How to Analyze a Competitor Ad: An 8-Point Teardown Checklist With Worked Examples

To analyze a competitor ad, take it apart in a fixed order: the hook (how it earns the first seconds), the angle (why it says you should buy), the offer (what you get for acting now), the proof (why you should believe it), the format, the call to action, whether the landing page continues the same promise, and the context (where it runs and for how long). Score each part, then write one line on what is worth borrowing and one line on what you would do differently.

Without a checklist, analysis collapses into "I like it" or "it's a bit cheesy". Neither helps you write your next ad. This page gives you the checklist, a scoring sheet, and two worked teardowns of well-documented ads.

If you have not found the ads yet, start with how to see competitor ads. If you already analyze ads regularly and want to turn the findings into briefs, read the research-to-brief workflow.

The 8-point teardown checklist

Watch or read the ad three times before you fill anything in: once as a viewer, once with the sound off, once frame by frame.

1. Hook

The first line, first frame, or first three seconds.

• What is said or shown before the viewer could scroll away?
• What type of hook is it: a bold claim, a question, a callout ("If you run a Shopify store"), a pattern break, a before and after, a confession?
• Would it work with the sound off?

Classify the hook with consistent labels. The hook bank has 118 named frameworks you can use as a shared vocabulary, so "curiosity gap" means the same thing in every teardown.

2. Angle

The core argument for buying, in one sentence starting with "Buy this because".

• Is it about saving money, saving time, status, fixing a problem, avoiding a risk, identity?
• Who is the ad speaking to, and is that the person who uses the product or the person who buys it?

3. Offer

What the viewer gets for acting now.

• Discount, bundle, free trial, free shipping, guarantee, gift, or no offer at all?
• Is there urgency, and is it real (a date) or vague ("limited time")?

An ad with no offer is selling on angle and brand alone. That tells you something about the competitor's margins or positioning.

4. Proof

Why the viewer should believe the claim.

• Demonstration, testimonial, numbers, press mentions, expert endorsement, before and after, or nothing?
• Is the proof shown or only asserted? A product visibly doing the job beats a sentence saying it works.

5. Format

• Static, carousel, UGC video, founder video, demo, animation?
• Aspect ratio and placement (9:16 for Reels and Stories, 4:5 for Feed)?
• Length, pacing, captions, on-screen text?

Our formats library breaks down the common ones if you need reference points.

6. Call to action

• What exactly is the viewer asked to do, and is it a single action?
• Does the line before the button set it up, or does the CTA appear from nowhere?

7. Landing page match

Click through (on Meta, the ad card links to the destination; the Google Ads Transparency Center does not let you click through, so search the brand's site instead).

• Does the headline on the page continue the promise the ad made?
• Is the offer from the ad visible without scrolling?
• Is it a product page, a quiz, a long sales page, a listicle, or the homepage?

Mismatches here are the most common weakness you will find in competitor ads, and the easiest to beat.

8. Context

• Which platforms and placements does it run on?
• How long has it been running? The Meta Ad Library shows when each ad started running.
• How many variations share the same creative?

An ad that has run for months is one the advertiser keeps paying for. That is a reason to study it closely, not proof it is profitable.

The scoring sheet

Score each element from 1 to 3, then write two lines.

• Element — Score (1 to 3) — Note
• Hook
• Angle
• Offer
• Proof
• Format
• CTA
• Landing page match
• Context (run length, variations)

Borrow: the one thing worth adapting (an angle, a hook type, a proof device, never the execution). Beat: the one thing you would do better.

Fifteen minutes per ad is enough. If you spend an hour, you are writing an essay, not a teardown.

Worked example 1: Dollar Shave Club, "our blades are F***ing great"

The facts. Dollar Shave Club launched its membership service on March 6, 2012, with a YouTube video that went viral. According to Wikipedia's account, the traffic crashed the company's server in the first hour, and 12,000 orders arrived in the first 48 hours. Unilever acquired the company in 2016 for a reported $1 billion.

The teardown.

