A significant part of any business owner is to keep an eye on the competition. They are doing the same: trying to spy on your marketing strategies, on your ads and on the ways in which they can use your own tactics to steal your customers. It is a guerrilla war on the internet and it will never stop.
So you need to figure out what weapons to use to defend your business and your customers from your competitors’ wild tactics. One prominent battlefield of this kind is Facebook™. We have already shown you how to spy on your competitors’ Facebook™ ads.
Today we will help you understand the math behind Facebook™ ads so you can devise ways to beat your competitors.
Keep Your Enemies Close
The first piece of advice we have for you, before we go into the topic, is to be constantly aware of your competitors’ social media activities. Follow and Like their pages if you do not use other social media monitoring tools and pay attention to their high performing posts and ads. They are a valuable source of inspiration for you.
It is not imitation – at the most you find inspiration just as they are tapping into your content for sources of inspiration. It is all about keeping your customers happy and not getting them lured by the competition with better offer. It is not a nice and fair competition and there are no medals. However, losing it means reduced profits and maybe even being forced out of business.
These being said, here are some ways in which you can ensure that your Facebook™ ads are beating your competitors’:
1. Include their Followers In Your Audience Base
A simple and effective tactics to have one up against your competitors is to show your ads to their Facebook™ followers. This means that people who are already interested in a specific type of products are shown a better offer and can make a comparison with what they are already getting from the other company.
Speaking of technical details, you can select this group of users by adding the competitor’s brand name among the interests of your target audience. The more targeted this audience is, the higher your chances to get some of your competitors’ clients to move into your camp.
2. Pay Attention to the Bidding Method
When we get down to the basics, it is all about the money in Facebook™ advertising as in every other area of your business. In a situation where you and your competitors show ads to the same audience groups at the same hours of the day and days of the week, how much you bid for your ads makes you the winner.
It is indicated to forego the Automatic bid option and choose the Average Manual one instead. This tells Facebook™ how much you would pay for a click or conversion on average, i.e. in relation with how your direct competitors are bidding.
3. Keep Ahead of the Game with Lookalike Audiences
How to beat your competitors in Facebook™ advertising without spiralling into a bidding war? Reach new potential customers before they do. This is why Lookalike Audiences are so important when you are setting up your target ad audience.
This group of people is filtered and selected by the Facebook™ algorithm using the selection criteria you used in the past for guidance. While some of these users may be among your competitors’ customer base, chances are you will be the first to reach others. While this is not a guarantee of winning a loyal customer, it gives your ads an extra edge compared to your competitors’.
4. Understand the Average Engagement Values for Your Niche
Last, but not least, look at the numbers and see how your ads stand compared to your competitors’. Many of the ad spying tools you can use will show you how they perform (click through rate, cost per click, conversion rate). By comparing them to your numbers and to the average values for your niche, you can have a clear picture.
You can discover current ad performance benchmarks for each social media platform by doing a simple online search. These aggregate data are collected by marketers and market research specialists and help you understand how your industry and niche stands in terms of advertising expenditure and whether you fall close or away from the benchmark.