ChatGPT answers, unedited

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying a single “spy tool” and instead build a small competitor intelligence stack. You’re trying to answer two different questions:

1. What ads are competitors running, and which ones look like winners?
2. What happens after the click (landing page, offer, funnel, CRO choices)?

Here are the tools I’d consider:

Best overall stack for an ecommerce growth team

1. Similarweb — traffic + paid channel intelligence

Best for: understanding where competitors get customers.

Use it to see:

• Paid vs organic traffic mix
• Top acquisition channels
• Referral sources
• Competitor search strategy
• Paid landing pages and ad ecosystem

Similarweb’s advertising intelligence product specifically focuses on competitor ads, creatives, landing pages, keywords, and spend trends. Similarweb Similarweb

Good fit if: you have 5–50 competitors and want market-level visibility.

2. Meta Ad Library + facebook.com — free creative research

Best for: Facebook/Instagram ad teardown.

Look for:

• Ads that have been running for months (often a signal they’re profitable)
• Repeated hooks
• Offers
• Testimonials
• Before/after formats
• UGC styles
• Landing page URLs

This should be your first stop before paying for an ad spy platform.

3. AdSpyder — multi-platform ad intelligence

Best for: teams that want a searchable competitor ad database.

Useful features:

• Search competitor creatives
• See destination URLs
• Track ad longevity
• Analyze ads across multiple channels

AdSpyder positions its product around searching and analyzing competitor ads across platforms and includes landing page visibility. AdSpyder

4. Semrush — paid search + SEO competitor research

Best for: brands spending heavily on Google.

Useful for:

• Competitor keywords
• Google Ads copy
• SEO gaps
• Search demand trends

Similarweb and Semrush overlap somewhat; pick based on whether you care more about market traffic intelligence (Similarweb) or search visibility (Semrush). Similarweb Shopify

5. BuiltWith or Wappalyzer — tech stack analysis

Best for: figuring out how competitors built their funnel.

You can identify:

• Ecommerce platform
• Analytics tools
• Reviews apps
• Email/SMS platforms
• Tracking pixels
• Testing tools

Useful question: “What stack do the brands ahead of us use?”

For landing page teardown specifically

I’d combine:

• Similarweb → find competitor paid pages
• Hotjar (for your own pages, not competitors) → understand user behavior
• Microsoft Clarity (free alternative) → session recordings and heatmaps
• Manual teardown → screenshots + notes

Analyze competitors on:

My recommended stack by company stage

Under ~$1M/year revenue

• Meta Ad Library (free)
• Similarweb free tier
• BuiltWith/Wappalyzer
• Manual landing page screenshots

~$1M–$10M/year

• Similarweb
• AdSpyder or another ad intelligence platform
• Semrush (if Google Ads matters)
• A competitor tracking spreadsheet

$10M+/year

• Similarweb enterprise
• Semrush
• Ad intelligence platform
• Dedicated CRO research process

If I were setting this up for a growing DTC/ecommerce brand today, I’d start with Meta Ad Library + Similarweb + a structured landing page teardown process, then add an ad spy tool only when you have enough competitors and ad volume to justify it. Similarweb AdSpyder

If I were setting this up for a growing DTC/ecommerce brand today, I’d start with Meta Ad Library + Similarweb + a structured landing page teardown process, then add an ad spy tool only when you have enough competitors and ad volume to justify it. Similarweb AdSpyder

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying a single “spy tool” and instead build a small stack based on what you actually want to learn:

1. What ads are they running?
2. Which landing pages are they sending traffic to?
3. Which channels/keywords appear to be working?
4. How are their funnels structured?

Here are the tools I’d shortlist:

My recommended stack by company stage

If you’re doing <$1M/year

Keep it lean:

• Meta Ad Library (free)
• TikTok Creative Center (free)
• Semrush for paid search/SEO
• A spreadsheet or notion.so database to catalog competitor ads

Goal: understand messaging patterns, not perfectly estimate competitor spend.

If you’re doing $1M–$20M/year

I’d add:

• Similarweb for channel intelligence
• Foreplay for creative swipe files

This lets you answer:

• “Are they scaling Meta or Google?”
• “Which landing pages are getting paid traffic?”
• “What hooks/offers are competitors repeating?”

Similarweb specifically has features aimed at finding competitor paid landing pages and analyzing the ads/keywords driving traffic to them. Similarweb Similarweb

If you’re spending $50k+/month on ads

Consider:

• Similarweb (market intelligence)
• Semrush (search)
• Adbeat or another ad intelligence platform (display/native)
• A creative intelligence workflow

At this level, the value is less “seeing ads” and more spotting:

• new offers before they scale
• creative fatigue cycles
• competitor budget shifts
• emerging acquisition channels

What I would actually do every week

For your top 10 competitors:

1. Save their:

• homepage
• best-selling product pages
• advertorial pages
• quiz funnels
• subscription pages
• Screenshot:

• Meta ads
• TikTok ads
• Google search ads
• Tag:

• hook (“problem/solution,” “UGC testimonial,” “discount”)
• offer
• audience
• landing page type
• proof elements
• CTA
• Look for patterns:

• Are multiple competitors pushing the same claim?
• Are they moving from discounts to bundles?
• Are they building new funnels?

