By Berta Ventura, on 4 August 2021
In these modern times of digital advertising, running the right ads and campaigns is crucial for business success. It’s not always easy to know where to start though. Before you can craft your own posts, you need to understand what your competitors are doing, and which trends are dominating the market. This will help you locate and attract the right audience for your products or services.
Facebook library ads can be a great place to start with this. Facebook’s digital archive can help you search for and analyze all the ads placed on any of the social media giant’s platforms. This can help you design a strategy for your own marketing campaigns that helps you stand out from the crowd and attract those all-important buyers.
In this post we will share everything you need to know about the Facebook Ad Library, including what it is, how it works, and how this useful tool can help you boost the bottom line of your business.
What Is Facebook Ad Library?
The Facebook Ad Library is an archive of all paid advertisements posted through Facebook and its affiliate platforms. Originally compiled in response to political controversy surrounding the US Presidential election in 2016, its purpose was to promote transparency in an era of “fake news.”
Facebook library ads aren’t just useful from a political perspective though. Since its launch in 2018, the Facebook Ad Library’s policy of transparency has enabled governments, journalists, researchers, and everyday people to validate the reliability of sources spreading news through the media.
The Facebook Ad Library, which can be accessed by site members and visitors alike for free, can also be incredibly valuable from a marketing perspective. The archive includes data from all ads placed through Facebook’s apps and services, including ad creation dates, mergers with other pages, page name changes and where a page is managed from. Users can search for ads by keywords, download periodic reports, and use data to keep an eye on trends. It’s a great way to gain insight and stay ahead of the game.
How Does Facebook Ad Library Work?
Before the launch of the Facebook Ad Library, there was some ad data available on the site, but it was limited and restricted to Facebook users. Basic information was available, but you’d have to visit each specific page and view corresponding data through its Page Transparency settings. However, since the launch of Facebook’s traceability drive, members of the public can view all active ads directly from the Ad Library, regardless of whether or not they are registered users.
Searching for Facebook library ads is easy: just pick your category and you’re good to go. You can search for brands, click on specific ads, and use filters to refine your search.
Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of using Facebook Ad Library.
Gain Inspiration
Facebook Ad Library can be a great place to find creative inspiration for your own ads. This is especially useful if you post often and find it hard to come up with fresh, original content. You can see what your competitors are posting, which formats work best, how users are interacting with their ads, and which posts are getting the most attention. This will help you create stronger, more creative posts that resonate with your audience and help you stand out, generating brand awareness and leads.
Find New Clients
Analyzing Facebook library ads can also be a great way to find new clients. You might conduct a search on the Facebook Ad Library and discover that your competitors aren’t using Facebook or Instagram to advertise. Or perhaps they are, but the general public isn’t interacting with their ads, or they are doing so in a negative way. This gives you a prime opportunity to capture the attention of your target demographic and tap into that exclusive online market.
Monitor Advertising Trends
If you work in marketing, then you will be all too aware of the importance of following advertising trends. Knowing your audience is step one in the marketer’s handbook, after all.
Conducting regular analyses of Facebook library ads to see what your competitors are posting and how their ads are being received is a great way to keep your finger on the pulse. By monitoring and understanding advertising trends, you will learn to identify patterns so that you can adapt your own advertising strategies. To get the most from this during your analysis, you should focus on imagery, messaging, offers and calls-to-action.
Content: What Works?
Facebook Ad Library is also a great place to analyze what content works best for your ads. What style and tone do your competitors use in their posts? Do they focus more on benefits or pain points? Are they more friendly or informative? Are your own ads as customer focused as those of your competitors? By checking into the Facebook archive often you can stay up to date on the best approaches for social media advertising and understand which key messages are gaining the most traction.
Artwork: What Works?
As important as your content is, your artwork might, arguably, be the most important factor in attracting the attention of potential leads. This is especially true when you consider that, although consumers spend an average of 2 hours, 25 minutes per day on social media, their attention span tends to be limited to 8 seconds. This means that when they glance at your ad, they will decide within milliseconds whether or not they can be bothered to read what you have to say. And this almost-instant decision is usually based on visuals and artwork.
Facebook Ad Library can help you work out which visuals create more of an impact. Does your audience interact more with videos or images? Does image quality make a difference? Are your own visuals relevant, engaging, and aligned with your copy?
By using Facebook Ad Library to collect data on your competitors and adapt your own advertising strategy, you can learn to create the perfect post that grabs the attention of your audience, motivates them to interact with your content, and encourages them to convert into leads, boosting your brand and business in the long run.
