Have you ever wondered how you can see your competitors’ Facebook Ads? Want to get a sneaky peak on their ad copy so you can see where their focus is?

In this article, I show you how to see exactly what competitors’ Facebook Ads are running.

The Introduction of Page Transparency

Page transparency was introduced in 2019 as part of Facebook’s attempt to be more open about what ads are being shown on the platform, following issues with the 2016 US presidential elections.

The primary purpose of this feature is to allow people to see if a page is genuine and what ads they are creating, in an attempt to prevent advertising scams and dodgy political activity.

Page Transparency appears on ALL Facebook business pages and can be seen my anyone. It cannot be hidden by the admins of the page. You can find it  down the right-hand side of the page on desktop, usually below the ‘About’ information and on the mobile App, just keep scrolling down until you get to the first post and you will see it.

How To See Your Competitors’ Facebook Ads

There are two ways you can access your competitor’s Facebook Ads, the first is by going to the relevant business page and clicking on the ‘See More’ on the ‘Page Transparency’ section.

When you click on the ‘see more’ you will see the following screen.

It shows:-

• Page creation date
• Merges with other pages
• Active Ads from the page
• And on some of the larger pages, Countries of people who manage the page

Buyers Tip – This is a great tool to use to check that a business is genuine before purchasing a product on Facebook. Check the page creation date. If a page has been newly created and has thousands of followers, you can safely assume it is likely to be a scam. Another tell-tale sign is if the page name has changed several times (in some cases it can change for genuine reasons but still worth checking out).

At the bottom of this page you will se ‘Ads From This Page’ and underneath it will tell you if this business is currently running any ads. If they are, you then click on ‘Go To Ad Library’ at the bottom right and it will take you into the Ad Library and display any current ads running by that company.

The second way to do this is to go directly to https://www.facebook.com/ads/library. If you use this method, you will then type in the Facebook username in search bar to display any ads that are running in the Ads Library.

You will then see the Facebook cover image with the Page Transparency information and below will be any ads that are currently running. You can do this for multiple businesses within the Ads Library. When you have finished looking through one, simply type the name of the next business in the search bar and check them out too.

You can then filter the ads by country, impressions (ads that have achieved at least one impression in the newsfeed) and platform. These filters will default to the country you are in along with all impressions (can be amended to last 7 days or last 30 days) and all Platforms (This can be broken down to show only Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network or Messenger).

You can then see a copy of the ad and how it displays in the newsfeed along with the date the ad started running and which platforms they are running on (icons at the top right).

If you click on the ad, it will act in the same way as if you saw the ad in your newsfeed, therefore, you will be taken to the landing page that the ad is tempting you to.

For ads surrounding political, electoral and social issues you can also see more information that tells you how much was spent on the ads, the demographics and full information about the advertiser. These ads will also show even if no longer running and will be held in the archives for 7 years by Facebook.

How Does Seeing My Competitors’ Facebook Ads Help Me?

If you know that your competitors are really rocking it on Facebook, you can take a look at their ads and see what is prompting people to respond.

• What images are they using?
• What wording are they using?
• What is the ‘Call To Action’.
• Where are they sending the viewer to?

DO NOT copy their ads, this will not give you any advantage or help you to stand out. You can then use this valuable information to create BETTER ads for your campaigns, knowing what is working with the same target audience.

You could also do this for businesses that you aspire to be like in the future to see the kind of message they are putting out there.

So, now you know how to check out your competitors’ Facebook Ads. Have you used this feature before? How did you find it helped you with your marketing efforts? I would love to know in the comments below.

Are Facebook Ads going way over your head? Do you need an effective campaign created and managed? Then book a FREE 45-minute Discovery call with me today to chat about your options. Simply click on the button below!