Product Discovery – Jeff Clark's Blog

Did you know that Facebook will let you search and view ads that your competitors are running on Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and the Facebook Audience Network?

Read below to see how, and skip to the bottom to see how to take advantage of it.

You can use this information to tweak your messaging, positioning or even your ads. Here’s how to do better competitive research, in real-time, using your own competitions paid advertising on one of today’s largest advertising platforms.

First, go to the Facebook Ad Library. You don’t need to be logged into Facebook to access this page.

Next, type your competitor’s name into the search box. Check to make sure that the “All” tab is checked, so you can see all the ads.

If they have run ads on Facebook you should see them presented on the next page. You can see here that UserInterviews is running a few ads on Facebook right now:

Each item on the page is a different ad they’ve run. Here’s one from Loop11:

For each ad, you can see when they started running it…

and icons for which platform where the ad ran. Here, this ad ran on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Facebook’s Audience Network:

You can also see the exact advertising headline and image they used to get attention.

Clicking “See Ad Details” button brings you to a details page about this ad, and the page it ran on.

In this case, you can see that Loop11 only has one ad running, but ran multiple versions of it:

So what can you do with this information?

Click the ad! Check out the funnel your competitors are sending their customers through. Should you change yours?
Take a look at the types of ads they’re running to analyze their positioning. How is this different than yours? Are they speaking the same way to the same audience you are?
You can assume that if the ad has been running for a month or more that it’s converting well. Assuming that long-running ads are working well for them, what combinations of headline and imagery has been working for them over the long term? How should you react to this?

BUT, hold on. Don’t spend too much time worrying about what your competitors are doing and copying it.

Instead of reading between the lines of everything your competition is doing, you’d be better of spending that time with your customers instead.

A more direct, and proven, way of understanding your customers is to talk to them directly. ListenKit makes it easy to coordinate and schedule conversations with your customers, so you can make better informed decisions before your competition.

See if ListenKit can work for you.

Designers, product managers and researchers agree: user research is insanely valuable, but getting it set up is a colossal waste of time.

Scheduling participants takes too much time, and that’s if you can get them to respond in the first place.

But, I have an email template that’s guaranteed to get you participants on the phone (or Zoom) today.

I’ve been using and iterating on some variant of this for years, and it’s never let me down. I haven’t had a problem getting customers (or potential customers) on the phone in a long time, and this template is a huge part of that success.

The quick keys to an effective email research request:

Sound friendly, be friendly. Everybody gets a ton of marketing and ad emails. An email written like it’s special will get attention.
Make it clear right up front that you’re not trying to sell them something. Again, everybody gets a ton of marketing emails, and you need to get meetings.
Make it short and succinct. You’re not the only email they’re getting right then.
Make the ask clear and easy to say yes to. Don’t make them work to understand what you want. Hitting archive on that email is too easy.

Here’s my template. Feel free to copy/paste and update it to match your specific scenario.

Subject Line: thom, got a couple minutes re: widgetco? [1]
Hi Thom-
I work at WidgetCo on a team that’s investigating offering a new widget to WidgetCo customers.[2] The widget isn’t in development yet (it’s only an idea at this point), but I’m hoping to talk to some Widget Managers in the area to begin gathering feedback on the idea. [3]
It would just be a conversation about your company, your widgets, and how you’re utilizing technology today to make them better [4]- not a sales pitch. [5]
Is there a day next week that I could come visit with you for a few minutes? How about Tuesday morning at 9am? [6]
Jeff [7]

Here’s why this template works:

All lower-case to imply that this isn’t spam. Use their first name, because everybody loves it. I add “re:” somewhere in the subject line to imply that this may have been an ongoing thread.
I quickly explain who I am, and why I’m reaching out. This works better if they are already familiar with the company, but actually works even if they’re not.
I tell them why I’m reaching out to them. They are a widget manager, I want to gather feedback from widget managers on something new. And new product development is very exciting! Saying that I’m investigating offering a new widget sparks that “new and shiny” thing that we all love deep down inside.
I explain to them what I want to talk about. There won’t be surprises here! These are topics they already know, increasing their confidence that it’s going to be valuable time spent for both of us.
This is key – but obviously won’t work if you are expecting to try to sell them something in the meeting. Make it very clear that this isn’t a sales pitch. Sometimes I even double-down on that, saying “this isn’t a sales pitch – I’m not in sales, and I don’t even have anything to sell you!”
Make as a specific ask as you can. I noticed that if I suggest a day and time, instead of a generic “what works best for you?”, I get a better response rate. (Pro-tip: if you’re emailing multiple people and looking to fill a few spots, use a tool like Calendly instead so you don’t overbook!)
This is controversial, but it works. First name only in your sign-off, no signature. (They will have your last name in the email header anyways.) This implies that you took time to write THEM this email directly. You’re on a first name basis now!

So there you have it. This template is part of the reason why user research or product discovery isn’t a big deal to me. (But I’d love to hear yours. Email me: jeff@clarkle.com)

I have other tricks up my sleeve to make user research easier and more valuable for your team. If you want to get an email when I share these, subscribe quickly here.