• Element — Score — What the ad does
• Hook — 3 — The founder introduces himself and the business in the first seconds, then states the price. Name, product and price before most ads have shown a logo.
• Angle — 3 — Razors are overpriced, and you are paying for branding you do not need. A villain (the expensive incumbents) without naming one.
• Offer — 3 — A dollar a month, delivered to your door. One number, repeated.
• Proof — 2 — Mostly assertion carried by confidence and humour, plus a quick look at the warehouse and the product. Light on hard proof.
• Format — 3 — A single founder-led walk through the warehouse, written as comedy. Cheap to make and impossible to mistake for a razor ad.
• CTA — 2 — Clear (go to the site and sign up), arriving after the jokes have done their work.
• Landing page match — n/a — The 2012 landing page is not reliably archived, so this cannot be scored honestly.
• Context — 3 — Built for sharing on YouTube rather than for a paid placement, which is why its reach came from views, not spend.

Borrow: the founder-to-camera format with the price stated in the first seconds. It works today as a UGC-style founder ad on Reels. Beat: proof. A modern version would show the blade working instead of just saying it is good.

Our full Dollar Shave Club teardown goes scene by scene.

Worked example 2: Old Spice, "the man your man could smell like"

The facts. Wieden+Kennedy created the ad, which stars Isaiah Mustafa. It went online on February 4, 2010, and debuted on US television on February 8, 2010, per Wikipedia. The ad targets female viewers even though the product is for men, and the same source gives the reasoning: women often buy hygiene products for the men in their household.

The teardown.

• Element — Score — What the ad does
• Hook — 3 — Direct address to "ladies" in the opening line. It calls out the buyer, not the user, which is the whole strategy in two words.
• Angle — 3 — Your man cannot be him, but he can smell like him. Aspiration sold to the person holding the shopping basket.
• Offer — 1 — None. This is a brand ad, not a direct-response ad.
• Proof — 1 — None in the conventional sense. The spectacle is the argument.
• Format — 3 — One continuous, apparently unbroken take with surreal set changes. The format itself is what people talked about.
• CTA — 1 — No explicit action beyond remembering the brand.
• Landing page match — n/a — A TV and YouTube spot with no direct-response destination.
• Context — 3 — Built for TV breaks and YouTube at the same time.

Borrow: the buyer callout. If the person who pays is not the person who uses the product, your hook should speak to the payer. Beat: for a direct-response advertiser, the missing offer and CTA are not optional. Brand ads score low on those lines by design, so do not copy their structure when your job is cost per purchase.

Two famous ads got very different scorecards because they had different jobs. That is what the scoring shows. Our Old Spice teardown covers the creative mechanics in depth.

Applying the checklist to ads you find this week

Most ads you pull from the Meta Ad Library will be far less famous than these two. The checklist works the same way:

1. Pick the three longest-running ads from one competitor.
2. Score all three on the sheet.
3. Find the element that scores 3 in all of them. That is probably what the competitor knows works.
4. Find the element that scores 1 in all of them. That is your opening.

For more scored examples across formats and categories, browse the HookAds teardowns and the case studies, which document the business results of famous campaigns from public sources.

Related guides in this series

• How to see competitor ads: the step-by-step for Meta, Google and LinkedIn's free ad libraries.
• Competitor ad research into briefs: logging what you find, reading long-running ads, and writing your own brief from it.
• Tracking competitor display and YouTube ads: what display and video ads reveal over time and how to monitor them.

FAQ

What should I look for when analyzing a competitor ad?

Score eight things in order: the hook, the angle, the offer, the proof, the format, the call to action, whether the landing page continues the ad's promise, and the context (placements, run length, variations). For each ad, note one element to borrow and one to beat.

How long should an ad teardown take?

About fifteen minutes per ad. Watch it three times (as a viewer, with the sound off, then frame by frame), fill in the scoring sheet, and write two lines: what to borrow and what to beat. Longer analysis rarely produces better briefs.

How do I know if a competitor's ad is working?

You can't know for certain, because no ad library shows performance. The best public signal is run length: an ad that has been live for months is one the advertiser keeps paying for. Several variations sharing one creative also suggest it is being scaled.

Should I analyze brand ads and direct-response ads the same way?

Use the same checklist, but judge brand ads against their job. They often score low on offer, proof and CTA by design. If you sell direct response, borrow their hooks and formats, not their missing offer.

Start with three teardowns

Open the HookAds teardowns and read two before you score your first competitor ad, so you know what a 3 looks like. Then save the ads you analyze, with their scores, to your own swipe file using the Meta Ad Library downloader.