The biggest mistake ecommerce teams make is collecting ads without analyzing the ad → landing page → offer → conversion mechanism.

If I were choosing only two paid tools for a growing DTC brand, I’d start with:

1. Similarweb — “where is traffic coming from and where is it going?”
2. Semrush — “what paid search demand are competitors capturing?”

Then add creative-specific tooling once your ad volume justifies it. Semrush Similarweb

If you’re a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying a giant “ad spy” stack immediately. The best setup is usually one competitive-intelligence platform + the free ad libraries + your own landing-page teardown process.

My shortlist

1. Similarweb would be my first purchase

Similarweb Paid Landing Page Analyzer

This is unusually well matched to what you're describing. Similarweb's Paid Landing Pages product can identify competitors' landing pages receiving paid traffic and show traffic share, estimated CPC/spend, paid keywords, ad creatives and the ads driving traffic to those pages. www.similarweb.com

That lets you do research like:

Competitor X → spends heavily on these ads → sends traffic to this product/quiz/collection page → uses this offer and messaging.

That's much more actionable than simply looking at competitors' ads.

2. Use Meta Ad Library alongside it

Meta Ad Library

Meta's own library lets you search active ads running across Facebook and Instagram. www.facebook.com

I'd use it to build a swipe file of competitors':

• Hooks
• Offers
• UGC concepts
• Product demonstrations
• Headlines
• CTAs
• Creative variations
• How long particular concepts appear to stay active

Important: don't interpret “this ad exists” as “this ad is profitable.” The library is excellent for creative intelligence, but it doesn't give you competitors' actual conversion economics.

3. For TikTok, use TikTok's own tools

TikTok Creative Center

TikTok's Creative Center provides examples of high-performing ads and creative insights. Its Top Ads system can filter by region, industry, objective and other dimensions, and provides performance/engagement analysis for eligible ads. ads-useast2a.tiktok.com

One current wrinkle: TikTok is transitioning Top Ads into TikTok One, so I'd treat TikTok One/Creative Center as the long-term destination rather than building a workflow around the old Top Ads interface. ads.tiktok.com

4. Add Semrush if Google matters

Semrush

I'd add it when you're interested in questions like:

• What paid search terms do competitors appear for?
• Which competitors are bidding on our category terms?
• What copy are they using?
• What pages are they sending search traffic toward?
• Where are competitors gaining/losing search visibility?

It's less specifically focused on the ad → landing page → funnel relationship than Similarweb, but substantially more useful if Google is a major part of your acquisition mix.

What I'd actually buy

For a growing DTC/ecommerce company, I'd start with:

Similarweb + Meta Ad Library + TikTok Creative Center

Then build a simple competitor database with columns for:

Competitor → Ad → Hook → Offer → Product → Landing page → Traffic source → CTA → Social proof → Pricing → Funnel type → First-order economics

The really valuable insight isn't “Competitor A runs this ad.”

It's:

“Competitor A has been running 7 variations of the same hook for 4 months, all pointing to the same advertorial → product page funnel.”

That's a much stronger signal that you've found part of their acquisition machine.

If you tell me your approximate monthly ad spend and whether you're primarily Meta, Google, TikTok, or a mix, I can narrow this down to the 2–3 tools I'd actually pay for at your stage, including what I'd skip.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying one giant “spy tool” and build a small stack around the questions you actually need answered:

What are competitors advertising → where are those ads sending traffic → what offers/messaging are they using → which channels appear to be working?

My recommended stack

If I were running your brand

1. Start with Meta Ad Library — free

Search your 10–20 closest competitors and catalog:

• Hooks/opening claims
• Offers and discounts
• Creatives they're repeatedly using
• UGC vs. polished product ads
• Products being pushed
• Landing-page URLs
• How long particular concepts appear to stay active

Meta's own library lets you search currently active ads across Meta products. www.facebook.com

The important thing is not to assume that an ad being visible means it's profitable. Treat repeated creative, messaging, and offer patterns as signals—not proof of performance.

2. Add Semrush if Google is meaningful for you

This is probably the strongest match to your specific question.

Semrush can show competitor paid keywords, ad copy, ad history, and—particularly useful for you—the landing pages competitors are sending paid traffic to. www.semrush.com

You can essentially work backwards:

Competitor → keyword → ad → landing page → offer

That lets you compare, for example:

“They're bidding on best running shoes → using a pain-point headline → sending traffic to a dedicated collection page → offering 20% off.”

rather than merely looking at their ads in isolation.

