See your competitors’ paid ads and save thousands on marketing.
About three months ago Facebook released an awesome free tool that allows anybody to see the ads companies are paying to advertise on Facebook.
In this post I will:
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Explain the basics of Facebook advertising
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Demonstrate the new tool that allows you to spy on your competition
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Show how you can steal ideas for marketing your own practice or business
What’s Facebook Advertising?
Since its inception, Facebook has received income from paid advertising.
In the first quarter of 2018 it reported $11.97 billion USD in revenue, the majority from paid ads.
When we scroll through our feed we see posts from our friends and groups. But there is a third category- sponsored posts- these are paid ads.
Any entity with a Facebook page and an approved ad account can pay for a sponsored post.
This will typically aim to
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Raise awareness of a product or service
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Drive visitors to their Facebook page, Website or signup page
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Attract engagement in the form of comments, likes and shares to leverage the network effect.
Many companies pay huge amounts of money to online marketing agencies to craft the ads and manage their ad account.
Read on to discover how you can see exactly what ads they’re paying to push out…..
Enter Facebook’s Free Tool
I’ve been using Facebook ads for years. Mainly its been to:
1. Onboard practitioners for my directories www.chinesemed.com.au and www.chinesedoctor.com.au
2. Get patients to book in with my GPs by sending them to our online booking platform
3. Promote Affiliate products and CPA back in the day when the competition was low
So I’ve spent countless hours trying to come up with ad text and images that convert. I’ve never used an agency and just learnt how to do it through the school of hard knocks- and cash burn.
Because I’m not a trained copywriter, marketer or graphic designer, creating ad copy is hard work. But now there is an easy way to learn from the big boys- for free.
Big companies like Disney, Nike and BMW all have huge marketing budgets and hire the best copywriters in the world. So do big health institutions like the Mayo Clinic and Harvard Medical School.
A few months ago Facebook gave us an amazing tool that allows us to see the ads companies are promoting on Facebook. It gives us the opportunity to see what the big boys and our direct competitors are doing so we can Rip, Pivot and Jam.
I have an iPhone 8 and this definitely also works on the Plus version. For some reason the iPhone X doesn’t allow this feature. I don’t know about Android and it doesn’t seem to be easily accessed on desktop.
Spy, Rip. Pivot. Jam.
Accessing this tool is simple from your iPhone.
Spy
Say I want to create an ad for my clinic or business- I can spy on my competition and the ads of similar clinics across the globe- to get ideas
Say I want to checkout what the Mayo Clinic is promoting.
Step 1. I simply type Mayo Clinic into the search bar and go to their Page.
See the Mayo Clinic facebook page below.
Step 2. Then Ill click on the little “i” in the lower right of the cover photo
Step 3. Next I click active ads
Step 4. I choose what country I want to see the ads Mayo Clinic is running in then I can see all of their current paid ads. In this case I will choose United States.
Step 5. These are the ads they are paying real money to push into the Facebook feed.
That’s how simple it is!
Rip
Now we have ideas from the best marketers in world served to us on a plate!
You can use these ads to get inspiration for your next marketing campaign, Facebook post or article for your blog. The headlines, ad copy, call to action and images are all there.
Pivot
Using the text and image elements we can make small tweaks to fit our audience and customise our own campaign.
We simply modify the text and find a suitable image from our own photo collection or get a free stock image from unsplash.com or pixabay.com.
Jam
Take the text and image combo then blast it out to the world as a paid ad or free post on your social media page.
Why not checkout some of your competitors or big companies to see what they are paying to advertise on Facebook?
The results might just amaze you.
‘Til next time.
Live Life. Laugh Lots. Be Epic.
Andrew
