The Power of Storytelling in Marketing: How to Write Stories That Sell

Your ads have the power to promote your brand and sell your products or services. Not only do they connect with your target audiences, but they also influence these consumers’ purchase or hiring decisions. However, they have to stand out in a sea of competition.

The biggest questions are: Why do the competitors in your industry attract more prospects and convert more customers than you? What do they do with their ads differently from you? It’s time to employ a competitor analysis and optimize your copies!

Don’t worry—This page provides a series of steps for your competitor analysis. Learn how to map and analyze your competitor’s conversion funnel using only public data. Read below.

Key Steps To Take for Your Competitor Analysis

It’s crucial to master advertising for engagement and conversion. However, performing a competitor analysis is one of the most effective ways to achieve your objectives.

As the name suggests, this strategy involves analyzing your competitors to identify what works for them and how you can apply these tactics to optimize your own ad copies.

However, what better way to streamline your competitor analysis implementation than to focus on the conversion funnel? Doing so lets you discover the following key insights:

• Customer journey pain points—Where users drop off
• Target audiences and segmented leads—Who they’re targeting
• Content messaging and positioning—How they position their offer
• Pricing structure and value proposition—What pricing model they use
• High-performing conversion strategies—Which strategies actually convert

From there, you can test some of their strategies, adopt the best practices, and tweak your tactics—here and there. By doing so, you can beat the competition in your industry for increased engagements and high conversions.

That said, here’s how to map and analyze your competitor’s conversion funnel:

1. Identify the ad-to-landing-page flow

Before optimizing your ad copies to beat the competition, you have first to know your competitors. This entails tracking the initial funnel flow from the ads to the landing pages. Then, later in the process, you can determine what makes users stay or leave the web pages.

To get started, follow the crucial steps below.

• Collect live ad creatives. Find active ads on digital platforms like Google, Meta, LinkedIn, or TikTok. See how the one effective yet witty ad below appears on the search engine results page (SERP) when users search for ‘Freshbooks.’

• Follow the click path. Whether on Google, social media, or other online platforms, track the ad URLs to identify the landing pages they lead to. From there, you can perform the investigation.
• Analyze messaging consistency. Finally, review how the ad copy aligns with the landing page headlines and call-to-action (CTA) buttons. Do they match? If yes, this means the ads are effective in driving traffic and attracting prospects.

Fret not—There are free tools you can use to track your competitors’ advertising campaigns. However, what better way to optimize this process than to leverage the best Google ads competitor analysis tool?

Enter BigSpy, a free tool used for spying on competitors, as the name would suggest. This database collects and records tons of ads across multiple platforms. More importantly, it allows you to monitor and analyze these ad creatives. Lastly, it enables you to conduct deep market research in your industry.

2. Map the conversion funnel journey

The next step is to perform a conversion funnel mapping. This lets you track the journey from the time prospects click the ads to the time they check out your products. This enables you to optimize every stage of the funnel later on in the process.

In general, the customer or buyer’s journey goes through the following steps:

• Awareness—The user sees the ad.
• Interest—The user explores the landing page.
• Decision—The user considers the offer.
• Action—the user clicks CTA, signs up, or checks out.

But on a specific note, your conversion funnel journey will most likely consist of the following processes:

• Ads: Ads are the first touchpoint. They are designed to grab attention and drive clicks from your target audience.
• Landing page: The landing page builds interest. This happens by explaining the offer and guiding visitors toward a specific action.
• Call-to-action: The CTA pushes users to take the next step. Think of prompting them to click the button, sign up, or subscribe to your channel.
• Checkout: This is where users provide payment or complete a form. Any friction here can lead to drop-off.
• Confirmation: A smooth confirmation page reassures users their action was successful. This often sets up the next step (like onboarding or sharing).

3. Analyze drop-off points using public signals

After identifying your competitors and mapping the journey, you’re now ready to evaluate the ad creatives versus the conversion rates. However, it’s crucial to pick the right key performance indicators (KPIs) for advertising and marketing.

In this case, assess the ads’ drop-off points using the following public signals:

• Page load times and performance: Slow pages often cause users to bounce—check with tools like GTmetrix or PageSpeed Insights.
• Page structure and friction: Cluttered layouts or too many steps can lead to user frustration and drop-off.
• User reviews and complaints: Feedback on review sites or forums can highlight common pain points in the funnel.
• Cart abandonment prompts: Retargeting ads or follow-up emails suggest users are exiting at checkout.
• Sudden UI or UX changes: Recent design changes may indicate previous issues with conversion performance.
• Ad copy and landing page discrepancy: If the ad promise doesn’t match the landing page, users may leave quickly.

