13 Best Facebook Ad Library Strategies for Ecommerce Success

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Imagine you're running an ecommerce store that sells stylish, eco-friendly outdoor gear. You’ve got killer products, a nice-looking online store, and a solid grasp of promoting your business on social media. When you launch your first Facebook ads campaign, the results are dismal. Instead of attracting your target audience of environmentally-conscious outdoor enthusiasts, you get a bunch of random clicks from people who are not interested in what you offer. For ecommerce businesses, Facebook ads can be the ticket to driving sales and recovering revenue lost during economic downturns or shifting market conditions. Of course, running Facebook ads isn’t as simple as creating an ad and hoping for the best. The key to success is understanding how to target your ideal customers with your ads to attract engaged users who are likely to convert. The Facebook Ad Library can help you do just that. This article will offer valuable insights on leveraging the Facebook Ad Library for facebook ecommerce campaigns and TikTok eCommerce strategy that outperform competitors, attract engaged customers, and drive higher sales.

Shophunter's Shopify sales tracker can help you achieve these goals by providing the data you need to optimize your Facebook ads.

What Is the Facebook Ad Library?

The Meta Ad Library is a searchable digital database containing information about ads currently running across:

Facebook

Instagram

Other Meta platforms

You can search the Meta Ad Library for ad categories related to your industry, including content on competitors and branded partnerships. Whether or not those ads are currently active, ads about various socio-political issues and elections are also in the database.

Why and When Should You Use Meta Ad Library?

Advertising on social media is a great way to meet customers where they’re at, and Facebook advertising is one of the most popular options for promoting your business online. But building your custom audience, setting your bidding strategy, and putting together your ad creative takes a lot of work.

The most successful advertisers start with research to help focus this work. In addition to Facebook Business Manager, it’s helpful to check out the Meta Ad Library (formerly known as Facebook Ad Library). This free research tool lets you see what other advertisers are up to and glean insights to apply to your ads.

How to Access the Facebook Ads Library

There are two main ways to access the Meta Ad Library.

The simplest way is to go directly to the URL (https://www.facebook.com/ads/library) and add your geographical location and other parameters in the search bar to conduct a Facebook ad search by criteria.

You can also access the Ad Library by viewing any Facebook Page and clicking See all under the Page transparency section. Then, select “Go to Ad Library” under the “Ads from this Page” section. This method will allow you to access the advertiser’s page directly in the Ad Library tool, but ultimately, both options will get you where you need to go.

How to Use Facebook Ad Library?

Accessing the Facebook Ad Library is easy. Follow these steps:

Go to facebook.com/ads/library

Choose a country (or all countries) and an ad category. For marketing purposes, we want the “all ads” category.

Use the search function to find specific keywords or pages. For example, writing “running shoes” will return ads about running shoes.

Click the “filter” button to refine results by:

Platform
Media type
Activity
Language and more

Note two things:

You can choose to see currently live ads and ads that have stopped running. Seeing which ads no longer run can be helpful; it lets you know which ad sets might no longer generate ROAS.

Note that the platforms may mean something other than what you think they mean.

Understanding Different Facebook Ad Placements: A Breakdown of Platforms and Where Your Ads Appear

Here’s a helpful chart:

Platform Description Facebook Ads that run on Facebook feeds, sidebars, etc.

Messenger Ads that run on Facebook Messenger but not on actual Facebook pages

Audience Network Ads on Facebook

Audience Network partner apps and websites

Instagram Ads that run on Instagram. Click on see ad details to see a full ad with full creative, CTA copy, etc

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13 Facebook Ad Library Strategies for Effective Competitive Analysis

Search for keywords related to your business in the Facebook Ad Library to start your research. This will help you find ads relevant to your:

Industry

Products

Niche

Look for trends and patterns in the results to help inspire your own Facebook ad strategy.

2. Check Out Your Competitors

Use Facebook Ad Library to gather intel on your competitors. You can search for specific brands to see what ads they are running to get the latest scoop on their marketing strategy.

3. Spy on Your Competitors' Ads

You can learn much about your competitors by thoroughly analyzing their Facebook ads. Look at their offers and promotions, the visuals and copy they are using, their calls to action, and any other relevant details that could inform your advertising.

4. Filter Ads by Country

Facebook allows you to filter Ad Library searches by country. If you operate internationally, this can help you find ads relevant to your target audiences in specific regions.

5. Track Ads Manually

While you can see when a Facebook ad first ran, you can gather a lot more information by tracking ads over time. For example, if you find a competitor’s ad running for several months, it’s likely performing well. To better understand your competitors’ performance, manually track their ads over time using a spreadsheet.

6. Find New Ideas

If you’re feeling stuck or uninspired, exploring the Facebook Ad Library can help you find new ideas for your next campaign. You might discover new trends or creative strategies to adapt for your ads.

