Inspiration Library: search, save and study ads from other brands

The Inspiration Library is one place for the ads you want to keep and the ads you want to study. It covers more than the competitors you track. Open it from Inspiration Library in the Nexus menu.

Problem and intended user

A creative strategist (the person who plans and makes ad creatives) finds good ads in many places. Some come from rivals. Others come from brands in a different category, or from brands that sell like you. A brand that is not a rival can blur your competitor insights if you track it as one. An ad you do not keep can be lost, and a pile of saved ads with no order is hard to brief from.

Current workflow

Today you keep screenshots and links in a spreadsheet or a folder. You browse the public ad libraries of Meta and Google one brand at a time. Some merchants ask an agency for an inspiration deck. The saved material sits apart from the competitor research, and you sort it by hand.

Prerequisites

• Data. The Competitors tab needs a tracked competitor. The Inspiration tab needs an Inspiration brand. The Same-industry ads tab needs an industry. You pick one in the tab.
• Assets. To add a brand that Nexus does not know, you need its website. The brand name is optional.
• Volume. You can use a limited number of Inspiration brands. The add dialog shows "N of M Inspiration brands used".

How Nexus works

Nexus reads the public Meta and Google ads of each brand. It fetches the ads of a brand you add by website once, when you add it. The ads of a brand from the Nexus catalog come from the shared catalog. Same-industry brands also come from the Nexus catalog. Fixed rules build every tab, every filter and every sort. AI labels only the ads of tracked competitors.

No other person approves a step. A brand that Nexus already knows only needs a link. A brand that is new to Nexus needs a fetch. The fetch takes a few minutes and has limits. If Nexus cannot add a brand or save an ad, it shows a message.

Choose a tab

Five tabs sit under the page title. Click one to switch the view. When you switch tabs, Nexus keeps your search, sort and filters, and clears the brand selection and the page.

Search, sort and filter

Two rows above the ads hold the controls. The top row has the search box, the date button, the sort menu and the grid and list switch. The filters sit in the row below. The rows wrap onto more lines on a narrow screen.

1. Type in the search box, which reads "Search headlines, ad copy or brands". Nexus matches the headline, the body text and the brand name.
2. Open Sort: Recommended and pick Recommended, Newest, Oldest or Longest running.
3. Click the date button, which reads All time at first. Pick a ready-made range on the left, or click a start day and an end day in the calendar. Click Apply.
4. Open a filter and tick one or more values. The filter then names your choice, or how many values you picked. Several values in one filter widen it. Different filters narrow each other.
5. To remove every filter and the search, click Clear filters. Your sort and the grid or list view stay.

The row of filters ends with Showing and the number of ads that match.

Switch between grid and list

The grid shows ad cards. The list shows one ad per row with its thumbnail, brand, headline, format, platform, status, first seen date and days running. Both views keep the Save ad button. On a narrow screen each row stacks into a short card, so the page never scrolls sideways.

Save an ad

1. Find an ad in any tab.
2. Click Save ad on the card or row. You can also click it inside the enlarged image.
3. Open Saved ads to see it.

The button changes to Saved. Click Saved again to remove the ad. In the Saved ads tab, the card then leaves the list. A new save goes to Unfiled. To sort saved ads into folders, see Saved ad folders.

Add an Inspiration brand

An Inspiration brand lets you watch an ad account without tracking it as a competitor. Look for brands Nexus already knows first.

1. Open the Inspiration tab.
2. Click Add inspiration brand. The Add an Inspiration brand dialog opens.
3. Type a brand name or domain in the search box.
4. Click Add next to the brand.

If the brand is not in the list, use Not in the list?:

1. Type the Brand website.
2. Type a Brand name (optional).
3. Click Add brand.

Nexus then fetches the public Meta and Google ads of that brand once. The fetch takes a few minutes. A brand you already track as a competitor is not fetched again. The dialog tells you the ads are under Competitors. To remove an Inspiration brand, click the X on its card.

Choose your industry

1. Open Same-industry ads.
2. Click Choose industry. The button shows only while no industry is set.
3. Pick one entry from the Industry list.
4. Click Save.

Nexus uses the choice only to pick same-industry brands.

Open an ad

Click View details on a card. See Competitor ad detail. Use Previous and Next at the bottom of the grid to change pages.

Exact output

The five tabs

Tab	What it shows
Saved ads	The ads you saved, with a panel of folders. The tab shows how many.
Competitors	Ads from the competitors you track.
Same-industry ads	Ads from brands in your industry.
Inspiration	Ads from your Inspiration brands, with the brand list.
All ads	Ads from all sources in one grid.

The sort menu

Choice	Order
Recommended	In Same-industry ads and All ads, ads that ran long and have many variations come first, and a King ad badge marks them. In the other tabs, the longest-running ads come first.
Newest	The most recent first seen date first.
Oldest	The earliest first seen date first.
Longest running	The most days running first.

