Meta Ad Library: see competitors’ ads on Facebook and Instagram
Meta's free, public search of ads running across its apps. Filter by country, category, platform and date to study competitors' creative and offers.
The site: Meta Ad Library. Cost: Free. Useful for: marketing and search.
What it is
The Meta Ad Library is Meta’s public, searchable record of ads running across its apps, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and the Audience Network. It is free, and you do not need to be logged in to a Facebook account for basic searches.
You choose a country and an ad category, such as all ads or ads about social issues, elections or politics, then search by keyword or advertiser. Filters cover language, platform, media type, active status and impressions by date. Political and issue ads stay in the library for seven years with information on spend, reach and funders. Other ads targeted at the US appear only while they run, while ads shown in the EU remain for a year after their last impression.
Use it for
- Seeing the ads a competitor is running now
- Collecting examples of hooks, offers and formats in your category
- Checking which platforms and formats a brand favours
- Researching political or issue advertising and its spending
For a small brand, it is the cheapest competitor research there is: a live view of what rivals are paying to show their customers.
How to use it
- Open facebook.com/ads/library.
- Choose the country, and set the ad category to all ads for commercial research.
- Type a brand name or keyword, then pick the advertiser or search the keyword.
- Use the filters for platform, media type, active status and dates.
- Open an ad’s details to see the full copy, the creative and the landing page link.
Save screenshots of ads you want to study. Outside the EU, ordinary ads usually vanish from the library once they stop running.
Example
A founder launching a skincare brand in the UK can set the country to the United Kingdom, choose all ads and search for two established rivals. Reading their active ads shows which offers, claims and formats they repeat, and the landing page links show where they send people.
Watch out for
- Ordinary commercial ads outside the EU usually disappear once they stop running.
- Spend figures are kept for political and issue ads; for ordinary ads you mainly see the creative.
- Seeing an ad does not tell you whether it is working.
It works well alongside Google Ads Transparency Center, Google Trends and Similarweb.
Checklist
Put it to work
Recap cards
Tap a card to check yourself.
Sources and credits
