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If I was in a life or death scenario and the only way to survive was to create Facebook ads that absolutely had to work and they had to work really well the first time they went live, I know exactly how I would go about doing it.
There’s a Facebook ads technique that you can use that comes as close as you can possibly get to guaranteeing success. I’m going to show you what that technique is in this tutorial.
With this free tool you can see any Facebook or Instagram ad that anyone is currently running.
That’s pretty awesome in and of itself, but after I show you how to use the tool in a very specific and unexpected way you’ll be able to set up ad campaigns that have a very high probability of winning.
I’m going to give you an example and then explain how to approach your research with this tool to give yourself a nearly guaranteed shot at success.
The first thing you do is select the location. This isn’t your location, but it’s the location where the ad is displayed. If you are targeting a company that is advertising primarily in the United States, pick that. If you are targeting a company that advertises primarily in another country you need to pick that specific country.
Next you want to select the all ads category, because you don’t want to limit what you can see.
Then you have a box where you can search either by keyword or advertiser. You should search by advertiser. What you are looking for here are companies that have similar products and services to what you offer. In this example we’re going to take a look at the ads that Instagram is running.
You’ll see here that when I pulled this screenshot Instagram was running around 190 ads. That’s going to be a mixture of active and inactive ads.
We can see exactly what each of those ads looks like from the creative, to the headline, to the body copy. You can also see the date that each ad is running and how long that ad has been running.
Now that you have a brief overview of how to get results with the Facebook Ads Library, I’m going to show you the next steps to using this information to become a close to unstoppable Facebook ads force.
The way to all but guarantee success in digital marketing is to find someone who is succeeding and that you know is delivering great results. They need to be doing something very similar to what you do and offer similar products and/or services.
Once you find their ads you can model (not copy) what they are doing and your chance of success with your Facebook and Instagram ads is going to go way up.
What you are looking for are ads that have been around for many months and are still active. Those are ads that you know are likely to be successful. That’s because when companies advertise they stop their underperforming ads and keep the ads that are performing. The longer an ad is running the more you know that it resonates with its audience and is also probably profitable.
The ads below are a good example. At the time of this writing they’ve been running for about 9 months.
You want to avoid looking at inactive ads. Those are ads that have been turned off. You also want to avoid ads that have only been running a few weeks or a month.
Ideally, you want ads that have been running at least six months. If they are running that long then they are likely to be ads that are working well and producing a positive profit.
Also, keep in mind that different companies run different types of campaigns:
This will show you the different versions of the ad as well as the headline and body copy of the ad.
Pay specific attention to the details of each successful ad:
Then click through the call to action button to go the the landing page and repeat the process with the landing page.
Being able to see the landing page is an amazing advantage, because it means that you can not only model the ads, but you can also model the landing pages as well.
Your ads and your landing page have to work together or you won’t get the conversions you are looking for. You can see if the company you are modeling is using video, a short or long form landing page, or an ecommerce page. You can also see what price point your competition is offering their products at, and what kind of offers they are making to get a lead.
By modeling the elements of successful competitors you greatly increase your own chances of being successful.
But if you change the country to the UK, all of the sudden there are zero results.
It seems weird, but it’s because they are running ads through Amazon.co.uk in the UK. If you change the URL you’ll get the actual results for the country you are interested in.
Companies will often operate with different pages for different locations, so you need to make sure you are aware of that to be able to pull up the relevant results.
If you see that ads for the company you are looking at haven’t run for 6 months or more, then skip that company’s ads and do additional research with other companies.
These are both very valuable pieces of data.
If your competition isn’t running any ads on Facebook or Instagram then you might have a serious competitive advantage when you advertise on these platforms.
If your competition runs a ton of ads that usually means there is money to be made if you can figure out the correct positioning.
If I was in a life or death scenario and the only way to survive was to create Facebook ads that absolutely had to work and they had to work really well the first time they went live, I know exactly how I would go about doing it.
There’s a Facebook ads technique that you can use that comes as close as you can possibly get to guaranteeing success. I’m going to show you what that technique is in this tutorial.
The Magic of the Facebook Ad Library
The Facebook Ad Library is a tool that many advertisers aren’t aware of. But it can be absolute magic when it comes to setting up winning ad campaigns on the Meta (Facebook and Instagram) platforms.
With this free tool you can see any Facebook or Instagram ad that anyone is currently running.
That’s pretty awesome in and of itself, but after I show you how to use the tool in a very specific and unexpected way you’ll be able to set up ad campaigns that have a very high probability of winning.
I’m going to give you an example and then explain how to approach your research with this tool to give yourself a nearly guaranteed shot at success.
The first thing you do is select the location. This isn’t your location, but it’s the location where the ad is displayed. If you are targeting a company that is advertising primarily in the United States, pick that. If you are targeting a company that advertises primarily in another country you need to pick that specific country.
