Appearance
Creative Radar: spot which angles, hooks and offers competitors lean on
Creative Radar is a set of charts that show which angles, hooks and offers competitors lean on. Open it from Insights > Competitors > Creative Radar.
Each chart plots ads that Nexus has analysed. Your own ads sit in the same charts, so you can see where you match the market and where you do not.
Problem and intended user
This page is for the creative strategist (the person who plans and makes ad creatives) and the media buyer (the person who runs your paid ads). A single ad or a single competitor does not show where the market is crowded and where it is empty. Your own mix of angles, formats and platforms can then match the market by accident, or leave a space unused without your notice.
Current workflow
You tally competitor ads by angle, hook, offer and platform in a spreadsheet, then build a pivot table to see the counts. You export your own ads from Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads and label them by hand, so you can set them beside the competitor counts. You repeat the work when the market changes.
Prerequisites
The charts need analysed ads. Two sources feed them, and one is enough:
- Competitors you track. See Track competitors.
- Your own ads, synced from a connected ad account. See Meta Ads and Google Ads.
Until one source has data, a panel replaces the charts. The charts fill in when the first analysis pass finishes. Video Anatomy needs your own video ads.
How Nexus works
Nexus reads the ads of your tracked competitors and your connected ad account. After each sync, AI labels every ad with an angle, a creative direction, a hook tactic, an offer framing and an objection. Fixed rules count the labels, place them in the charts and write the Verdict in Format Face-Off. AI writes the Summary box.
No step needs approval, and opening a view changes nothing in your ad accounts. The charts depend on the ad sync, then on the analysis.
The charts fill in on their own once Nexus has analysed the ads. The page shows no update time, and Settings > Store Status has no row for it. For sync times, see the rows Meta ads sync, Google ads sync and Competitor ad tracking on Settings > Store Status. The first two show when that ad account is connected. Competitor ad tracking shows when an ad account is connected and you track at least one competitor. See Store Status.
Use the controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Platform filter | Choose All Platforms, Google or Meta. The charts show only that platform. Hover TikTok to see Coming soon. |
| View switcher | Choose one of the seven views. |
| Date range and D / W / M | Feed the Density Timeline only. The other six views ignore them. |
Drill down to the ads
Move the pointer over a cell in Angle × Platform or Hook × Offer. A card lists ads from that cell. Click an ad to open its Ad Details window.
When a cell holds more ads than the card lists, the card shows View all and the ad count, for example View all 8 ads. Click it to open the Competitor Library. Nexus selects the first competitor with ads in that cell and filters the library to that angle, or to that hook and offer. From Angle × Platform, it also sets the platform filter to the cell's platform. Click a block in Objection Coverage to get the same card and filter by objection.
To read one ad on its own page, open it from the library. See Competitor ad detail.
Exact output
A short Summary box sits under the view switcher. It reads you against your competitors, in plain language, for the selected view and platform. The Summary updates when the ad data behind the chart changes. While Nexus prepares the summary, a grey placeholder shows in its place. The box stays hidden when Nexus has no summary to show.
The seven views
| View | What it plots |
|---|---|
| Angle × Creative Direction | Each ad is a bubble. The columns are angles. The rows are creative directions, which combine the asset type and the visual format. |
| Angle × Platform | A grid of angles against platforms. Each cell shows the number of ads. |
| Hook × Offer | A grid of hook tactics against offer framings. |
| Density Timeline | How angle use changes over time. See Limitations and exceptions. |
| Objection Coverage | A treemap of the objections that ads address. A None addressed block covers ads that address no objection. |
| Format Face-Off | Your own ads, two formats side by side. |
| Video Anatomy | Your own video ads, grouped by Visual Style, Video Pacing, Hook Style and CTA Urgency. |
Read the bubble chart
In Angle × Creative Direction, bubble size shows spend velocity. For competitor ads, Nexus estimates it from how long the ad has run. Each competitor has its own colour. Your ads are gold.
A dashed gold cell is white space: competitors run ads there and you run none. A line above the chart counts these cells.
Click a brand name above the chart to hide or show its bubbles. Scroll over the chart to zoom. Hover a bubble for details. Click a competitor bubble to open an Ad Details window. Click a gold bubble to open the detail window for your own ad.
Read the grids and the treemap
In Angle × Platform, a darker cell means more ads. The count includes your own ads.
In Hook × Offer, a larger bubble means more ads. The colour is the brand with the most ads in that cell. A small dashed circle means no ads.
In Objection Coverage, a larger block means more ads.
Compare formats and video structure
Format Face-Off and Video Anatomy read only your own ads. They ignore the platform filter.
In Format Face-Off, pick two formats in Format A and Format B. The table compares hit rate, spend, average lifespan, CTR, CPA and ROAS. Hit rate is the share of ads whose revenue covered their spend. A weekly trend chart with a Spend, CTR and Conversions switch sits below the table, then a Verdict.
Video Anatomy shows how many of your video ads Nexus has analysed, for example "3/5 decomposed".
What to do with it
| What you see | Decision or action | Owner |
|---|---|---|
| A dashed gold cell in Angle × Creative Direction | Decide whether the angle fits your store. If it does, plan an ad for it. | creative strategist |
| A dark cell or large bubble with ads from several brands | Treat the idea as crowded. Pick another angle or a fresh take. | creative strategist |
| A small block in Objection Coverage | Write copy that answers a doubt competitors leave open. | creative strategist |
| A cell on a platform where you run no ads, or the Verdict in Format Face-Off | Decide whether to run the angle there, or shift your format mix. You do this in Meta Ads Manager or Google Ads, outside Nexus. | media buyer |
| The Summary text | Read it, then check it against the chart. | ecommerce manager (the person who runs the store) |
Expected value and measurement
Creative Radar can help you choose angles, formats and platforms with the market's mix in view.
To check a gap you found, note the cell, such as a dashed gold cell in Angle × Creative Direction. After you launch an ad for it and Nexus syncs and analyses that ad, open the view again. You run an ad in that cell now, so it is no longer white space. To look for an effect on results, open Performance > Ad performance and compare the new ad with your other ads over the same dates. See Ad performance.
The effect cannot be isolated, because your offer, budget and season change at the same time. A competitor bubble shows how long an ad has run, not how well it did.
Limitations and exceptions
- Nexus plots only ads it has analysed. Competitor bubble size is an estimate.
- The labels and the Summary come from AI and can be wrong.
- When Nexus plots only part of the ads, a line beginning "Based on" says so. In Objection Coverage it reads "Based on a sample of ads, so counts may not include every ad."
- If competitor ads fail to load, the page says "Some competitor ads failed to load, so the charts may be missing them. Refresh the page to try again."
- If Format Face-Off fails, an alert reads "Failed to load comparison" and gives the reason.
- In Demo Mode, the two pickers in Format Face-Off do not change the comparison. The Summary shows ready-made text.
INFO
The Density Timeline shows "Density timeline not available yet" for your store and in Demo Mode. The date range and D / W / M control change nothing you can see.
When a view is empty
| Message | What it means |
|---|---|
| No angle × creative direction data yet (and one per view) | No analysed ads exist yet. Track a competitor or connect an ad account, then wait for the next analysis pass. |
| No Meta ads to show (or another platform) | Your ads run on other platforms. Switch to All Platforms. |
| No ads to compare for these formats | Neither format has ads that Nexus added recently. Pick two formats you ran lately. |
| No video ads to analyze yet | Your video ads are not synced and analysed yet. |