3. Use Similarweb for the bigger picture

Similarweb is more useful when you want to answer:

“Where does this competitor actually get its traffic?”

You can benchmark competitors across paid search, organic search, social, referrals, direct, etc., and analyze audience/traffic behavior. www.similarweb.com

That's valuable because an apparently aggressive Meta advertiser might actually get most of its traffic from SEO, while another competitor could be heavily dependent on paid search.

The stack I'd buy at different stages

<$0/month:
Meta Ad Library + manual landing-page teardown + your own analytics.

Growing DTC brand:
Semrush + Meta Ad Library. This is probably the sweet spot.

More sophisticated growth team:
Similarweb + Semrush + Meta Ad Library, with a structured competitor database in Airtable/Notion/Sheets.

Very ad-heavy / creative-led brand:
Add Minea or AdSpyder for broader ecommerce ad discovery.

One important caveat

Don't optimize for finding the “winning ad.” Competitor intelligence tools are generally much better at showing you what competitors are doing than proving why it's profitable.

I'd build your research around recurring patterns:

Creative → claim → audience → offer → landing page → funnel → evidence of longevity

For landing pages specifically, I'd score each competitor on headline, offer, social proof, product presentation, objections, guarantees, CTA, urgency, mobile UX, and ad-message/landing-page consistency.

That produces much more actionable intelligence than simply collecting screenshots of competitors' ads.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying one giant “spy” platform immediately. The best stack depends on whether you care more about Meta/TikTok creative, Google/Shopping, or landing-page/traffic intelligence.

My shortlist

If I were building your stack

Start with Semrush + the free Meta/TikTok libraries.

Semrush is unusually useful for the specific question you asked because its Advertising Research workflow connects the dots:

competitor → paid keyword → ad → landing page

Its Pages report shows which competitor landing pages receive the most paid traffic, while Ad Copies connects ads to their associated landing pages. It also provides historical ad activity, so you can distinguish something a competitor tested briefly from something they've apparently kept around. www.semrush.com

For ecommerce specifically, Semrush also has PLA Research for Google Shopping, including competitor product titles, ads, keywords and landing pages. www.semrush.com

Then use Meta and TikTok's own libraries for creative intelligence. TikTok's Top Ads dashboard, for example, lets you filter high-performing creatives by region, industry and objective and inspect performance at a second-by-second level. ads.us.tiktok.com

When I'd upgrade to Similarweb

If you're getting serious about competitive intelligence across channels, Similarweb is the more comprehensive choice. Its Ad Intelligence covers search and display advertising and surfaces things such as competitor campaigns, creatives, publishers, landing pages and estimated spend. support.similarweb.com

I'd consider it when you want questions answered like:

• "Where is this competitor actually getting traffic?"
• "Are they shifting budget from search to display?"
• "Which publishers are carrying their ads?"
• "How much of their acquisition appears to be paid?"
• "Which competitors are accelerating?"

The workflow I'd actually implement

Don't just collect screenshots of competitor ads. Build a competitive creative → landing-page database.

For each competitor, capture:

1. Ad hook — what gets attention in the first 1–3 seconds?
2. Promise — what outcome are they selling?
3. Offer — discount, bundle, free shipping, guarantee, etc.
4. Creative format — UGC, founder, product demo, testimonial, comparison, static, etc.
5. CTA
6. Landing page URL
7. Landing-page headline
8. Hero offer
9. Social proof
10. Product positioning
11. Checkout friction
12. How long the ad appears to stay active

That last one is particularly valuable: don't assume an ad is good because it exists. Look for patterns of repetition and longevity.

My recommendation by budget

<$300/month:
Meta Ad Library + TikTok Creative Center + Semrush.

$300–$1,000+/month:
Semrush + Meta/TikTok libraries, then add a dedicated creative-intelligence platform if paid social is your primary acquisition channel.

$1,000s/month and serious competitive intelligence:
Similarweb + Semrush, with the native Meta/TikTok libraries used for creative-level research.

If you tell me your product category, approximate monthly ad spend, and whether you're primarily Meta, TikTok, Google, or a mix, I can narrow this down to the 2–3 tools I'd actually pay for and tell you what I'd skip.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying a giant “marketing intelligence” stack immediately. You want to answer three questions:

1. Which competitor landing pages are actually getting paid traffic?
2. Which ads/creatives are sending that traffic?
3. What messaging, offer, product, and funnel patterns can we steal ethically?

My recommended stack

If I had to pick just one paid tool: Similarweb. Its Paid Landing Page Analyzer specifically connects competitors' paid landing pages with traffic share, paid keywords, estimated spend/CPC and the ads driving visitors there. www.similarweb.com

That makes it unusually well suited to the exact question you're asking.