Next you want to select the all ads category, because you don’t want to limit what you can see.
Then you have a box where you can search either by keyword or advertiser. You should search by advertiser. What you are looking for here are companies that have similar products and services to what you offer. In this example we’re going to take a look at the ads that Instagram is running.
You’ll see here that when I pulled this screenshot Instagram was running around 190 ads. That’s going to be a mixture of active and inactive ads.
We can see exactly what each of those ads looks like from the creative, to the headline, to the body copy. You can also see the date that each ad is running and how long that ad has been running.
Now that you have a brief overview of how to get results with the Facebook Ads Library, I’m going to show you the next steps to using this information to become a close to unstoppable Facebook ads force.
The Secret Sauce to Nearly Guaranteed Facebook Ad Success
In the Facebook Ads Library you can see all of your competitors ads, but what I’m about to show you is the “secret sauce” to making those ads work for you in a major way.The way to all but guarantee success in digital marketing is to find someone who is succeeding and that you know is delivering great results. They need to be doing something very similar to what you do and offer similar products and/or services.
Once you find their ads you can model (not copy) what they are doing and your chance of success with your Facebook and Instagram ads is going to go way up.
How to Figure Out Which Ads Are the Most Successful
The problem is that in the Facebook Ad Library you don’t get details of the ads like click through rate or cost per conversion. But even without those details there is an easy way to figure out which ads are super successful! That way you know which ads to model.What you are looking for are ads that have been around for many months and are still active. Those are ads that you know are likely to be successful. That’s because when companies advertise they stop their underperforming ads and keep the ads that are performing. The longer an ad is running the more you know that it resonates with its audience and is also probably profitable.
The ads below are a good example. At the time of this writing they’ve been running for about 9 months.
You want to avoid looking at inactive ads. Those are ads that have been turned off. You also want to avoid ads that have only been running a few weeks or a month.
Ideally, you want ads that have been running at least six months. If they are running that long then they are likely to be ads that are working well and producing a positive profit.
Also, keep in mind that different companies run different types of campaigns:
- Instagram = branding campaign
- Services usually run lead generation campaigns
- E-Commerce stores typically run conversion campaigns
What to do with Successful Ads
Once you find an ad that’s been launched at least 6 months ago, it’s time to click in and see the details of the ad.
This will show you the different versions of the ad as well as the headline and body copy of the ad.
Pay specific attention to the details of each successful ad:
- Look at the ad format. Are they using video ads or image carousel ads?
- What style of ad is it?
- If they are videos are they long form or short form?
- Is this a client testimonial or other type of video?
- What sort of colors and imagery are they using?
- What’s their primary text?
- What benefits are they focusing on in the copy?
Then click through the call to action button to go the the landing page and repeat the process with the landing page.
Being able to see the landing page is an amazing advantage, because it means that you can not only model the ads, but you can also model the landing pages as well.
Your ads and your landing page have to work together or you won’t get the conversions you are looking for. You can see if the company you are modeling is using video, a short or long form landing page, or an ecommerce page. You can also see what price point your competition is offering their products at, and what kind of offers they are making to get a lead.
By modeling the elements of successful competitors you greatly increase your own chances of being successful.
Potential Pitfalls to Using the Facebook Ad Library
What I’ve gone over so far in this tutorial works extremely well. But there are a few pitfalls you can run into when using the Facebook Ad Library that you should know about.Match the URL to the Country
If you are dealing with a large company, like Amazon, you need to make sure that you match the URL with the country. If you enter in Amazon.com in the US you’ll see that there are over 50,000 ad results. This isn’t surprising as Amazon is huge and advertises aggressively.
But if you change the country to the UK, all of the sudden there are zero results.
It seems weird, but it’s because they are running ads through Amazon.co.uk in the UK. If you change the URL you’ll get the actual results for the country you are interested in.
Companies will often operate with different pages for different locations, so you need to make sure you are aware of that to be able to pull up the relevant results.
Some Companies Don’t Run Ads Long Enough
Sometimes companies don’t run any ad for a very long period of time. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the ads are unsuccessful. But it does mean that you don’t know if the ads are successful. Length of run time for an ad is the best indicator of success that I’ve found.If you see that ads for the company you are looking at haven’t run for 6 months or more, then skip that company’s ads and do additional research with other companies.
Lots of Ads or Zero Ads
There are situations where you will do competitive research and find that your competitors are running zero ads or that every competitor is running a ton of ads.These are both very valuable pieces of data.
If your competition isn’t running any ads on Facebook or Instagram then you might have a serious competitive advantage when you advertise on these platforms.
If your competition runs a ton of ads that usually means there is money to be made if you can figure out the correct positioning.
