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Competitor Synthesis: market gaps and where you stand
Competitor Synthesis turns all analysed competitor ads into one view of your market. It shows what is saturated, where the gaps are and how you compare. Open it from Insights > Competitors > Competitor Synthesis.
The header reads "Market structure from" and the number of competitor ads Nexus analysed.
This page reads competitor ads. The Creative synthesis report under Performance is a different report about your own ads.
Problem and intended user
This page is for the creative strategist (the person who plans and makes ad creatives) and the ecommerce manager (the person who runs the store). Looking at one competitor at a time hides the pattern across all of them. You then choose what to test next without knowing which ideas the whole market runs, which few brands touch, and whether a rival has begun to enter an angle you own.
Current workflow
You write a competitor summary by hand, in a slide deck or a document, or you ask an agency for a market report. You keep your list of ideas to test in a spreadsheet and rank it by feel. You then check the report against your own ads in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads. Both documents go out of date as competitors change their ads.
Prerequisites
Track at least one competitor and let Nexus analyse its ads. See Track competitors. Until then the page shows No competitor synthesis yet. It lists three steps:
- Competitors added. You do this step. Use Add competitors on the page, or see Track competitors.
- Their live ads collected. Nexus does this once a competitor is tracked.
- Ads decomposed and analysed. Nexus extracts angles, hooks and offers, then builds the view.
How Nexus works
Nexus builds the view from the analysed ads of the competitors you track. AI labels each ad with its angle, hook and offer. Fixed rules then compute what is saturated, where the gaps are, how you compare and which concepts you have not tried. AI writes only the paragraph in the What this means box.
One step needs you: nothing is saved to your backlog until you click Add to testing roadmap. Nothing publishes an ad.
When the view updates
WARNING
A brand synthesis run uses credits. The credit badge next to Perform Brand Synthesis shows the cost. The button stays disabled until Nexus has at least one of your own ads.
Every brand synthesis run rebuilds the view. You start that run with Perform Brand Synthesis on Performance > Creative synthesis. See Creative synthesis. A banner reads Brand synthesis in progress while a run is active. The view refreshes by itself when the run ends.
Nexus also rebuilds the view on its own. The page shows no update time and no schedule. To see when Nexus last updated, open Store Status at Settings > Store Status and find the row Ad intelligence synthesis. The row appears only when Meta Ads or Google Ads is connected. The Ads analyzed tile shows the number of ads behind the view.
Filter the competitor set
The filter bar has Brand, Activity, Days live and Winning ads only. Activity offers Ramping, Steady and Pulling back. Clear filters appears once a filter is active.
Warning: the filters narrow the Competitors section only. The other sections describe the whole competitor set and do not change. The note under the bar says the same.
Add an untried concept to your testing backlog
Below your concepts, Testing roadmap — concepts you haven't tried lists market angles that competitors run and you do not.
- Open the Concepts section.
- Scroll to Testing roadmap — concepts you haven't tried.
- Read a card. It shows a Rising or Stable badge, a short description, the competitors that run it and a hypothesis.
- Click Add to testing roadmap.
The button changes to Added. The concept appears in Create > Testing Backlog with the status To test. See Testing Backlog.
Exact output
The header
A % complete chip sits at the top right of the header.
A What this means box sits below the filters. It holds a short written read of your market and a few tags.
Four tiles follow:
| Tile | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Competitors | The number of brands in the set. |
| Ads analyzed | The number of analysed competitor ads. After you remove a competitor, it can read "Up to" a number. |
| Active concepts | The number of distinct ideas you run. |
| Your position | How many angles you lead, then how many you lag. |
The six sections
A switcher under the tiles opens each section. Count badges show how many items a section holds. A badge reads Top and a number when a list is cut to its largest items.
| Section | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Overview | Cards that sum up the other sections: your concepts, where the market is saturated, where demand is open, your edge and your gaps, who moves fastest, and who copies your angles. |
| Concepts | Your concepts vs the market, then the testing roadmap. |
| Market plays | How competitors build their ads, grouped by dimension. A legend marks each tag as Table stakes (40% or more), Contested (18% to 39%) or Whitespace (under 18%). Long amber bars are saturated. Match them, but expect no edge. Green bars are whitespace few competitors use. |
| Open gaps | Angles, objections and audiences few competitors address and you do not. Group them By theme, by Objections or by Audiences. The score is the size of the opening. |
| You vs market | Your mix against the competitor set on each angle and hook. A coloured dot to the right of the grey dot means you are ahead. Defensive alerts list competitors that enter an angle you own or scale output fast. |
| Competitors | Winning ads, Output momentum and Per-competitor profiles. The note on the page explains what counts as a winning ad: an ad that ran 90 or more days, running or ended, with 3 or more creative variations. |
Your concepts vs the market
Your concepts vs the market lists the named creative ideas you run. Each row shows the spend share, the spend trend, your share against the market on the main angle, and a posture badge. Nexus flags your highest-spend concept with an Over-concentrated badge when its trend declines.
Click the arrow on a row to see the ads behind that concept.
What to do with it
| What you see | Decision or action | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| Long amber bars in Market plays, or a Table stakes tag | Match the idea if your ads need it, but expect no edge from it. | creative strategist |
| An Open gaps item with a high score, or a green Whitespace bar | Plan a test for it. | creative strategist |
| A card under Testing roadmap — concepts you haven't tried | Click Add to testing roadmap, then work it in Create > Testing Backlog. | creative strategist |
| Few angles on the lead side of Your position, or a Defensive alerts entry | Decide which angles to protect or contest. Budget changes happen in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads, outside Nexus. | ecommerce manager |
| A concept with the Over-concentrated badge, your highest-spend concept with a declining trend | Plan fresh creative for that concept. | creative strategist |
Expected value and measurement
Competitor Synthesis can help you choose what to test next from the whole market instead of one brand at a time. It can also help you avoid crowded angles.
To check it, select Mark tested on each idea in Create > Testing Backlog and pick Winner, Inconclusive or Loser. Compare the ads you built from it with your other ads in Performance > Ad performance over the same date range. See Ad performance. The Your position tile on this page shows how your lead and lag counts change when the view rebuilds.
The effect cannot be isolated. Your offer, budget and season change at the same time, and competitors keep changing their ads.
Limitations and exceptions
- The competitor side comes from live competitor ads. Nexus cannot see what a competitor spends or sells.
- Before Nexus analyses any competitor ad, the page shows No competitor synthesis yet. See Prerequisites.
- Until a brand synthesis run finishes, the What this means box can show tags without a written paragraph.
- The labels and the What this means text come from AI and can be wrong. Each hypothesis on a card is a rule-based suggestion, not proof.
- Ads analyzed can read "Up to" a number, and a count badge can read Top a number. Both are limits, not exact totals.
- If you already cover every market angle, the testing roadmap panel says "No untried concepts in this set".
- After you click Add to testing roadmap, a message reads "Added to testing roadmap". If the add fails, a message reads "Could not add to roadmap". Click the button again.
- In the public demo, Add to testing roadmap is blocked and the message reads "Could not add to roadmap". In Demo Mode, the Brand synthesis in progress banner never shows.