Why only five competitors?

Five is enough to see patterns and small enough to check every week in about 20 minutes. A list of thirty brands feels thorough, but nobody reads it, so it teaches you nothing.

What if my competitors do not run Facebook ads?

Then they cannot teach you much about ads. Keep them on your radar for prices, but fill your five with brands that do advertise. Search the problem your product solves, not your product name, to find sellers you did not know about.

Should I watch the biggest brand in my category?

Watch one big brand at most, as your aspirational pick. Read it for direction: new products, new claims, new seasons. Do not copy its budget-heavy videos or its prices. Your direct competitors are the ones whose tactics you can use.

How to pick 5 competitors worth watching

Why five brands is the right number

Most owners either watch nobody or try to watch everybody. Both fail. With no list, you guess. With a long list, you never open it.

Five brands is small enough to check every week in about 20 minutes. It is big enough to show you patterns: an offer three brands use, a season they all start early, a new angle that one tries and others copy.

Five also fits AdPlay.ai's free trial and Starter plan, which track up to 5 brands. Pro tracks up to 50.

The three kinds of competitor

Not every competitor teaches you the same thing. Pick a mix.

Direct: pick three

A direct competitor sells something like yours, at a similar price, to the same buyer. Test it with one question: would a buyer compare you two side by side before paying?

These are the brands whose tactics you can use almost as they are. Their budget, their customer and their problems are close to yours. A home seller your size teaches you more than a national chain.

Aspirational: pick one

This is a brand a few years ahead of you in your category. Bigger budget, more products, better photos.

Read it for direction, not for tactics. Watch which products it launches, which claims it makes and when it starts each festive season. Do not try to match its video shoots or its discounts.

Adjacent: pick one

An adjacent brand sells something different to the same person. It is where new angles come from, and most owners skip it.

Your buyer does not only shop in your category. A brand that sells to the same busy parent, student or office worker has already learned what makes that person stop and buy. Its hooks often work in your category too.

How to find them

Ask your customers. "Before you bought from us, who else did you look at?" Their answers are your real direct competitors.
Search your product words. Search in the Ad Library in every language your buyers use. English, Malay and Chinese searches can show different sellers.
Search the problem, not the product. Search the job your product does, like "easy dinner" or "lauk siap". This finds sellers you did not know about.
Check the marketplaces you sell on. The top sellers in your category there are often running Facebook ads too.
Open a brand's Facebook Page. Under Page Transparency, you can go to that Page's ads in the Ad Library. This helps when a search by name finds the wrong brand.

Keep or drop: four tests

Before a brand goes on your list, check:

It runs ads now. A brand with no live ads teaches you nothing about ads.
It shows offers, not only brand posts. You learn more from a plain seller with clear prices than from a pretty brand with none.
It sells in your market. A brand that sells only in another country plays a different game.
Your direct picks are your size. If you sell from home, a national chain is not a direct competitor.

One more filter: be careful with the brand every seller in your category already copies. Its ideas are everywhere already. The quiet competitor nobody talks about is often the better teacher.

Worked example: the sambal seller's five

Say you sell homemade sambal online at RM 18 a jar, to busy families in the Klang Valley. Your list could look like this:

Direct 1 and 2: two other home sambal sellers who sell by WhatsApp at RM 15 to RM 22 a jar.
Direct 3: a frozen lauk seller who also sells sambal in bundles. Buyers compare you when they plan a week of meals.
Aspirational: a bigger packaged sambal brand that sells in supermarkets. You watch which flavours it launches and when its Raya ads start.
Adjacent: a ready-meal brand for working parents. Different product, same buyer. Its "dinner in 10 minutes" hook may work for sambal on rice too.

These are made-up examples. Your list will use real brands from your own searches.

Do it in AdPlay.ai

Open Brand Tracker in the sidebar and click Add brand. If the button is greyed out, you have reached your plan's brand limit.

In Browse Brands, search by brand name or by words that describe it. Click View to check its ads, then Follow Brand.
Brand not there? Click Request New Brand and paste its Facebook Page URL.
To group your five, open a brand's page and click Following. Under Add to collection, pick New collection and name it, for example "Sambal competitors". That brand goes in it. On the other four brands' pages, open Following and tick the same collection.
On a brand's page, the Overview tab shows how many new ads it started in the last 14 days, how many landing pages its ads lead to, and its Media Mix. The Hooks and Headlines tabs list its top hooks and headlines.
In the Ad Library, switch from All brands to Tracked brands to see only your five.

During sign-up, the Add Brands to Track step suggested brands, and any you picked are already in Brand Tracker. Check them against the four tests above, and unfollow the ones that fail. The Track competitors guide has more detail.

Checklist

Three direct, one aspirational, one adjacent.
Every brand runs ads now and shows real offers.
Searched in every language your buyers use.
Searched the problem, not only the product.
A date in your calendar to review the list in three months.

Your homework

Write down your five brands, one line each: which kind it is, and why it made the list. Then track all five in AdPlay.ai's Brand Tracker and put them in one collection.

In the next lesson, Build a swipe file, you start saving their best ads.