How can I identify my competitor's most engaging ads in ad libraries?

In the ever-competitive landscape of digital advertising, staying ahead of the curve is crucial. One way to achieve this is by dissecting the ad strategies of your competitors, and ad libraries are your go-to resource for this treasure hunt.

These libraries house a plethora of ads, but spotting the real gems among them requires a discerning eye.

In this article, I'm going to show you 5 no-bs ways to identify engaging ads.

5 Tips to help identify engaging ads

1. Look for High Engagement: High likes, shares, and comments are indicators of engaging content. Tiktok Creative Center is great for this as they show you likes, comments and share counts.
2. Check Frequency: Repeatedly run ads are usually the effective ones. Check for repeats by going through all ads specific for a brand. Also keep an eye out for repeating hooks - that's when you know they have a killer on their hand. Look up Sabri Suby on the Facebook Ad Library(or use Swipekit's Multiplayer feature) and analyse their video hooks.
3. Analyze Visuals and Copy: Dissect the compelling visuals and catchy text that make an ad engaging. Look at the ad copy and see what are their power words, how they engage their audience, etc.
4. Check Ad active status: Generally, the longer an ad is running, the better performing is must be. This is hard to track but if you're using Swipekit, Facebook Ad library's ads are automatically tracked.
5. Utilize Swipekit: Swipekit's Chrome extension can be a lifesaver. It allows you to save promising ads from Facebook, TikTok, and LinkedIn for a closer examination later. Best of all? It automatically saved metadata and assets from these libraries. It will also check whether an ad has turned inactive(for Meta Ad library only).

Going beyond

A methodology worth mentioning is the AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) which many advertisers swear by. It's a useful framework for evaluating the effectiveness of ads in terms of capturing attention and driving action.

Use this to identify and formulate ads from your competitors to form your own creative strategy. I will discuss this methodology in a later article.

Conclusion

Navigating through the ad libraries to identify the high-flyers among competitors' ads is a smart strategy to up your advertising game.

With tools like Swipekit, the process becomes less daunting and more insightful. This attempt not only provides a learning curve but shapes your strategies to create engaging ads for your campaigns.