# Hermoso: How to Clone a Competitor’s Ad (Step by Step, with AI) > Machine-readable twin of https://hermoso.ai/blog/how-to-clone-a-competitors-ad/. Generated from the shipped page. Do not edit by hand. > Full agent guide: https://hermoso.ai/llms.txt · MCP: https://app.hermoso.ai/mcp [Blog](https://hermoso.ai/blog/) # How to Clone a Competitor’s Ad (Step by Step, with AI) How to clone a competitor’s winning ad in seven steps: find their longest-running ads, work out why they work, remake the structure for your brand with AI, check it, and test it. With screenshots. By the Hermoso team · Published October 26, 2026 · 5 min read Short answer: find the competitor ads that have been running the longest, work out what makes them work, and remake the **structure** (the hook, the order of the beats, the pacing) with your own product, people and words. With an AI tool like [Hermoso](https://hermoso.ai/clone-video-ad/), that last part is pasting the ad’s link and saying what to change. The whole process below takes about an hour the first time. One rule runs through every step: you are cloning a format, not taking someone’s ad. Their footage, words, face and logo never go in your version. That is the legal line, and it is also the practical one: a copy of their ad advertises them. ## Step 1: Find your competitor’s ads Every ad running on Facebook and Instagram is public in the [Meta Ad Library](https://hermoso.ai/blog/how-to-use-meta-ad-library/). Search the brand, set the country, and you see every active ad with its start date. TikTok’s Creative Center, the [Google Ads Transparency Center](https://hermoso.ai/blog/how-to-use-google-ads-transparency-center/) and the [LinkedIn Ad Library](https://hermoso.ai/blog/how-to-use-linkedin-ad-library/) do the same for their platforms. Faster: type the competitor or their website into [Ad Spy](https://hermoso.ai/ad-spy-tool/) and Hermoso pulls their ads with the oldest first. Ad Spy in the Hermoso app: competitor ads grouped by brand. ## Step 2: Pick the ads that have proven themselves Do not clone the newest ad. Clone the oldest one still running. An advertiser keeps paying for an ad that works, so an ad that has run for 30 days or more is a winner by the only measure that counts. Likes and views are noisy; run length is money. More on this in [why run length is the signal](https://hermoso.ai/blog/ad-run-length-signal/). Two things from our own data help here. In a study of 2,073 live Meta ads, [single images were the format most likely to still be running after six months](https://hermoso.ai/research/longest-running-ad-formats/), so do not skip a competitor’s plain image ads. And [long-running ads carry longer copy](https://hermoso.ai/research/ad-copy-in-long-running-ads/), so read the full text, not just the first line. The Hermoso Chrome extension shows how long each ad has run right on the ad library, with a Save and a Clone button on every ad. Two ads that have run for 302 and 292 days: those are the ones to study. ## Step 3: Work out why it works Before you remake anything, write down what the ad is doing. Five questions cover most ads: - **The hook.** What happens in the first second or first line? A question, a bold claim, a problem, the product in use? - **The structure.** What are the beats, in order? Problem, demo, result, offer? - **The pace.** How long is it, and how fast are the cuts? - **The style.** Phone-filmed or produced? A person or just the product? - **The offer.** What do they ask you to do, and why now? Hermoso’s [competitor teardown](https://hermoso.ai/competitor-ad-research/) answers these for a whole brand at once: what their ads keep saying, the gaps nobody is running, and ad ideas to beat them. Part of a real teardown: the gaps a competitor leaves open, and the ads that take them. ## Step 4: Clone the structure with AI Copy the link to the ad (a TikTok, an Instagram Reel, a Facebook video, an X post or a YouTube Short) and paste it into Hermoso’s [video clone](https://hermoso.ai/clone-video-ad/). Add a line about your product if you like. Hermoso watches the whole video, maps the hook, the cuts and the on-screen text, and plans a new ad on the same structure with your product, a new person and a script written for your brand. It matches the original’s length unless you ask for another, and you see the plan before anything is made. The clone app: paste the link, say what to change, and plan it. Here is what that looks like on real ads, the original on the left and the clone on the right: From a kitchen prep video Same first-person view, jump cuts and pace; the olive oil becomes the payoff of every cut. From a skincare routine Same wordless steps and calm pace, with the product in the step it belongs in. Image ads work the same way with the [image ad clone](https://hermoso.ai/clone-video-ad/#try-static): Hermoso reads the layout (where the headline sits, how big the product is, where the offer and button go) and rebuilds it with your product photo and your copy. An image ad and its clone for a sunscreen brand: same layout, new product and words. ## Step 5: Steer it in plain words A clone does not have to be a twin. Tell it what to change: “same hook, but in a gym”, “keep the jump cuts, use an older creator”, “make it 20 seconds”, “write it in Spanish”. Captions and an end card are off unless you ask, because native-looking short videos usually have neither. ## Step 6: Check it before it runs - **Nothing of theirs.** No words, faces, logos, music or footage from the original. - **Your product, right.** Check the label and the shape against your real product. - **True claims.** A claim that was true for their product may not be true for yours. - **Platform rules.** Run it past the ad policy for where it will run. Hermoso’s [ad checker](https://hermoso.ai/facebook-ad-checker/) scores the ad and flags policy problems. ## Step 7: Test, do not guess One clone is a guess. Make three or four versions (different hooks, a static version, a shorter cut), post the best one organically or run them as a small paused test, and keep the one that wins. Hermoso can make the variations, schedule them and build the paused campaign from the same place, and the [Ad Multiplier](https://hermoso.ai/blog/ad-multiplier-one-ad-many-variants/) turns one finished ad into a set to test. ## Do it from ChatGPT or Claude With Hermoso connected, the whole process is one request: “Find the longest-running Facebook ad from our top competitor, explain why it works, and make our version of it with our product.” The agent pulls the ads, picks the long runner, clones it, and shows you the result. See [MCP & CLI](https://hermoso.ai/mcp/). ## Related [Best tools to clone a competitor’s ad in 2026](https://hermoso.ai/blog/best-tools-to-clone-competitor-ads-2026/) · [Clone a video ad](https://hermoso.ai/clone-video-ad/) · [Clone any video for your brand](https://hermoso.ai/blog/clone-any-video-for-your-brand/) · [Hermoso Research](https://hermoso.ai/research/) ## Questions people ask ### How do I clone a competitor’s ad? Find their ads in the Meta Ad Library or a tool like Ad Spy, pick the ones that have run the longest, work out the hook and structure, then remake that structure with your own product, people and words. In Hermoso you paste the ad’s link and say what to change. ### Is it legal to copy a competitor’s ad? Copying the format (the hook style, the order of the beats, the pacing) is normal practice. Copying their footage, words, logo, music or a real person’s face is not. Always replace everything that belongs to them. ### Which competitor ads should I clone? The oldest ones still running. Advertisers stop paying for ads that do not work, so an ad live for 30 days or more is a proven winner. ### Can I clone image ads too? Yes. Hermoso reads an image ad’s layout and rebuilds it with your product photo and your own copy. ### Which links can I clone a video from? TikTok videos, Instagram Reels, Facebook videos, X posts with video, YouTube Shorts and videos, or a direct link to a video file.