How I'd use it

Take 10–20 direct competitors and build a simple research loop:

Competitor → ad → landing page → offer → funnel

For each competitor, look for:

• Their highest-traffic paid landing pages
• Which products those pages sell
• Search keywords driving traffic
• Estimated paid traffic/spend
• Ad messaging and creative
• Whether different ads lead to different landing pages
• Offers: discounts, bundles, subscriptions, guarantees
• Above-the-fold headline/CTA
• Social proof and reviews
• Upsells/cross-sells
• Quiz → product recommendation funnels
• Email/SMS capture mechanisms

Similarweb's current landing-page product is particularly useful because it lets you work backward from a competitor's paid traffic to the actual destination page rather than merely looking at their homepage. www.similarweb.com

For Meta ads, use the free source first

Meta Ad Library lets you search active ads running across Meta. www.similarweb.comwww.facebook.comadstransparency.google.combacklinko.com

I'd actually start here before paying for a creative-spy product. Search each competitor and save:

• Hooks
• Video/image concepts
• Primary text
• Headlines
• CTAs
• Offers
• Products being pushed
• How many variations they're running
• Which concepts appear repeatedly

Repeated creative is especially interesting. If a brand has many variations around the same hook/angle, that's a stronger signal than a single clever ad.

For Google

Google Ads Transparency Center is Google's searchable database of ads from verified advertisers, including Search, YouTube and Display. adstransparency.google.com

Then use Semrush when you want the search intelligence behind those ads—keywords, competitors, paid-search visibility, etc. Semrush currently combines traffic/channel analysis with paid and organic keyword research and ad intelligence. www.semrush.com

What I'd buy at different stages

<$200/month:
Meta Ad Library + Google Ads Transparency Center + Semrush

$500–1,000+/month:
Similarweb + the free ad libraries

Paid social is your dominant acquisition channel:
Add a dedicated creative-intelligence/monitoring product after you've exhausted Meta Ad Library.

Large team / serious competitive-intelligence operation:
Similarweb or Semrush at the higher tier, potentially supplemented by Adbeat for display. Adbeat is particularly focused on competitor display advertising and landing pages. backlinko.com

One important caveat

Don't interpret these tools as showing you a competitor's actual ROAS or conversion rate. Most competitor spend, traffic and performance numbers are estimates. The useful signal is the pattern: “They've been running this offer, creative angle and destination page repeatedly across multiple months/channels.”

That's much more actionable than trying to guess whether their ad generated a 2.8× or 3.4× ROAS.

For an ecommerce brand at your stage, my first choice would be Similarweb + Meta Ad Library + Google Ads Transparency Center. Add Semrush if Google/search is an important acquisition channel.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying a single “spy tool” and instead build a small competitor intelligence stack. The best setup depends on whether you care more about ads, landing pages, funnels, or market share.

Here are the tools I’d look at:

My recommended stack for a growing ecommerce brand

If you spend <$50k/month on ads

1. Similarweb → find competitor winners (traffic sources + landing pages) www.similarweb.com
2. Semrush → mine Google Ads keywords and messaging www.similarweb.com
3. Meta Ads Library → collect creative inspiration
4. BuiltWith → understand their stack

If you spend $50k–$500k/month

• Add Adbeat for deeper display/native intelligence. www.adbeat.com
• Consider a creative intelligence platform to analyze patterns across hundreds of competitor ads.

The workflow I’d use weekly

1. Pick 10–20 direct competitors.
2. For each competitor, capture:
   • Top paid landing pages
   • Ad angles/hooks
   • Offers (discounts, bundles, guarantees)
   • Product positioning
   • Reviews/social proof
   • Page structure
   • CTA strategy
3. Build a swipe file:
   • “Their winning hooks”
   • “Their offers”
   • “Their landing page sections”
   • “Their creative patterns”
4. Test your own versions rather than copying.

If I had to pick only one

For an ecommerce brand trying to answer “Which ads are driving traffic to which landing pages, and why?”, I’d start with Similarweb because it ties together paid traffic, ads, keywords, landing pages, and estimated spend in one place. www.similarweb.com

If your main acquisition channel is Meta/TikTok ads rather than Google, I’d weight the stack differently.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying five “ad spy” tools. A good stack is usually one traffic/paid-search intelligence platform + one social-ad intelligence tool + a landing-page analysis tool.

My shortlist

If I were building your stack

Start with Semrush + free ad libraries.

Semrush is unusually well suited to the exact question you're asking: its Advertising Research product can show competitor ad copy, paid keywords, ad history, and—critically—the landing pages receiving paid traffic. Its Pages report specifically identifies competitor pages getting the most paid traffic. www.semrush.com

Then use Meta's and TikTok's own libraries to inspect the actual creative. This gives you a pretty powerful workflow without immediately paying for an expensive ad-spy platform.

