How To Find Competitors' Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Twitter Ads

Have you ever seen a Facebook Ad from a competitor, or a brilliant campaign from a brand you follow and used it to expand your own product roadmap or brainstorm a new campaign? One of our best sources of marketing inspiration, is doing just that - tracking what our competitors or top brands are doing with their Facebook Ads 😎.
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In addition to Facebook, it's powerful to see how businesses run their paid acquisition strategy across multiple ad platforms, such as LinkedIn and Twitter.
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Monitoring your competitors' ad campaigns can give you key insights about what they're working on, from new product launches, to content they produce, to free tools they give away. Which is why it's a good idea to stay on top of what leading businesses in your industry are doing.
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It's also a great way to get juicy and creative ad ideas and best practices from brands you’re a fan of - and test them out for yourself 👨‍🔬.
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Below, we'll show you how to track & find competitors' ads across 3 major ad platforms using free tools: Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and Twitter Ads.
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How to Find & Track Competitors' Facebook Ads

Tool to use: AdInboxMe

💡 What it is: Get an email whenever a competitor or business you love launches a new Facebook Ad 💌. It's a tool our PixelMe team built, that automatically sends you an email alert with a link to your competitor's ad details in the Facebook Ad Library. So no more wasting time manually checking every competitor 🎉.
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💰 Price: Free.
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💥 How to get started:

• Visit AdInbox.Me
• Enter any company's Facebook Page URL. For example, Intercom is a business we love.
• Click on the "Alert Me" button that appears next to the business.
• Provide your name and email address and voilà! You'll get email alerts each time that business launches a new ad on Facebook 🔥.

💪 Pro tips
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• Enter multiple competitors as well as brands you follow to discover more campaigns.
• Let us know which other ad platforms you'd like to see us build next by sending us a chat message from the bottom blue icon! 💬

How to Find Competitors' LinkedIn Ads

Tool to use: LinkedIn Company Page profiles.
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💡 What it is: If you're a B2B company, you can easily see what your competitors or brands you use are advertising. It requires some manual work to find a company's LinkedIn Page, but they'll show any active ads that have been shown to at least one LinkedIn member in the past 6 months.
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💰 Price: Free.
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💥 How to get started:
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• Visit LinkedIn.com
• From the search bar at the top, enter in a company's name. For example, HubSpot is a CRM tool many of our customers use.

• When you get to the LinkedIn Company Page for that business, click on the Ads tab on the left-hand side.

• You'll then see a list of all active ads from that company over the past 6 months, whether or not they've been targeted to you 🎉. For instance, right now we can see HubSpot's LinkedIn Ads that they're targeting in European countries such as Spain and Germany.

• By default, the Ads tab won't show you engagement on a company's ads. To view engagement on a specific ad you find compelling and get a sense on how well it's performed, simply click the 3 dots in the top-right of the ad. Then, select "Copy link to post".

• You can then visit the individual LinkedIn Ad post to see all the reactions, comments, and even views on the ad! It's a fantastic way to understand LinkedIn Ads best practices to follow (or not follow).

💪 Pro tips
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• The Ad tab is available on desktop only, so you'll need to be on your computer to see your competitors' LinkedIn Ads 😉.
• Remember to take an extra step to view individual ads you're interested in replicating, to see its engagement and gauge how effective the ad has performed.
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How to Find Competitors' Twitter Ads

Tool to use: Twitter's Ads Transparency Center.
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💡 What it is: Twitter launched their Ads Transparency Center in 2018, and it lets you see any Twitter Ads being promoted by a business. You can simply search for any company's Twitter handle, and see all Twitter Ads from that profile from the past 7 days.
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💰 Price: Free.
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💥 How to get started:
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• Visit the Twitter Ads Transparency Center
• From the search bar at the top right, enter in a company's name. We're using Dropbox for this example.

• You'll then be able to scroll and see all promoted Tweets from that business in the past 7 days 🎉. This includes the creative (e.g. for video ads, just click to play the video), seeing multiple versions of an ad if the business is doing A/B testing, and viewing the number of retweets and likes.

• By default, the Twitter Ads Transparency Center won't show you people's comments or what time the Tweet launched. To view these on ads you like or that have high engagement, simply click on the date stamp at the top of a specific Twitter Ad.

• You'll then be able to see what time the Twitter Ad was tweeted, what people have commented, and how the business responds to people.

💪 Pro tips
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• Remember to click on the date stamp 📆 for any ads you find interesting or that have a lot of engagement (likes and retweets). This will let you see what people have commented and how they've responded to the ad, and can give you better ideas for creating more effective ads.
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Wrapping Up

So there you have 3 completely free tools to guide you in optimizing and launching your own amazing ads: AdInboxMe for Facebook Ads 🎯, the LinkedIn Company Page Ads tab 🏢, and the Twitter Ads Transparency Center 🐦.
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As a final word of advice, remember that what works for another business doesn't necessarily mean it'll translate to high conversions for your business.
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But collectively seeing what many competitors in your industry are doing can give you plenty of ways to improve your own ads, experiment with a hybrid of what other businesses have launched, and even try a totally new campaign strategy that gets sparked by tracking other ads 💥.
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Happy ad tracking! 🔎
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Want to track your ROI across ads platforms? Sign up for a free 7-day PixelMe trial 🎉. Or send us a message from the chat icon in the bottom-right corner! 💬
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