It was 2am in Cyprus. I couldn't sleep.
My competitor had just launched a campaign that was destroying us. Their ads were everywhere, converting like crazy, and I had no idea what they were doing differently.
So I did what any desperate entrepreneur does at 2am.
I opened Facebook and typed their company name into the Ad Library.
What I saw made me sick to my stomach.
Are you following along?
The 7-Year Playbook Sitting In Plain Sight
There it was. Every single ad they'd run since 2017.
Not just their current campaign.
Every headline they'd tested. Every image. Every video. Every audience experiment.
Their entire creative evolution laid out like a roadmap.
Winners. Losers. Everything.
All public. All free. All legal.
But it gets worse...
The Moment I Realized I'd Been Playing Blind
I started scrolling through years of their ads.
I could see their pivots. Their messaging evolution. Their seasonal strategies.
The headlines that worked. The ones that flopped.
Want to know what really killed me?
I could see them testing "$97" vs "$99" pricing in their ad copy.
Testing "Join 10,000+ entrepreneurs" vs "Join thousands of entrepreneurs."
Testing benefit-focused vs feature-focused messaging.
They'd done seven years of split testing.
And I could see all the results for free.
This is where it gets interesting...
The Kinda Like Moment
Looking at their Facebook Ad Library was kinda like finding their marketing diary.
Not just what they were doing now.
But every mistake they'd made. Every lesson they'd learned. Every strategy they'd abandoned.
While I was guessing at what might work, they were building on seven years of data.
And that data was sitting there, waiting for anyone smart enough to look.
Does that make sense?
Why This Hit Me Like A Truck
As I scrolled through hundreds of their ads, one thought kept hitting me:
I'd been reinventing the wheel while they left the blueprint sitting on their front porch.
Every "revolutionary" idea I had, they'd tested three years ago.
Every mistake I made, they'd made and learned from in 2019.
You probably want to know what I did next...
The €200K Counter-Attack
I spent the next three hours downloading their best-performing ad creative.
I analyzed their messaging evolution.
I identified the audiences they were targeting.
Then I launched my own campaign - not copying them, but building on their learnings.
Result: €200K in new revenue in 6 months.
Not from being original.
From being smart enough to learn from their public mistakes.
Why Most Entrepreneurs Miss This
You probably think competitive research requires expensive tools or insider connections.
Most successful entrepreneurs believe this. And even if you don't, here's why most people get competitive intelligence completely backwards.
They overthink it.
They buy $500/month tools for data that's sitting in free, public databases.
They hire agencies for insights they could get in 10 minutes.
But here's the thing...
The Truth About Competitive Intelligence
Your biggest competitors are leaving their entire playbook in public databases.
Seven years of split tests. Millions in ad spend learnings. All free.
Most entrepreneurs are too lazy to look.
The ones who do look don't know what to look for.
That's your opportunity.
Jan