Add Similarweb once you're big enough that understanding the whole acquisition funnel matters. It's particularly useful for answering questions like:

“Is this competitor really acquiring customers through Meta, or are we overestimating their social presence?”

The research workflow I'd recommend

For each major competitor, build a simple matrix:

Ad → landing page → offer → product → funnel

For example:

1. Find their active Meta/TikTok ads.
2. Save the ads that appear repeatedly or have been running for a long time.
3. Follow each ad to its landing page.
4. Record:
   • Headline
   • Offer
   • Product
   • Price/discount
   • Social proof
   • Reviews
   • Guarantees
   • CTA
   • Quiz vs. PDP vs. dedicated landing page
   • Upsells/bundles
   • Email/SMS capture
5. Use Semrush to see which competitor landing pages are getting paid search traffic. www.semrush.com
6. Compare the ad promise to the landing-page promise. That's often more valuable than simply copying creative.

One important caveat: don't treat estimated competitor spend or “winning ad” labels as ground truth. These tools infer a lot of competitive data. An ad being visible for a long time is a useful signal, but it doesn't prove profitability.

What I'd buy at different stages

<$5M revenue:
Meta Ad Library + TikTok Creative Center + Semrush

$5M–$25M:
Semrush + Similarweb + free Meta/TikTok research

$25M+:
Similarweb + Semrush + a dedicated ad-intelligence platform such as AdSpy/Minea, depending on where you're spending.

If you're primarily Meta/TikTok rather than Google, I'd shift the recommendation toward Minea/AdSpy + Similarweb, rather than making Semrush the centerpiece.

If you tell me your rough annual revenue, product category, and where you're currently spending (Meta, Google, TikTok, etc.), I can narrow this down to the 2–3 tools I'd actually pay for and what each one should be used for.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying five overlapping tools. The best setup depends on whether your competitors are primarily acquiring customers through Meta/TikTok/social or Google/Search/Shopping.

My shortlist

🥇 If you want one paid platform: Similarweb

Similarweb is probably the closest match to what you're describing.

Its Paid Landing Page research lets you identify competitors' landing pages receiving paid traffic and see things such as traffic share, paid keywords, estimated CPC/spend, and the ads driving traffic to individual pages. www.similarweb.com

That makes it particularly useful for the analysis I'd actually want to do:

Competitor → Ad → Traffic source → Landing page → Offer/message

For example, you could discover:

Competitor X is spending heavily on “best running shoes for flat feet” → sending that traffic to a dedicated collection/quiz page → using a “30-day comfort guarantee” angle.

That's considerably more actionable than simply collecting screenshots of competitors' ads.

Similarweb also has broader Ad Intelligence covering search, display, social and other paid channels, including ads, publishers/platforms, campaigns and estimated spend. support.similarweb.com

🥈 If Google Shopping/Search is important: Semrush

Semrush is excellent if a meaningful portion of your ecommerce acquisition is Google-based.

Its Advertising Research can show competitors' paid keywords, ads, historical ad activity and—particularly relevant here—the landing pages receiving the most paid traffic. www.semrush.com

For ecommerce, its PLA Research is especially useful for seeing competitors' Shopping campaigns, including products, titles, landing pages and the keywords triggering their product ads. www.semrush.com

I'd choose Semrush over Similarweb if your biggest questions are:

• What Google keywords are competitors buying?
• What Shopping queries trigger their products?
• Which products/categories are they pushing?
• What ad copy are they using?
• Which landing pages are attached to those campaigns?

🆓 Don't overlook the free ad libraries

For Meta, use the Meta Ad Library alongside whichever paid platform you choose.

It's particularly useful for building a creative swipe file: hooks, formats, offers, UGC concepts, testimonials, product demonstrations, etc.

I'd do the same with TikTok's Creative Center if TikTok is important to your category.

What I'd buy for your situation

Lean ecommerce team:

Similarweb + Meta Ad Library + TikTok Creative Center

This gives you the broadest picture without building a giant martech stack.

Google-heavy ecommerce:

Semrush + Meta Ad Library

Larger/growing brand with serious paid acquisition:

Similarweb + Semrush, with the free ad libraries as supplemental creative research.

One important caveat: competitor ad/spend numbers are estimates, not their actual account data. Semrush explicitly says its paid-traffic figures are benchmarks rather than a measurement of the competitor's actual Google Ads spend. support.similarweb.comwww.semrush.comwww.semrush.com So I'd use the tools to identify patterns and relative investment, not conclude that "Competitor A spends exactly $187k/month."

