Tracking and analyzing all your competitors' ads manually is a total time sink – it can seriously feel like a full-time job if you let it.
Specifically if you're trying to figure out their hooks, angles, emotions, unique selling points (USPs), and their overall creative ideas.
Understand the audience
Before you can analyze an ad's creative, you need to understand who it's for. Every effective ad is tailored to a specific audience based on their awareness level in the marketing funnel:
- Top of the Funnel (TOFU): This audience is unaware they have a problem or that a solution exists. Ads targeting this group are educational and designed to build awareness.
- Middle of the Funnel (MOFU): This group knows they have a problem but aren't yet motivated to act. Ads here aim to nurture interest and build trust.
- Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU): These are your warmest leads. They are ready to buy and just need to be convinced that your solution is the best choice. Ads for this segment are direct and conversion-focused.
The core components of a successful ad
Every ad can be broken down into six key elements. By analyzing each one, you can understand how the ad is constructed to persuade the viewer.
- Trigger/Hook: This is the attention-grabber, especially crucial in the first 3 seconds of a video.
- Angle: This is how the solution is presented. Is it focused on a benefit, a price point, or social proof?
- Story: The narrative of the ad, often following a simple problem-solution structure.
- Message: The core piece of information the ad is trying to communicate.
- Style: The visual format, such as User-Generated Content (UGC), a product collage, or a polished lifestyle shot.
- Media: The content type, whether it's a static image, a video, or a carousel.
Leverage hooks & emotions
The most effective ads connect with viewers on an emotional level. Look for these common, powerful hooks in your competitors' ads:
- Fear: Tapping into a customer's anxieties or "fear of missing out" (FOMO).
- Fun & Humor: Creating a positive and memorable brand association.
- Inspiration: Showing the viewer what's possible.
- Future You: Painting a picture of what the customer's life will look like after using the product.
- Surprise: Using an unexpected visual or message to break through the noise.
- Identity: Appealing to a customer's sense of self and belonging.
And the main emotions you can play with in ads are: happiness, sadness, disgust, anger, fear, bad (negative), and surprise
Automate this!
Manually tracking all these elements across multiple competitors and platforms is a monumental task. This is where a competitive intelligence platform like Panorama becomes essential. It automates the process by:
- Automatic Tracking and Classification: Panorama tracks all your competitors' ads and automatically classifies them, telling you their main USPs and the emotions they're using.
- Deep Dive into Specific Ads: For each ad, you can see details like its theme, story, style, and what specific hook and angle it uses. For example, for a Javi Coffee ad, it might tell you it's a UGC video, comparing Javi to Starbucks, and its USP is "low calories/save money".
- Statistical Overviews: It gives you statistics on all recent ads from a competitor. You can see things like what percentage of their ads mention "protein" or if they're heavily using a comparison theme.
- Smart Filtering: You can easily filter ads by specific hooks (like FOMO or curiosity), style (like all UGC ads), or USPs (like all ads mentioning "testimonials," "discounts," or "softness" for fashion brands, or "3-in-1 supplement" for a vitamin company).
- Compare Brands: The platform also helps you compare competitive brands to see which USPs or hooks they're focusing on.
Basically, the whole point is to gather this data easily and understand your competitors' creative strategy so you can inform your own creative approach. It saves you from manually sifting through ads and trying to figure this all out yourself. It's a newer feature, but sounds super useful for dissecting ad strategies.
