Gymshark's $700M Ad Playbook: How to Build Winning Ads with Foreplay

Gymshark is a titan in the fitness apparel space, and their Facebook ad strategy is just as incredible.

Gymshark have mastered the art of creating content that promote their brand identity and ads that reliably sell activewear. At the time of writing, they’re currently running over 1,000 active ads across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.

So how does Gymshark do it?

This is the secret behind Gymshark’s $700M Facebook ad strategy

Data, creativity and a deep understanding of what their customers want is at the heart of everything Gymshark does.

We’re going to walk through exactly how Foreplay helps brands like Gymshark track their competitors, analyze best-performing ads, and launch ads that work on autopilot.

After you finish this, you'll be comfortable leveraging cutting-edge in AI tools to identify your competitors best performing Facebook & TikTok ads, pulling out top-performing hooks and landing pages in real-time, hands-free.

Whether you're a marketer or a brand owner, Gymshark's ad strategy is second to none, and this breakdown of the marketing mastery behind one of the fastest growing fitness apparel brands in the world can help you improve your Facebook ads.

Ready to dive in? Let's do this

Tracking all of Gymshark's ads, across every platform

Gymshark currently has 1,063 active ads running on multiple platforms, and we can see exactly which ones are performing best using Spyder by Foreplay.

Pro tip: Ad creative volume is the #1 strategy to discover new top-performing ads. Your brands likely have one ad that is allocated all your ad spend. Give yourself more swings at bat by launching more ads. This is currently every 8 figure brands not so secret strategy.

Spyder lets Gymshark track every ad their competitors launch in real-time. This gives any marketer a 100% transparent look into their competitors ad strategy.

Want to understand which landing pages Gymshark are using to convert new customers?

Spyder automatically scrapes them for you and keeps a historical snapshot of the mobile and desktop versions.

Want to identify Gymsharks most effective hooks? Spyder makes it easy.

Definition: Hooks are the first 1-3 seconds of a video that stop the scroll and start the video view.

So you can see your competitors ads? What next?

Gymshark can see which ads their competitors have been running the longest, and exactly which ads are still turned on.

These are the ads Gymshark's competitors are currently using to find new customers; with this data we can uncover patterns that reveal what types of creative, messaging, and targeting consistently convert for active apparel brands like Gymshark.

How to build a strong Facebook Ad Strategy with Gymshark

Gymshark doesn’t leave anything to chance. This is their marketing team's approach to reliably creating winning ads for the world’s fastest growing fitness apparel brand.

1. Launch lots of ads‍
   • Gymshark launches new ads constantly. On January 2nd, they launched 135 ads, with Spyder we can quickly identify their best-performing ads - the ads they kept turned on when the rest were turned off.
   • Track ad creative launches in real time to find ads that stand the test of time, like an image ad launched on December 8th that has been running for 28 days.
     

2. Identify Hooks That Stop The Scroll:
   • Foreplay’s AI pulls scripts and copy to identify top performing hooks. For example, lines like “We’re back again, eh?” or “Yo, what’s up guys?” target different demographics.
   • Visual hooks, like a customer pulling up their leggings, make ads their ads more eye catching.
     
3. Merchandise Multiple Products:
   • Gymshark uses creative strategies like merchandising multiple products and building outfits to encourage customers to imagine themselves in the brand's clothing.

What Are Gymshark’s Competitors Doing?

Why reinvent the wheel when you can learn from your competitors?

Foreplay lets you spy on your competitors and analyze their ad strategy in real-time.

We can track Gymshark’s competitors like Lululemon and Alo Yoga and see every ad they launch, on every platform.

This is how brands can use Foreplay to track their competitors best performing ads.

1. ‍Set up an automatic ad spy on your Competitor: Spyder reveals that Alo Yoga is currently running 262 ads, and that most of their Facebook ads are dynamic product ads (DPAs) and dynamic creatives. Using Spyder, Gymshark can see every ad their competitors launch to inform their own Facebook ad campaigns.
2. ‍Analyze Top Performers: By identifying ads with the longest time turned on, Gymshark can identify their competitors best performing ads.
3. ‍Understand Audience Targeting: Using AI Gymshark can analyze their competitor’s ads at lightning speed, allowing the marketing team at Gymshark to better understand the ads that are competing in the same auctions, for their customers.

How to build your next ad based on your competitors top performers

Here’s where things get really interesting.

Instead of spending hours reverse-engineering what works, we can use AI to generate a creative brief for our next ad campaigns based on our competitors best performing facebook ads.

We're using AI generates a brief that includes everything from brand personality to target audience, and it even creates a video script for us.

Let’s break down the process:

• Define Brand Identity: Add brand colors, guidelines, fonts, and voice into Foreplay Briefs to ensure all creatives are consistent with their identity.
• Specify Ad Formats: Each brief lets you detail aspect ratios (e.g., 4:5 or 1:1) and content styles (e.g., UGC video).
• Generate AI Scripts: AI creates scripts that break down the video into segments, such as hooks, testimonials, product descriptions, and CTAs.
• Create Storyboards: Foreplay Briefs allow ad creative strategists to customize scripts and finalizes storyboards, ready for you to share with your creative teams for production.

This workflow allows brands to produce better ads, faster.

Why Competitor Analysis Is Vital

A brand like Gymshark's biggest advantage is the ability to see exactly what their competitors are launching in real-time.

Instead of wasting their ad spend experimenting, they can reverse-engineer top-performing ads made by their competitors.

• Tracking Emotional Triggers: Using AI in Foreplay, Gymshark can identify emotions such as security, urgency, or nurturance that their competitors ads provoke.
• Understanding Target Demographics: Foreplay reveals who competitors are targeting, such as fitness enthusiasts or bargain hunters, enabling Gymshark to fine-tune their own creative and audience targeting.
• Replicating Success: By saving and analyzing top-performing competitor ads, Gymshark creates content based on what works, tailored to their brand.

How to launch your next ad using Gymshark's playbook

Gymshark’s $700M ad playbook with Foreplay shows marketers how to use the world’s largest data set on ads to create a data-driven ad creative strategy at lightning speed with AI.

From real-time competitor ad tracking to iterating on top performing ads, Gymshark can reverse engineer their best ROAS by focusing on what works.

How you can do this for your brand:

• Use tools like Foreplay to monitor and analyze every ad launched on every platform.
• Use Spyder to automatically spy on your competitors ads, and identify best performers with AI
• Launch a high volume of ad creative to increase your chances to launching your next best ad
• Use AI to streamline scriptwriting and creative briefs.
• Study competitors’ best performing ads to uncover creative strategies and avoid expensive trial-and-error.

By applying these principles, you can create impactful ads that resonate with your audience, drive engagement, and achieve your marketing goals.

Ready to launch your next best ad?

Start your free trial of Foreplay to build your brand’s $700M ad playbook

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