An ad with no date goes last in every sort.

The date range and the filters

All time is the default. A range shows the ads that were active at some point in it. To see every ad again, open the date button, pick All time and click Apply. The range you pick here applies only to the Inspiration Library. It does not change the date range of your other pages. Each filter below except Status accepts several values.

Filter	What it does
Industry	Keeps the ads of brands in the industries you pick.
Brands	Keeps the ads of the brands you pick. It lists the brands of the current tab.
Format	Keeps images, videos, carousels or text ads.
Status	All, Active (still running) or Inactive (no longer running).
Platform	Keeps the ads of the platforms you pick.

A brand with no industry on record leaves the results while the Industry filter is on. It returns when you clear the filter.

The brand list

The brand list shows only in the Inspiration tab. Inspiration brands are not competitors, so they never change your competitor insights. A card shows "Fetching ads" until the ads are ready. In Same-industry ads, the tab shows "Industry:" followed by your industry when Nexus knows it. The detail page of an ad labels its brand as Competitor, Inspiration or Industry peer.

What to do with it

What you see	Decision or action	Owner
An ad worth keeping	Click Save ad. Open Saved ads to review your references.	creative strategist
Many saved ads	File them in folders, for example by campaign idea.	creative strategist
An ad whose style you want to reuse	Click View details, then Create similar ad when the page offers it. See Competitor ad detail.	creative strategist
A brand you admire that is not a rival	Add it as an Inspiration brand. It never changes your competitor insights.	creative strategist
A brand you want analysed	Track it as a competitor on Track competitors. Nexus analyses competitor ads only.	ecommerce manager (the person who runs the store)
Ads in Same-industry ads	Study how peers present offers, then use it in your brief.	creative strategist
Ads that ran for a long time	Sort by Longest running and study the ones that stayed.	creative strategist

Expected value and measurement

The Inspiration Library can help you keep references in one place, find them again, and keep inspiration apart from competitor research.

To check that it does, open Saved ads. The tab shows how many ads you kept. Confirm that they cover the angles and brands you plan to brief from. Then open the Inspiration tab and confirm that each Inspiration brand sits there, not under Competitors.

To look for an effect on results, open Performance > Ad performance and select By ad. Compare ROAS and CPA for ads you made with Create similar ad against your other ads over the same dates. Performance does not mark these ads, so note them when you make them. See Ad performance. The effect cannot be isolated: offer, budget and season change too, and the library shows no results for saved ads.

Limitations and exceptions

What is not supported

• Nexus analyses ads from competitors only. Inspiration and industry-peer ads show no angle, hook or offer labels.
• Nexus fetches the ads of a brand you add by website once, when you add it. It does not refresh them later. The ads of a catalog brand come from the shared catalog.
• At the Inspiration limit, you can still add a brand again whose fetch failed.
• Same-industry brands come from the Nexus catalog, which can lack brands in your industry.
• Nexus does not know the industry of every brand. Those brands drop out while the Industry filter is on.
• A saved ad whose brand you no longer follow leaves the Saved ads list. Nexus keeps the save.

Messages, failures and empty states

You see	What to do
No saved ads yet. Use Save ad on any ad to keep it here.	Save an ad.
Track a competitor to see their ads here.	On Competitors, track a competitor.
Add an Inspiration brand to see its ads here.	On Inspiration, click Add inspiration brand.
Choose your industry to see ads from brands like yours.	Click Choose industry.
No brands in your industry in the catalog yet.	Nothing to do. The catalog has no brand for it yet.
No saved ads match these filters.	Click Clear filters, or change a filter.
No ads from your competitors match these filters.	Click Clear filters, or change a filter.
No ads from your Inspiration brands match these filters.	Click Clear filters, or change a filter.
No ads from brands in your industry match these filters.	Click Clear filters, or change a filter.
No ads match these filters.	Click Clear filters, or change a filter.
Every saved ad is in a folder.	Nothing to do. No saved ad is in Unfiled. See Saved ad folders.
Nothing to show yet.	Try another tab.
Fetching ads	Wait a few minutes.
Couldn't fetch ads	Add the brand again to retry.
You can keep up to 10 Inspiration brands.	Remove an Inspiration brand with the X on its card, then add again.
You can add up to 10 new brands every 30 days.	Wait, then add the brand again.
You're offline. The Inspiration Library loads when your connection is back.	Reconnect.

When a tab fails to load, Nexus shows an error and a Retry button.

Demo Mode

In Demo Mode, search, sort, every filter and the list view work on the sample ads. The Add inspiration brand button stays visible, but Nexus refuses the add and shows a notice. Nexus also refuses removing an Inspiration brand, saving an ad, removing a saved ad and choosing an industry, and tells you so. Folders are refused too, see Saved ad folders. See Demo Mode and sample data.

Related

• Competitors overview
• Competitor Library
• Track competitors
• Saved ad folders
• Competitor ad detail