When was the last time you checked on your competitors? Are they up to anything new? What are the strategies they are using for marketing campaigns? If you are not up to date with your competitor’s activities, then you might fall behind. Therefore it is important to conduct a competitor ads analysis for getting an edge over your competitors.

When it comes to analysing competitors, the point of being proactive rather than reactive is vital to your business’s success. If you are not already, you should be doing the same. 

In this article, we will discuss what competitor ads analysis is? What is the importance of conducting it? What to look for in a competitor ads analysis? and the most effective strategies for conducting it. Let’s dive in!

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What Is Competitor Ads Analysis?

In every market, there are numerous companies that offer comparable products or services to the same target audience. Competitor ads analysis is a practice that involves researching and find competitors ads that operate within your niche industry and offer similar products or services.

Competitor ads analysis involves conducting a thorough research and analysing the marketing strategies implemented by your primary competitors on their ads. It helps you see their strengths, weaknesses, strategic flaws, and by analysing these data, you can create a solid and unique business strategy that your competitors haven’t taken advantage of

It also provides the benefit of seeing things from the customer’s perspective and improving where necessary. It empowers you to stay on top of industry trends and ensure exceeding industry standards. Competitor ads analysis can help you learn the ins and outs of how your competition works and identify potential opportunities to out-perform them.

Why Is Competitor Ads Analysis Important?

“The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.” — Arie de Geus, Shell Oil

To get ahead of your competition and achieve the top place in your industry, You need to learn and adapt faster than your competitors. Competitor ads analysis gives you the advantage to improve your products, services, and marketing strategies to grow your business.

By analysing and understanding your competition advertising strategy you can build a unique presence and distinguish your brand from others. It allows you to focus on underserved markets, recognize the best practices to operate and separate the worst practices.

If you conduct a competitor ads analysis, you can use it as a benchmark and compare your advertising strengths and weaknesses to improve your marketing strategy. The regular analysis of this process allows you to keep track of market trends and new players to be aware of.

Here are some of  the benefits you get from conducting competitor ads analysis:

• It helps you identify your product’s unique value point and what makes your product distinct from competitors.
• Competitor ads analysis enables you to identify where your competitors’ ads excel and where they may be lacking. This valuable insight enables you to create advertising campaigns that can out-perform industry standards.
• It helps to identify the opportunities in the marketplace and test out new, unique marketing strategies that your competitors are not utilising.
• It allows you to understand the customer’s perspective on a competitor’s product, services. If they lack some essential features, you can’t add features to your product to meet those needs.
• It helps you to create a benchmark and to measure your business growth.
• Competitor ads analysis shows you the potential and challenges that your competitors and the market are facing. It will help you anticipate potential market changes, threats, and campaigns that you can avoid.

What To Look For In A Competitor Ads Analysis?

There are several vital components to consider incorporating in competitor ads analysis. You should include as much information as possible to form an accurate competitor ad tracking report. It will show you how your business is performing compared to others. 

You will need to gather information on potential competitors and their features, pricing, service quality, strengths, and weaknesses. For this you must use a best Ad spy tool  like PowerAdSpy to see what type of ads they are using in their marketing campaigns.

PowerAdSpy is a comprehensive competitor ads analysis tool that provides valuable advertising insights for ad strategies and campaigns of your competitors. By utilising PowerAdSpy, you can gather information on various marketing aspects. Lets see how you can carry this out:

#1. Feature Matrix: 

Identify all the features included in your competitor’s products and services. Save this information in a competitor insight spreadsheet to conceive and evaluate how companies stack up against one another. 

#2. Market Share Percentage: 

Analyse to identify the main competitors in your niche industry. Try to avoid excluding larger competitors completely, as you can learn valuable lessons from their successes and failures.

#3. Pricing: 

Understand the pricing strategies employed by your competitors for their products and services. Evaluate where they position themselves on the quantity vs. quality spectrum.

#4. Marketing: 

Explore the marketing strategies used by your competitors. Look at their websites, social media accounts, SEO strategies, types of ads, and current marketing campaigns. 

#5. Differentiators: 

Identify the unique selling points of your competitors and check how they advertise their best qualities.

#6. Strengths: 

Identify the strengths of your competitors, what they are good at. You can see the reviews if they have a better product? Do practices they use for brand awareness?

#7. Weaknesses: 

What are your competitor’s weaknesses? Do they have a weak social media strategy? Do they have an online store? Or their website is not well optimised? All this information can give you a competitive edge.

#8. Geography: 

Find out the geographic areas where your competitors provide services and their locations. Understand whether they have physical stores or primarily conduct business online.

#9. Work Culture:

Try to know the objectives of your competitors. Identify factors such as employee satisfaction and whether they operate as a startup. This information can help you create a healthy workplace and increase employee satisfaction in your organisation.

