. Next, scroll down to the ‘page transparency’ section. This is here to improve transparency, as well as give users access to view a competing ads library.
Next, click on ‘see all’. You will now be given a prompt to visit the ads library of the page that you’re on. And that’s all there is to it! Knock yourself out! You can view all the ads that any competitor is using, or an ad running currently. Viewing competitor ads is a great benefit, and there are so many other industries and brands worth looking at that have amazing ideas.
You can find competitors ads on their Facebook accounts’ page. Why not search for a brand that you love or that is a complementary industry to yours? Look at their competitor’s ads and see what they are doing well, what they have in common, what strategies they use, and what you’d like to emulate. Perhaps your competitor has amazing videos, or has ads run at a specific time period for seasonal activity. You could be doin this for your own ads too. Then, it’s time to start testing. And don’t forget to do a keyword search while you’re at it – this may help you with ad copy within your Facebook ad library.
2. Spot The Difference With A/B Testing
One of the great things about Facebook Ad Library is that you can easily see different versions of the same ad that brands are using for split testing. A/B testing – like many other aspects of digital marketing like email marketing,landing pages, etc. – is so important for Facebook campaign success. Much like those quizzes you did as a child where you had to spot the difference, your task will be to identify the elements being tested.
- Different copy, same image?
- Different call to action?
- Same copy, different image?
Facebook makes it really quick and easy to build a checklist of ad features to A/B test for your next ad. If the big brands are doing it, so should you. And what’s great if you can check out their Facebook page to filter ads that you can take inspiration from. It’s no different than search results or other ads – remember that you should never stop testing, as an advertiser.
3. See Trends And Longevity for your own ads
If you spend a bit of time browsing the Facebook Ad Library, you’ll eventually pick up on trends in design, layout, offers, and more ad details. Are other brands using video ads, carousel ads, image ads, slideshow ads, etc.? This could be a great guide on where the target audience network is favorably leaning towards. You’ll also be able to see what ads have been live for a long time – which means they are working!
You can find this by checking out when the ad was first launched. Facebook freely shows this information, so don’t miss it. It is an incredibly valuable insight into how well the ad is performing. Active ads that run for a long period of time might be an indication that they are performing very well with Facebook users.
Just to stir the pot a little on trends, you could take another strategic angle on Facebook Ad trends. Spotting a clear trend might also be an opportunity to create imagery that is completely different. This might help you stand out from the crowd. Remember that ad type is very important. You don’t want to run ads that received impressions, but no results. You can create many different types of ads, including videos, static ads, carousels and so much more – so it may be smart to test all of these in your advertising strategy before deciding on a clear winner.
4. Get The Jump On Competitors With Timing Cues
While creativity and copy are crucial to any Facebook ad, timing – or running times – is crucial for campaign success. If your ad is premature, your audience will not be ready. Too late and you may miss opportunities.
Take a cue from successful advertisers in your space when it comes to timing and adapt it for your own campaigns. This is particularly useful when getting the jump on big-budget events in your marketing calendar like Back to School, Valentine’s Day, or Black Friday. Make use of historical data on the Facebook Ad Library to exactly time your next campaign.
5. Funnel Mapping
Ads are not an end to themselves – they are typically built with a customer journey or funnel in mind. The ad drives traffic to a destination; usually, a landing page that has been finely crafted to extract an action from the visitor. Not only does the Facebook Ad Library allow you to see what ads are running, but you are also able to follow your competitors’ funnel by clicking through.
Do it – click and go down the rabbit hole. Where does the ad take you? Is it a Facebook page with Facebook products? Are you sent to an online store with pricing or a special offer, or a gated page that requires an email address to access high-value information?
Maybe you’ll find a custom-designed landing page offering a free trial. Experience the journey as if you are a customer, and use this intel for your next campaign funnel strategy. Remember to double check that you have the right geographical location and correct country selected. If not, you could be wasting money on individual ads that are running in the wrong places.
Conclusion
It is worth bearing in mind that the ads only review the final part of their – and your – Facebook Ad strategy. We have no access or visibility to anyone’s audience targeting criteria or context, audience network, or their ad spend, only to their ad creatives.
No matter! Even without the targeting data on a campaign, the creative concepts are worth exploring. While some advertisers view this much clarity as a threat, many more see the Facebook Ad Library as an opportunity. Smart digital marketing experts think of it as an open door to creative inspiration when they’re in a bit of an advertising rut, need a bit of a boost for their next Facebook ad campaigns, or just want to up their marketing game and get better CTR on their advertisements.
I won’t tell if you won’t.