Did you know that 63% of people say they bought from a brand after watching a YouTube ad? That’s how powerful video advertising on YouTube can be.
Plus, when you add competitive analysis to that mix, you can be unstoppable.
You need to know what your competitors are doing on YouTube if you want to grab their market share and be the logical choice for your target customers.
Thankfully, spying on your competitor’s YouTube ads is easier than ever thanks to Panoramata.
In this article, I will show you how to find your competitor’s video ads in a few steps on Panoramata and what else you can do after scoping out their ads.
Let’s get started.
Benefits of YouTube Competitor Ad Spying
What makes for a good YouTube ad? Effective ads on YouTube have a few things in common such as a powerful hook, integration of brand identity, good storytelling, and a clear call to action.
However, there’s no template for a great ad. You need to experiment and see firsthand what will work for your audience. You have to be creative. And that’s not as easy as it sounds.
What do I mean here by experimenting and being creative? In marketing terms, it’s all about A/B testing.
Segment your audiences. Publish multiple iterations of an ad. Tweak your copy and CTAs for each variation.
If that seems like too much work, here’s the good part: you can use your competitor’s ads as an experimenting ground, a petri dish of sorts, to improve your ad campaigns.
The following are a few use cases for analyzing your competitor’s video ads:
Learn about their advertising strategy and messaging
You can identify the tactics that are working and not working for your competitor. What messaging do they use? What visuals do they integrate?
Stay updated about industry trends and best practices for advertising in your niche
You can stay in the know when you monitor your competitor's video ads because they might be using the latest social media ad hooks or hopping on trends. You can also look at these ads as a source of best practices so you know what to do to create more engaging ads that convert.
Discover new audiences to advertise to or find gaps in the market that your competitor isn’t advertising to yet
With a competitive intelligence or ad analytics tool, you can often peruse audience insights or demographics your competitor is advertising to, as well as neglected segments that they aren't advertising to yet.
Use this as a discovery tool to find potential customers that you might have overlooked. Seize those gaps and find a way to fill them before your competitor does after you conduct ad competitor analysis.
Explore new ad formats
What formats, content angles, and ad hooks are you missing? Find the answer to this by tracking your competitor's ads.
Improve ROI for your ad spend
You'll want to minimize unnecessary spending and maximize your manpower and available resources. Tracking your competitor's YouTube ads helps you do this because you can analyze their successful campaigns and replicate them.
You do this reverse-engineering of their effective ad campaigns for free, saving you from doing trial and error until you find what works.
Spot areas for improvement in your YouTube advertising campaigns
You have to constantly improve your campaigns and one of the best tools to use is your competitors' ad campaigns. It will help you get a good look at what you're lacking and how you can improve.
As you can see, tracking YouTube ads will give you a leg up on the competition and help make you better marketing decisions that are backed by best practices and real-world campaigns.
How to Find Competitor Ads on YouTube
If you want to spy on YouTube ads, you can use either:
- Google Ads Transparency Center
- A competitive tracking tool such as Panoramata
Method 1: Google Ads Transparency Center
Google Ads Transparency Center (also known as Google Ad Library) was launched in 2023 and is a tool for competitor analysis. It allows marketers to explore a brand’s ads on the Google network, including search, display, and YouTube ads.
Here's how to use Google Ads Transparency Center to find your competitor's ads.
- Type "Google Ads Transparency Center" on your preferred search engine and click on the relevant result. Alternatively, click this link.
- Enter the advertiser name or URL of your competitor's website.
- Above the search bar, you can use filters to personalize your search or refine the results. You can.
- Select the time of ads published.
- Select a country or region.
- Select YouTube from the platforms toggle.
- Hit enter. You will see all YouTube ads published by the brand or company you've inputted.
In addition, you can also filter the ads by format. You can choose from:
- Image
- Text
- Video
However, note that using Google Ads Transparency Center does come with downsides.
Disadvantages of Google Ads Transparency Center
- Unverified advertisers will not show up in the search results. Advertisers have to go through a verification process before it can be displayed on Google Ads Transparency Center. If your competitor hasn’t completed this process, you won’t be able to view their ads.
- The ads are not updated in real time. Ads from verified publishers will show up in search results 48 to 72 hours after they are live.
- You can only search by advertiser name, not keywords.
- Unlike Meta’s ad library, Google Ads Transparency Center does not include ad versions. If there are multiple versions of the same ad, they will be listed individually and not as one group of similar ads.
- For a comprehensive analysis, you need to use Google Ads Transparency Center in conjunction with other tools.
We recommend Panoramata for tracking down your competitor’s ads on YouTube and other places like Google Display, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.