The workflow I'd recommend

For each of your 5–10 closest competitors, build a simple database of:

1. Top ads — hook, creative format, offer, CTA
2. Traffic source — Meta, Google, TikTok, etc.
3. Landing page URL
4. Landing page type — PDP, collection, quiz, advertorial, comparison page, etc.
5. Core promise
6. Offer/incentive
7. Social proof
8. Estimated traffic/spend
9. How long the ad/page appears to have been active
10. What you could test yourself

The really valuable signal is persistence. If a competitor keeps running variations of the same concept and repeatedly sends traffic to the same landing page, that's much more interesting than a single flashy ad you happen to find.

If you tell me your product category + approximate monthly ad spend + whether you're mainly Meta, Google, TikTok, or a mix, I can narrow this down to the 2–3 tools I'd actually pay for and how I'd use them together.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying five overlapping “ad spy” tools. You want a stack that answers three questions:

1. What are competitors advertising?
2. Where are those ads sending traffic?
3. What offers/messaging/products appear to be getting sustained investment?

My shortlist

🥇 If I were running your brand

Start with Semrush + the free ad libraries.

Semrush's Advertising Research can show competitor paid keywords, ad copy, ad history, and—particularly useful for your question—the landing pages receiving paid traffic. Its ecommerce-oriented PLA research also exposes competitors' Google Shopping keywords, product titles, creatives and landing pages. www.semrush.com

Then use the native ad libraries to fill in social:

• Meta Ad Library — Facebook/Instagram
• Google Ads Transparency Center — Google ads
• TikTok's ad library if TikTok is a major acquisition channel

This gives you a surprisingly powerful competitive-intelligence workflow without immediately paying enterprise prices.

When I'd upgrade to Similarweb

If you're doing serious competitor intelligence across channels, Similarweb is more compelling. Its ad-intelligence product covers display, social and search and lets you examine competitors' creatives, landing pages, keywords and estimated spend trends. www.similarweb.com

It can also help answer a question Semrush doesn't answer as well:

“Where is this competitor's overall traffic actually coming from?”

You can benchmark paid search, organic, referrals, direct, etc., rather than looking exclusively at ads.

The workflow I'd actually build

For each major competitor, create a spreadsheet/database with:

Ad → Offer → Landing page → Product → Traffic source → Messaging

For example:

Meta ad: “20% off your first order”
↓
Product: hero SKU
↓
Landing page: dedicated product page
↓
Hook: problem/solution
↓
Social proof: reviews + UGC
↓
CTA: Shop Now

Then track how long the creative stays live. Longevity isn't proof that an ad is profitable, but repeated/sustained campaigns are a useful signal that something deserves investigation.

Semrush specifically provides historical ad activity and lets you connect ad copy to the landing pages being promoted. www.semrush.com

One important caveat

Don't treat competitor “estimated spend” or “top-performing ad” data as ground truth. These platforms infer a lot of the underlying performance. Use them to identify patterns and hypotheses, then validate those hypotheses with your own tests.

My recommendation by stage:

• <$1M revenue: Meta Ad Library + Semrush
• $1M–$10M: Semrush + Meta/Google/TikTok libraries; consider Similarweb
• $10M+: Similarweb + Semrush, with specialized tools such as Adbeat/Pathmatics where relevant

If you tell me your approximate monthly ad spend and whether you're mainly Meta, Google, TikTok, or a mix, I can give you a much more specific $0 / $100 / $500 / $1,000+ per month software stack and what I'd actually buy.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying one giant “competitive intelligence” platform at first. A 2–3 tool stack usually gives you better coverage.

My picks

If I were running your brand

Start with Minea + Semrush.

1. Minea for paid social.
This is the more ecommerce-native option. It covers Meta, TikTok and Pinterest and lets you investigate competitor creatives, products and landing-page destinations. Its current offering includes ad-history/performance signals and creative analysis. www.minea.com

2. Semrush for Google + landing-page intelligence.
Its Advertising Research lets you enter a competitor domain and see paid keywords, ad copy, historical ad activity and—particularly useful for your question—the landing pages receiving the most paid traffic. www.semrush.com

3. Add Similarweb when you're big enough to need market-level intelligence.
It can break competitor traffic down by channel and its Ad Intelligence covers search, display and other advertising formats, including the advertiser, publisher, creative and landing page. support.similarweb.com

The workflow I'd actually use

For each important competitor:

Ad → angle → landing page → offer → funnel

For example:

1. Find their ads in Minea.
2. Identify ads that have been running unusually long or have multiple creative variations.
3. Click through to the destination page.
4. Record the headline, offer, social proof, CTA, price/discount, bundles, guarantees and page structure.
5. Use Semrush to determine whether they're also pushing that product/page through Google.
6. Compare the competitor's messaging with your own conversion funnel.
7. Look for patterns across 5–10 competitors, rather than copying one company's page.

One important caveat: competitor tools provide estimates and observable signals, not their actual ROAS, revenue or ad spend. Treat longevity, creative repetition, traffic estimates and engagement as evidence—not proof that a particular ad is profitable.

