Target Facebook ads to competitor’s audience

1. Create a new Facebook campaign.

Go to your Facebook Ads Manager. Click on +Create to launch a new campaign creation. Select the campaign goal, for example Conversions, if you have an e-commerce shop, and click Continue. Name the campaign, for example Competitor XYZ Fans, and click Next.

2. Use interests targeting to research the audience of your competitor.

In the Ad Set view click on Edit next to Detailed targeting. Start typing the keywords relevant to your competitors. Start with the competitor’s website for the best results. Use both the competitor’s company name and the names of the main products. For example, you can target Apple Inc. as well as iPhone or iPad. Select the relevant interests suggested by Facebook. If no relevant results are displayed your competitor’s audience might be too small to target.

3. Use Audience Insights to further understand what your competitor's fans like or are interested in.

Go to https://www.facebook.com/business/insights/tools/audience-insights to access Facebook Audience Insights. Under Interests enter the name of your competitor or your competitor products. Click on Page likes to see what categories and pages your competitor’s audience likes. Click on Activity to see what devices your competitor’s audience uses. Click on Demographics to learn about the gender, age, educational status, and relationship status, of your competitor’s audience.

4. Use the Facebook Audience Insights to tailor your ads targeting the competitors' audience.

For example adjust the gender and age targeting based on the audience insights. Create an ad text that is related to the interest of your competitor’s audience.

5. Segment the audience and test different targeting methods in separate ad sets to see which performs best.

Test users interested in products of your competitor, against the users interested in the brand. Test different locations or demographic groups in separate ad sets. Scale the best-performing ad sets by increasing budgets.