How to find what's working in your competitor's ads

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Most founders use the Meta ads library to look at ad creative. That's the least useful thing you can do with it.

Every ad in the library has a live call-to-action button. Click it and you go wherever that competitor is actually sending their traffic. Product page, lead magnet, video sales letter, quiz funnel.

This matters because the ad is only half the picture. Two brands can run nearly identical creative and get completely different results based on where they send people and what that page does. When you only look at the ad, you're copying the wrapper and ignoring what's inside.

Before you go deep on any ad though, sort by impressions high to low. This is a recent update to the library. An ad being active for 18 months tells you nothing on its own. Plenty of ads sit in campaigns that are technically live but getting zero spend. High impressions tells you Meta was actually serving it.

Start there. Find the ads with the most impressions that have been running the longest. Click through. Map the funnel. That's months of your competitor's testing, handed to you at no cost.

Action Summary:

Credit: Ben Heath

Charles Chakkalo is an Amazon operator who started selling on the platform 15 years ago as a freshman in high school. He runs private label brands and a resale business, manages his own logistics, and attends 20 to 30 conferences a year.

In this podcast, he shared his playbook for DTC founders who are on the fence about Amazon and those just getting started.

You're already on Amazon, whether you like it or not

If you're not listed, your branded search traffic is going somewhere. Type your brand name into Amazon and see what comes up. Competitors and copycats show up in that space by default. Registering your brand and creating a basic fulfilled by merchant listing is enough to claim it back. .

Driving your own customers to Amazon isn't giving up data

Charles knows a brand that runs a three-email abandoned cart sequence. The third email, sent to anyone who still hasn't bought, links to their Amazon listing. Because the traffic comes from outside Amazon, it qualifies for the brand referral bonus, which brings the referral fee down from 15% to 5%.

Optimize your listing

Amazon's AI search layer, called Rufus, now handles around 15% of searches and surfaces listings that address what the customer is actually trying to solve. Write your title, bullet points, and description around the specific problem your product fixes, not just what the product is.

Action Summary:

🎧 Full strategy on: YouTube | Spotify | Amazon

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What does it take to turn a small startup into an industry-leading company?

In this inspiring member story, Dan Rootenberg shares how he transformed Spear Physical Therapy from a single treatment room into New York’s leading physical therapy brand.

Along the way, he learned that sustainable growth requires more than hard work. It requires the right structure, culture and leadership.

Discover how Vistage peer advisory helped Dan navigate pivotal business decisions, lead through uncertainty and build a company that achieved 50x growth while staying true to its values. His journey offers valuable lessons for CEOs looking to scale their business, strengthen their leadership and create lasting success.