If your primary acquisition channel is Meta/TikTok, I'd pick Minea first. If it's Google Shopping/Search, I'd pick Semrush first. If you tell me your approximate monthly ad spend and whether you're mainly Meta, TikTok, Google, or a mix, I can recommend the most cost-effective stack and what I'd skip.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying one giant “competitive intelligence” platform immediately. You want to answer three separate questions:

1. What ads are competitors running?
2. Where are those ads sending traffic, and what does the landing-page funnel look like?
3. Which channels/keywords appear to be driving the most traffic?

My recommended stack

1. Start with Semrush

For what you described, Semrush is probably the closest single tool to what you want.

Its Advertising Research can show competitor paid-search keywords, ad copy, historical ad activity, estimated paid traffic/cost, and—particularly useful for you—the landing pages competitors are promoting through paid ads. www.semrush.com

So you can take a competitor like:

competitor.com

and investigate:

Paid keyword → competitor ad → landing page → offer/product

That lets you see things like:

• Which products they're pushing hardest
• Which landing pages repeatedly appear in their paid campaigns
• What headlines/offers they're using
• Which keywords they're buying
• How their paid-search strategy changes over time
• Which domains are competing for the same paid keywords

Semrush also now combines broader traffic intelligence with advertising intelligence, including display/social ad analysis through AdClarity. www.semrush.com

See Semrush Advertising Research

2. Add Similarweb when you care about where the traffic comes from

Similarweb is better for answering:

“How does this competitor actually acquire visitors?”

You can benchmark traffic and examine channels such as paid search, organic search, social, referrals, display, and more. It also provides advertising research across text, display, and other ad formats. support.similarweb.com

That's particularly useful for distinguishing:

Competitor A

• 45% paid social
• 20% organic
• 15% paid search
• 10% direct

versus:

Competitor B

• 50% paid search
• 25% organic
• 5% social

Those are very different businesses to compete against.

Explore Similarweb

3. Don't pay for Meta ad intelligence before using Meta's own library

For Facebook and Instagram, I'd start with the Meta Ad Library, which is free.

You can search a competitor and see the ads they're currently running across Meta products. www.facebook.com

This is particularly valuable because you can build a swipe file of:

• Hooks
• UGC concepts
• Offers
• Creative formats
• Testimonials
• Product demonstrations
• CTAs
• Landing-page destinations

The key trick is to click through every interesting ad and record where it sends you.

You start building:

Ad creative → promise → offer → landing page → checkout/product page

That's much more useful than simply collecting pretty ads.

Open Meta Ad Library

4. For TikTok, use TikTok Creative Center

TikTok's Creative Center is also free and provides a library of high-performing creative, with filtering by region, industry, objective, etc. Its newer TikTok One experience is increasingly focused on analyzing the creative approaches and selling points behind successful ads. ads.tiktok.com

TikTok Creative Center

If I were building your stack

<$500/month stage:

Meta Ad Library + TikTok Creative Center + Semrush

That's enough to do surprisingly sophisticated competitor research.

Growing team / serious paid acquisition:

Semrush + Similarweb + Meta Ad Library + TikTok Creative Center

Then consider a dedicated creative-intelligence product such as Foreplay if you're constantly collecting, tagging, comparing, and sharing competitor ads. Foreplay, for example, says its ad database covers Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn and includes creative, copy, CTA, landing-page and ad-duration information. www.foreplay.co

The workflow I'd actually use

Every month, pick 10–20 competitors and run:

1. Traffic intelligence
→ Similarweb/Semrush
→ Identify their biggest acquisition channels.

2. Ad intelligence
→ Meta Ad Library + TikTok Creative Center + Semrush
→ Collect their active ads and recurring creative concepts.

3. Landing-page intelligence
→ Click through their ads
→ Screenshot the entire funnel.

4. Pattern analysis
Track:

• Hook
• Target customer
• Pain point
• Promise
• Product
• Offer
• Social proof
• CTA
• Landing-page type
• Price/discount
• Subscription/bundle strategy

5. Look for persistence

One of the strongest signals isn't “this competitor made a cool ad.”

It's:

“They've been running variations of this concept for 4+ months.”

That doesn't prove profitability, but it's a much stronger competitive signal than a single creative you happened to see.

If you tell me your approximate monthly ad spend (e.g. $20k, $100k, $500k+) and whether you're primarily Meta, Google, TikTok, or all three, I can narrow this down to a specific 2–4 tool stack and tell you what I'd actually pay for vs. skip.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d build the stack around one primary competitive-intelligence platform + the native ad libraries rather than buying five overlapping tools.