To streamline this process, you can leverage public web analytics. Free tools like Google Analytics can reveal high bounce rates and weak engagement signals. The integration of advanced technologies, such as automation and artificial intelligence (AI), can make the entire process much easier, faster, and more results-driven.

4. Compare the competitors’ copies to your own

At this point, you’ve reached the most critical part—ad comparison. This step involves comparing your own ad creatives to high-performing ad copies. This unravels their best practices for advertising and helps you identify your areas of improvement.

That said, here are the key elements to consider for your ad comparison:

• Headline hook: Do their ads grab attention more effectively? Have a glimpse of this straightforward ad with a compelling headline stating how buying and selling is quite simple!

• Value proposition: Are they more value-driven or compelling? That’s why most ads are benefit-oriented by showcasing what they can bring to the table.
• Calls to action: Are they action-oriented and direct? Create the perfect CTA like the one below—it’s backed up with reviews and ratings!

• Emotional triggers: Are they using urgency, FOMO, or social proof? Ads that appeal to human emotions are more likely to attract and win customers!
• Offers: Are they using incentives or free trials more effectively? Look at this ad offering a $80 discount for having cooked meals delivered right to your doorsteps!

• Tone and format: Is theirs more aligned with your shared audience? How you convey and present the message in your ad copy can make a difference in your traffic, engagement, and conversion!

Paying attention to how competitors tailor their messaging—even in subtle details like bios or taglines—can give you creative direction. For instance, reviewing curated Instagram bio ideas can inspire more compelling phrasing in your headlines and social ad intros, especially if your target audience overlaps heavily with social media users.

5. Analyze and optimize supporting elements

The conversion funnel journey begins with your published ads and culminates in successful conversions. And somewhere in between, you assess various drop-points for your competitor analysis.

However, you should also analyze and optimize other critical aspects of the funnel journey. They will help contribute to your overall success. That said, here are other supporting elements to consider:

• Email Sequences: Do your competitors use nurturing sequences? Beyond just engaging follow-ups for enhanced lead nurturing, effective email management is key. This includes maintaining comprehensive records of communications, which can be crucial for understanding customer journeys, compliance, and even future ad retargeting strategies. Efficient email archiving solutions are essential here, ensuring that valuable conversational data is securely stored and readily accessible for analysis, contributing to a more robust and insightful competitor funnel assessment.
• Retargeting ads: What ads do you see after visiting their site? Do you see follow-up ads from the same brand? Chances are, they’re performing remarketing this time!
• Content strategies: Are they using blogs, videos, or guides to drive conversions? If clueless, consider Forbes’ list of high-converting content types linked to your ad creatives:

• Technology stack: What tools or platforms are powering their funnel? As mentioned, modern technologies are all at your disposal—see what’s best for your advertising campaign!

6. Track, record, test, and adapt ad creatives

Finally, you’ve reached the last step—optimizing your ad campaigns after your competitor analysis. With all the valuable insights gained, you can now refine your ad copy for better engagement and higher conversion rates. However, this process requires the following steps:

• Check for new ads. Monitor ad libraries regularly for updates. As you may know, your competitors are constantly producing and publishing ad creatives on various platforms.
• Document everything. Create a swipe file or funnel map for each competitor. Streamlining your process can ensure a smooth and effective competitor analysis process.
• A/B test your landing pages. Test variations of high-performing elements. Take Expoze’s web page background testing, for example: The web design change from variant A to B using an AI-generated eye-tracking tool led to a 25% increase in CTA clicks.

• Adapt best practices. Adapt and iterate based on what proves effective in your space. You probably need to make your headline more compelling, use power words in your CTA, or focus more on your value proposition.

Wrapping Up

Optimizing your ads is crucial for increased engagement and successful conversions. However, these ads should stand out amid the tight competition in your industry. That’s where employing a competitor analysis comes into play!

That said, follow our crucial steps above for mapping and analyzing your competitor’s conversion funnel. The valuable insights gained from these maps and analyses should guide you in implementing best practices, testing your current strategies, and optimizing your ad copies.

With your competitor analysis in place, you can beat the industry competition and get ahead of the curve!

BigSpy offers a free ad spy tool to help you track and analyze your competitors’ strategies so you can optimize your own ad copies for engagements and conversions. Sign up today to get started for free!