How to spy competitor Instagram ad targets...

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This newsletter is brought to you by the Social Media Marketing Society.

In today’s edition:

• Instagram Ads: How to Target Competitor Audiences (excerpt below)
• How to Easily Batch Videos for Reels, Shorts, and TikTok
• How to Optimize Instagram and Facebook Ads With Meta Advantage
• How to Rethink Facebook and Instagram Ad Strategy
• Getting Started With the Metaverse

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Before you begin building Instagram advertising audiences, take some time to research who your competitors are targeting.

To find the IG ads they're currently running, browse the Meta Ad Library. Start by searching and clicking on the company name.

By default, Meta displays all active ads being run on IG, Facebook, Messenger, and the Audience Network. To narrow your search, click the Filters button in the upper-right and select 'Instagram' from the platform drop-down menu.

If your competitors have a lot of active IG ads, you might want to narrow your search further. You also have the option to filter by language and media type including image, video, and memes.

If your competitors aren’t running any ads on IG or if you just want to see more ideas, type a keyword instead. You can use keywords related to your industry, products, or services to see thousands of related Instagram ads.

To get a closer look at any of the active IG ads content, click the See Ad Details button above the ad. From here, you can read the copy, watch the videos, and scroll through all of the active versions of the ad.

You can also visit the landing page for any of IG ads you see. Click the call to action embedded in the ad to load the landing page. From here, you can get even more data on your competitors’ offers and audiences.

Meta won’t reveal the exact audience targeting parameters your competitors are using but seeing these details can help you understand the types of people they’re targeting.

For example, you might determine that your competitors are using campaigns to target people who work from home. If that audience segment aligns with your ideal customer profile, then you might consider targeting them with your own ads.

To learn how to research competitors in the feed and discover six ways to serve your ads to competitor customer audiences, read the full article.