My recommendation

1. Similarweb — best for the overall picture

This is probably the closest match to what you're asking for. Its Paid Landing Page analysis can show you competitors' highest-traffic paid landing pages, the keywords sending traffic there, estimated spend/CPC, and the ads associated with those pages. www.similarweb.com

Use it to answer:

• Which competitor landing pages are getting meaningful paid traffic?
• Which products/offers are they pushing?
• What keywords are sending people there?
• Roughly how much are they investing?
• Which landing-page structures/offers appear repeatedly?

2. Semrush — best for Google/Search + Shopping

Semrush is particularly strong if Google Ads and Google Shopping matter to you. Its Advertising Research shows competitors' paid keywords, ad copy, ad history, and the landing pages those ads point toward. Its PLA Research is specifically useful for ecommerce/Shopping campaigns. www.semrush.comwww.semrush.com

I'd favor Semrush over Similarweb if your main question is "What are they doing in Google Ads?"

3. Meta Ad Library — essential, and free

For Facebook/Instagram, use Meta's own ad library alongside whichever paid platform you choose. It's particularly useful for seeing the actual creative concepts competitors are currently running—hooks, offers, formats, UGC, testimonials, etc.

The stack I'd actually use

If you only want to pay for one

I'd start with Similarweb for a growing ecommerce brand because your question spans traffic → ad → landing page, rather than just keyword research. Similarweb specifically connects paid landing pages with traffic share, keywords, ad strategy and estimated spend. www.similarweb.com

If you're heavily dependent on Google Ads/Shopping, I'd instead choose Semrush. Its current toolkit covers paid search, Shopping, Meta, display/video/social intelligence and competitor traffic analysis. www.semrush.com

One important caveat

Don't treat estimated competitor spend or traffic as ground truth. These platforms are competitive-intelligence estimates, not access to the competitor's actual ad account. The more valuable signal is usually the pattern:

Ad creative → promise/offer → landing page → product → CTA

If you give me your ecommerce category + approximate monthly ad spend, I can recommend a much tighter stack (including which tools are probably overkill) and a competitor-research workflow for your team.

For a growing ecommerce brand, I’d avoid buying five overlapping “ad spy” tools. The best stack depends on whether you care more about Meta/TikTok creative, Google/Shopping, or the full funnel from ad → landing page → traffic.

My shortlist

If I were building your stack

1. Start with Meta Ad Library + TikTok Creative Center.
They're free and give you the actual creative rather than someone's estimate of what competitors are doing. Meta's library lets you search currently active ads across Meta products. www.facebook.com

2. Add Semrush if Google Search/Shopping is meaningful.
This is particularly useful for ecommerce because you can go from competitor → paid keywords → ad copy → landing page. Semrush also provides historical ad information and identifies the landing pages competitors promote through paid advertising. www.semrush.com

Semrush Advertising Research

3. Upgrade to Similarweb when you need the bigger picture.
Similarweb's current Ad Intelligence covers search, display, social and other paid channels, with information on creatives, landing pages, campaign duration, publishers, impressions and estimated spend. support.similarweb.com

Similarweb Ad Intelligence

That makes it particularly useful for answering questions like:

“This competitor is running 30 different ads—are they actually buying meaningful traffic, where is it coming from, and which landing pages are they sending people to?”

The important distinction

Don't confuse “I can see their ads” with “I know what's working.”

For competitor research, I'd collect:

Ad
→ hook
→ creative format
→ offer
→ headline/copy
→ CTA

Traffic
→ Meta / Google / TikTok / display
→ estimated importance of each channel
→ search terms where applicable

Landing page
→ URL
→ headline
→ offer
→ price/discount
→ social proof
→ UGC
→ product positioning
→ quiz/product finder
→ email/SMS capture
→ upsells/bundles

Then look for repetition. If a competitor keeps running variations of the same hook and sending traffic to the same page for months, that's much more interesting than an ad that happens to be visible today.

What I'd buy at different stages

Lean / <$1M-ish ecommerce brand:
Meta Ad Library + TikTok Creative Center + Semrush.

Growing brand with serious paid acquisition:
Meta + TikTok + Similarweb. Add Semrush if Google Search/Shopping is important.

Creative-heavy DTC team:
Meta + TikTok + Foreplay, with Similarweb/Semrush for traffic intelligence.

One tool only:
I'd choose Similarweb if you want broad cross-channel competitive intelligence; Semrush if Google/Shopping is a major acquisition channel. Similarweb explicitly combines competitor ads, landing pages and paid-channel intelligence, while Semrush is especially deep on paid search and Shopping. support.similarweb.com

One caveat: competitor spend, impressions, and “winning ad” claims are estimates, not their actual Meta/Google account data. Treat them as directional signals and validate hypotheses against how long creatives stay live and how heavily a competitor repeats a particular funnel.

If you tell me your category (e.g. beauty, apparel, supplements, home goods), monthly ad spend, and whether you're primarily Meta/Google/TikTok, I can recommend a much tighter stack and tell you what I'd actually pay for versus skip.