Transparency = Competition Analysis

Your client has requested for a competitive analysis or you're pitching for social media business and need to do a social media audit - Well isn't that mostly the scene on the agency side? From a brand perspective, keeping tabs on competition with the help of listening tools only limits the listening to the competition's content and not ads. Unfortunately, it wasn't easy to populate your presentation/report with much data but thanks to the regulations on transparency, we now have visibility on active ads by brand pages!

Finding out what ads your competition is serving is just click away!

You will now see an "Info & Ads" tab on Pages that will list all the active ads running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Facebook's partner networks. Although the visibility is limited to ads that are LIVE, this will help both agency and brand reps set a game plan.

Similarly on Twitter, if you visit the recently launched Ad Transparency Center you can search for the twitter handle and view all ads that are currently running on Twitter including Promoted-only Tweets. If an ad was suspended by Twitter's ad team, the reason of the same will be stated as well. Although not applicable in the middle east, it is good to know that if the campaign is for federal elections, audience targeting will be accessible.

Unlike facebook, Twitter shows tweets that were promoted in the last seven days.

How does this impact us?

From an agency POV - Competitive analysis will get meaty with more information and details on current standings.

From a brand POV - A great opportunity to audit competitor's creative

From a consumer POV (Yes, there is a consumer POV as well!) - Users can report ads that are misleading, spam, suspicious or inappropriate.

In addition to showing active ads, this tab will share a detailed information on the Page, including its creation date and if there have been any recent name changes to the Page which is important keeping in mind a lot of FAKE pages are created and renamed to match the style of a credible brand.

From a brand POV, although you have the power to stalk your competition, the ground is leveled.

Competition can also review active ads running on your page so make sure the quality of ads is the best for its time!

NOTE - Don't expect to see performance metrics, budgets and targeting. Facebook and Twitter will not really strip down to these details.

Outcome

1. Great opportunity for startups to share references with their freelance designers.
2. Agency get to review their level of creativity for their brand.
3. Brands get a space to plan and plot their next campaign and messaging.
4. Users have control to report ads that can be misleading.

All in all, a great move by facebook and twitter to better the experience of ads and maintaining the steady flow of revenue :)

Do share your thoughts. I'd like to hear from you! @HamiVlogs

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Hameed Yousuf is a passionate digital marketer by profession, Youth Media Council member under the National Media Council and a budding entrepreneur. He has been a digital obsessive for over a decade, consulting prominent brands and startups on their visibility in the digital world. He was titled as Middle East’s Top Media Talent aged under 30 by CampaignME and managed successful initiatives for the government of UAE and India - Expo 2020, #happydubai and International Yoga Day. He has also strategized digital campaigns for luxury brands, hoteliers, airlines, financial institutions, autos, retail and FMCGs. Apart from his day job as a Digital Account Director @ BPG Group, he is a guest lecturer at universities, content writer for prominent digital channels and TV presenter for a tech and gadget review show called Wikitechie. He is also known as Hami Vlogs on social media where he vlogs about tech, cars, gadgets, people’s achievements and CSR activities.

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