This saves you a lot of time because the ads are in one place, plus you can also monitor other pieces of their marketing strategy such as funnels and email newsletters on Panoramata, too.
Method 2: Ad Tracking and Competitive Intelligence Tools
Youtube competitor analysis tools will make tracking down your competitor's YouTube ads ten times easier. How do these tools work?
Competitive intelligence tools allows you to monitor your competitor's activity including but not limited to ads, search rankings, emails, and website traffic.
These tools go beyond the basic features of Google Ads Transparency Center because they can supply more data about each ad such as:
- Advanced filters
- Audience insights
- Views
- Likes
- Comments
- Ad performance metrics
- Ad placement
- Targeting strategies
- Landing pages for the ad
We recommend Panoramata for tracking down your competitor’s ads on YouTube and other places like Google Display, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest.
This saves you a lot of time because the ads are in one place, plus you can also monitor other pieces of their marketing strategy such as funnels and email newsletters on Panoramata, too.
How to Track Competitor’s YouTube Ads Using Panoramata
Follow these simple steps to find YouTube ads on Panoramata.
Step 1: Go to Ads Search on the leftmost panel.
Step 2: Type in your competitor’s name on the search bar.
Step 3: Then, click on Network and select YouTube.
You can see each ad’s creation data and play the ad right from the results page.
You can also save the YouTube ad to a list for future reference and for sharing with your team.
Check which ads have been running for the longest time. That tells you that that particular ad is working well for your competitor.
How to view your competitor’s other (non-YouTube) ads on Panoramata
Step 1a: To view your competitor’s ads on other networks, follow the previous steps and uncheck YouTube in the Network dropdown menu on the results page.
Step 1b: Alternatively, go to their brand page on Panoramata by clicking Brands Search and selecting your competitor from the list.
Step 2: Then, once you land on your competitor’s page, click on the Ads tab.
There, you can view:
- The number of ads detected in the last 90 days
- The networks their ads are being published on
- The types of assets for their ads (image or video)
- The most popular words used in their ads
- A search bar with filters for dates, active status, asset type, and ad network
Step 3: You can type a keyword in the search bar such as Christmas or “buy one get one” to see ads related to that search term.
Step 4: Use the filters to narrow your search and sort the results by:
- Newest first
- Oldest first
- Most popular
- Most detected
Best Practices When Tracking Your Competitor’s YouTube Ads
Monitoring your competitor's ads is one thing but getting useful insights from the data you collect is another thing entirely. Here's what you can do with the information you have on your competitor's ad campaigns.
Benchmark your ad publishing frequency
Measure how many ads your competitor has been publishing and compare it to your ad publishing frequency.
If they are publishing considerably more ads than you do, try increasing your ad publishing frequency.
Look at ad publishing duration
Look at how long the advertiser has been publishing that ad and if there are multiple variations of the same ad.
Check which ads have been running for the longest time. That tells you that that particular ad is working well for your competitor because brands often continue their best performing ads until they no longer work as well.
In the same vein, look at which ads have been running the shortest (ex. They stopped publishing that ad in less than a month). That tells you that that particular creative, angle, or copy does not work for your audience.
Find ideas and inspiration
Take note of the types of ads that have worked for your competitor before (see previous step) and then use those insights to improve your YouTube ads. Consider the following:
- Video ad formats
- Types of offers
- Messaging
- Which part of the funnel is targeted
- Creatives
Again, observe which elements are being used repeatedly. Is your competitor always using a "get ready with me" ad featuring influencers? Do they have a go-to font or visual style? What's their most used CTA?
Compare the products they're promoting in their ads to the ones they're promoting in their emails. Are they the same or different?
What audience are they targeting with a particular ad and how do they do this? Also, after a viewer sees the ad and clicks on it, what page are they directed to? If it's a landing page, what elements are on the page that are designed to convert visitors?
These are just some questions you can get started with to mine ideas and find the most effective techniques.
Remember tracking your competitor’s YouTube ads is just the first step. You have to monitor their ads for insights, track them over time, and use your findings to keep testing and experimenting!
Frequently Asked Questions
1. How can I find my competitor’s YouTube ads?
You can locate competitor ads by using a competitor tracking tool like Panoramata or the Google Ads Transparency Center.
2. What should I look for in competitor YouTube ads?
Focus on ad elements like format, length, messaging, and call-to-action to understand what’s working for your competitors. Tracking engagement metrics, such as views and comments, can also provide insights into audience reactions.
3. Are there tools specifically for tracking YouTube ads?
Yes, several marketing intelligence tools (like Panoramata) can help track YouTube ads and provide data on ad spend, targeting, and performance. These tools give you an edge in benchmarking your strategies and identifying potential content opportunities.