#10. Customer Reviews: 

Analyse their customer reviews, writing both pros and cons. Look at reviews across a 5-star rating system,  paying attention to 5-star, 3-star, and 1-star reviews. Tip: 3-star reviews are mostly honest.  

How To Do Competitor Ads Analysis?

7 Best Practices:

When you perform competitor ads analysis, it is crucial to have a clear objective in mind. Competitor analysis can help you improve your business strategies and enable you to better serve your target audience. If you are not doing it properly, your competitors will stay ahead of you, as it will generate fallacious results. Here are the steps you should follow for a constructive competitor ads analysis:

#1. First Step : Determine Your Top Competitors

At the very first, you must figure out who the competitors are. This step is crucial as It will allow you to compare the data accurately. What works in a business similar to yours may not necessarily work for your own brand. So how can you accomplish this?

Make two categories of your competitors: Direct & Indirect

• Direct : In this category, keep the businesses that have similar products and operate in the same geographical area.

• Indirect: In this category, keep the business whose products are not similar but fulfill the customer’s needs or solve their problems.

Doing this, you create a  foundation for accurate data comparison that allows you to develop effective strategies to differentiate your brand in the market.

#2. Discover What Products Or Services They Offer:

Products and services serve as the core elements of any business, making it essential as a starting point of analysis. You have to analyse their complete product line and the quality of the products or services they provide. Consider the following questions:

• Are they positioned as low-cost or high-cost providers?
• Are they working mainly on volume sales or one-time purchases?
• How much market share do they acquire?
• What are the qualities and requirements of their target audience?
• Are they using different pricing strategies for online or offline purchases?
• What are their USPs?
• What channels do they use for delivering products/services?

#3. Research Your Competitor’s Sales Tactics And Results:

It can be a bit tricky, here are some questions you need to find answers to:

• What is their sales process?
• What channels do they use?
• Do they operate in multiple locations? What advantages does it give them against you?
• Are they trying to expand or scaling down?
• Are they in any collaborative reselling programs?
• How much revenue do they generate per year? What is the total sales volume?
• Do they provide any discounts on products or services?
• How many people are involved in the selling process?

This information will help you understand the level of competition in the sales process and what information is required to prepare your strategy to compete during the final buy stage. 

#4. Ensure You’re Meeting Competitive Shipping Costs:

Customers tend to buy products that have lower shipping costs and similar product quality. Nowadays, free shipping is a major perk that attains consumers’ attention. If shipping is a major factor in your business like e-commerce, then you should take a look at competitors’ shipping costs. If free shipping is widely used in your industry, try to look for a way to apply that.

#5. Analyse Their Content Strategy:

To develop an effective content marketing strategy, it is essential to consider several factors.

Firstly, it is important to analyse the types of ads they use. Do they rely on a large number of blog posts or only a few? Do they employ images, videos, or a combination of both? Also, their posting frequency should be tracked to determine how often they engage with their audience.

Performing a competitor keyword analysis is another key step in this process. You should identify the keywords for which your competitors are ranking. This information allows you to target the same keywords and improve your search engine rankings.

PowerAdSpy offers a rapidly growing category of Social Video Ads, which provides valuable insights into the video ads that resonate with your audience. Moreover, it allows you to download these ads for your own ad campaigns. With PowerAdSpy you can effectively analyse and understand the competitve ad spend methods and approaches employed by your competitors in their advertising campaigns. 

#6. Analyze The Customers Engagement On Their Content:

If you want to see the engagement level of their content, you need to analyze the reactions of customers to their posts. This involves checking various metrics such as the average number of likes, comments, shares, and more. With PowerAdSpy, you can get clear visibility into ad analytics. It provides a comprehensive overview of your competitor ads analysis, like how much they are spending on particular ads, average Reddit advertising cost, etc.  It allows you to visit their profiles and cross-check real-time engagements and opinions directly from the dashboard.

#7. Conduct a SWOT Analysis:

As previously mentioned, it is important to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats posed by your competitors that could impact your business. By conducting a SWOT analysis, you can gather all this essential information.

Consider the following aspects during the analysis:

• What are your competitors particularly good at in terms of products, content marketing, and social media platforms?
• Where do they have an advantage over your brand?
• Identify the areas where your competitors are weakest.
• Determine the areas where you have an advantage over your competitors.
• What aspects could your competitors improve upon?
• Assess the ways in which they pose a threat to your business.
• Are there any market opportunities that your competitors have recognized?

Then you will be able to compare their weaknesses against your strengths and vice versa. By doing this, you can make a better marketing strategy. And you can see the areas for improvement within your brand.

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Wrapping Words:

Competitor ads analysis not only helps you learn about your competitors but also distinguishes areas where your brand can shine. To begin, it is essential to establish a baseline for precise comparison with your competition. This baseline will also prove valuable during a SWOT analysis.

After conducting a competitive advertising analysis, use the data and best practices to improve your overall marketing strategy. Put your newfound expertise into action to build a unique presence and better serve your customers.