7. Identify Seasonal Trends

Use Meta Ads Library to identify seasonal trends that can help you prepare for upcoming events. This can help you jump on your competitors and create relevant ads that resonate with your target audience.

8. More Advertisers than Ever Rely on Facebook to Promote Their Products and Services to Their Customers

Some veterans of Facebook advertising remember a time when costs on Facebook were cheap and ROI was unlimited. While Facebook advertising is still a worthwhile investment for most businesses, the constant influx of new advertisers is pushing costs up and making the network more competitive. Last year, in 2022, Meta announced that CPMs on Facebook Ads increased by 18%!

9. Find Opportunities to Stand Out

By searching for related ads within the Facebook Ad Library, you can find gaps to help your ads stand out.

10. Look at Offers and CTAs

Don’t just look at the creative materials being used. Take a close look at what your competitors are offering.

11. Analyze Your Ads

As Aristotle said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." You might not realize where your faults lie without turning a sharp, critical eye inward to my ads.

12. Find Out How Much Advertisers Have Spent

If you’re researching how much Meta and Facebook ads cost to determine how to set your budgeting and bidding, you can use Ad Library to see what others have invested in their ads.

As Meta continues its efforts to be more transparent, it has also dedicated special features to identifying ads about social or political issues. Misinformation is rampant online, so Facebook has flagged these types of ads.

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9 Best Practices for Leveraging the Facebook Ad Library

1. Identify What’s Working for Your Competitors

When you look at the Facebook Ad Library, you can’t see specific metrics like Click Through Rate or Cost Per Click. But that doesn’t mean this tool isn’t helpful. You can learn a lot about your competitors’ Facebook ads just by looking at what types of ads they’re using.

For example, if a competitor uses a lot of one type of ad (video, image, etc.), it’s probably working well for them. The same goes for ads that have been running for a while. The Facebook Ad Library shows you how long an ad has been online. The longer it’s been running, the more likely it is to be doing well.

2. Get Visual Inspiration from Other Ads

Stealing ads from competitors can lead to negative publicity and dilute your brand. Instead, pay attention to advertisements in other countries, niches, etc. There’s a good chance they will have visual elements you didn’t think of and can use for inspiration.

This can mean new colorways, new layouts, etc. And remember, you don’t just have to reuse what you see in ads. You can quickly turn insights into organic content (and pillars).

3. See Which Ads Are Running on Which Platforms

Some ad types work better on specific platforms. For example, successful ads on Instagram are almost entirely visual due to the nature of the platform. Look at where your competitors run each ad. This will give you a firm idea of what your target audience likes and responds to on:

Instagram

Facebook

Audience Network, etc.

4. Analyse Media Types Popular in Your Niche

Are your competitors using:

Lots of videos?

Infographics?

Illustrations?

Photos?

Pay attention to their actions and experiment with the same media types. For example, photos may be a thing of the post for most IG advertisers… But they still work well in many B2B niches. Analyzing media types in competitors’ ads will keep you on top of trends like that.

5. Keep Track of Competitors’ Offers

Knowing offers and discounts in your niche gives you a sense of the competitive landscape. If people are offering Christmas discounts, you should do that. The same goes for back-to-school giveaways, Black Friday deals, etc. It also helps to see the CTAs and links for each type of ad.

Is the competition taking people directly to sales pages or top-of-funnel content? Are they drumming up sales or generating leads? This can tell you a lot about the funnels popular in your niche.

6. See Which Ads Are No Longer Running

If an ad is no longer running, it might be because it’s not performing well anymore. You may want to avoid similar types of ads and the offers they lead to.

7. Don’t Steal Competitors’ Ads Directly

Not only is this unethical, but stealing ads wholesale doesn’t work. Your ads must be true to your brand, audience, etc. Plus, Facebook Ad Library doesn’t tell you who the competition is targeting—which is half the picture.

8. Experiment Before Investing in Anything You See

See a competitor running User-Generated Content ads on Instagram? Don’t invest too much money in creating equivalent ones. Instead, start slowly with an inexpensive Minimum Viable Project (MVP). If that works, invest more money. Use what others are doing for inspiration, but not as a blueprint.

9. Don’t Ignore Your Best Instincts

The FB ad library is a booster for your ad efforts, not a replacement for them. You know your audience. You know what will resonate with them the most. Trust yourself over anyone else when creating new campaigns.

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A Shopify sales tracker can help you discover trends early on so you can get ahead of the competition. First, it provides accurate sales estimates. This is especially important if you’re considering selling a product already offered by a competitor.

Instead of wasting time and resources on a product that might not sell, you can use a sales tracker to get an idea of how well the item performs. ShopHunter’s sales tracker for Shopify does just that. It even allows you to check sales data for specific products to help you validate their potential.