In the digital world, ad quality (text, image, video) is critical, and the benefits of competitive intelligence are many.

Defining industry standards for advertising, drawing inspiration, measuring yourself against competitors... It's important to regularly conduct digital benchmarks to make sure your ads are among the best.

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Let's look at which free tools let you run comprehensive benchmarks and competitive research across different ad platforms, starting with paid social, then paid search.

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How to benchmark on paid social

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Paid social advertising follows specific codes. It's important to follow certain best practices. Meta, TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, LinkedIn: there are many platforms to cover for a complete paid social benchmark, and not all of them let you view ads by advertiser. Several tools and techniques exist for comprehensive competitive monitoring.

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Sample results from a search in the ad library.

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Once in the Meta Ads Library, enter the target geography and the advertiser name, and browse all ads currently running on the Meta network. You can even see which platforms each ad is running on. Pro tip: set a wide date range and scroll down to find the ads that have been running the longest — those are the ones that perform best.

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With over 800 million users worldwide and more than 23 million in France, LinkedIn has become the go-to professional social network. Benchmarking on LinkedIn is especially valuable if you operate in a B2B sector.

To view ads running on LinkedIn from a specific advertiser, you don't need to leave the platform. Go to the advertiser's LinkedIn page, navigate to the Posts section, and select Ads. You'll find all active ads across the various formats available on LinkedIn.

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TikTok

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Have you discovered the TikTok Creative Center? Under the Ads section, you'll find the top-performing ads on the platform. Numerous filter options let you refine your benchmark by industry and draw inspiration from the best creatives on this fast-growing ad platform.

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Pinterest is a platform with its own distinct codes, and it's important to follow certain best practices to run effective ads there. To draw inspiration or run a benchmark on Pinterest, you have two options:

The first is to visit Pinterest Trends: search for keywords and explore their popularity trends, audience data, and more. Scroll down the keyword page to find the Popular Pins section.
The second option is to browse the saved pins on the @europins profile. This account is curated by Pinterest Account Managers, who compile the best pins by country and industry vertical.

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Organic social

Fanpage Karma is a social media analytics tool. Take advantage of the free 14-day trial to compare your performance against competitors or get insights into advertising in your sector. Go to the Discovery section to find the top-performing posts by industry, geography, and more. Watch this video to see how Fanpage Karma can help you benchmark organic posts.

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How to benchmark Google ads

Google

Did you know that Google makes all ads running on its ad network publicly available? Text ads on the search network, display ads, video ads on YouTube... A complete digital benchmark is just a few clicks away through the Ads Transparency platform. This feature isn't secret, just a little hidden. You can access an advertiser's Ads Transparency page directly from one of their ads. The easiest approach is to search on Google for keywords related to your target advertiser (the brand name is usually the best shortcut). Once you find an ad, click the small arrow shown below.

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If the advertiser has a verified account, the option "See more ads this advertiser has run on Google" will appear. You'll be redirected to the Ads Transparency platform, where you can filter results by geography, time period, and ad format: image, text, or video. Note that ads generated by Performance Max campaigns will not be visible.

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If your target advertiser isn't running paid search ads, you can visit their website and hope to be retargeted with a display or video ad, which will later give you access to their Ads Transparency page.

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Want expert support for your digital marketing strategy? Don't hesitate to reach out!