What Is the Meta Ad Library?
The Meta Ad Library is a free, public database of every active ad running across Facebook, Instagram and the rest of Meta's apps. Anyone can search it by brand or keyword, without logging in, and see each ad's creative, copy and the date it started running.
It was built for transparency, not for marketers. But it's the best free creative research tool there is, because it shows you what other brands are actually paying to run right now.
The catch: for most ads it shows the creative and almost nothing else. No spend, no impressions, no results. So the skill isn't finding ads. It's reading them.
What the Ad Library Shows (and What It Doesn't)
What you see depends on the kind of ad and where it ran. Here's the short version, from Meta's own breakdown:
| Most ads (US and most other countries) | Ads delivered to the EU or UK | Social issue, election or political ads | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ad creative and Page | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dates | Start date only | Yes | Yes |
| Kept after the ad stops | No | 1 year after last impression | 7 years |
| Amount spent | No | No | Yes (a range) |
| Impressions | No | No | Yes (a range) |
| Reach and targeting | No | Yes | Reach breakdowns and Page-level targeting |
Three things in that table matter for creative research.
Most ads vanish when they stop. A regular US ad is only in the library while it's active. Once a brand pauses it, it's gone. If you want to know what a competitor tested last quarter, you have to have looked last quarter.
There's no spend data for normal brand ads. You can't see which ad is getting the budget. You can only infer it.
EU and UK ads show more. If a brand also advertises in Europe, switch the country selector to an EU country and you'll see reach and targeting for ads that delivered there. It won't tell you about US spend, but it's the closest thing to a reach number you'll get for free.
Two more details from Meta: ads with age-restricted content, like alcohol or gambling, don't show their creative to people who aren't logged in. And the library also has a separate search for branded content with a paid partnership label (posts from creators working with brands, the organic cousin of partnership ads).
How to Search the Meta Ad Library
- Go to facebook.com/ads/library. No account needed.
- Pick a country. Results are filtered to ads shown there. Use the country your customers are in.
- Pick the ad category. "All ads" is what you want for brand research. The others (issues, elections or politics, housing, employment, financial products and services) are special categories.
- Search by keyword or advertiser. Type a brand name and pick its Page from the dropdown to see only that brand's ads. Type a phrase, like "protein powder" or "free shipping", to see every ad that uses it, from any brand.
- Use Filters and Sort to narrow the results, for example to active ads only.
- Open an ad. Each card shows the Library ID, the date it started running, the platforms it runs on, and the creative and copy. "See ad details" opens the rest.
Keyword search is underrated. Searching a problem your product solves ("bloating", "can't sleep", "back pain") shows you every brand fighting for the same customer, including ones you didn't know were competitors.
How to Read What You Find
Since you can't see spend, you read signals. None of these prove an ad is working. Together, they tell you a lot.
How long the ad has been running
Every card says "Started running on" with a date. Brands tend to turn off ads that lose money, so a long-running ad is a hint that it's earning its spend.
Keep the hint in proportion. Winning ads don't last long in our data from large US accounts: June's top ads kept a median of only 29% of their spend by September. And only 34% of top-10 ads were still top-10 two months later. So an ad still running after several months is either a real long-lived winner or one that's still on but barely spending. You can't tell which from the library alone. Note it, don't worship it.
Multiple versions
Some cards say "This ad has multiple versions" or "N ads use this creative and text." That means the brand is running the same creative in several ads, or testing variations of it. A creative that shows up in many ads is one the brand is putting weight behind.
How many ads are live
Count a brand's active ads. A small number usually means a small or slow creative pipeline. A big number means they're testing a lot.
For context, the median account in our data on how many ads to run had 75 creatives live at once, and the largest consumer brand had 749. If a competitor has hundreds of active ads, they're not winning with one hero video. They're winning with volume.
Format mix
Tally the formats: UGC, motion, static, hybrid, carousel. A brand that's all static, or all creator video, is telling you what's working for them, or what they can make. Either way, it shows you a gap. If every brand in your category runs the same talking-head UGC, a strong motion or static ad is the one that looks different in the feed. That's creative diversity in practice.
Hooks, angles and offers
Read the first line of copy and watch the first three seconds of each video. Write down the hook, the angle (problem, social proof, comparison, founder story, offer) and any offer in the ad. After 20 or 30 ads, patterns show up fast: the claims everyone makes, the objections nobody answers, the angle nobody's tried.
Where the ad sends people
Check the landing page. A brand testing a quiz, a listicle-style advertorial or a bundle page is telling you something about how they convert cold traffic.
How We Turn Ad Library Research Into Briefs
Scrolling the library is easy. Turning it into better ads takes a process. Here's ours, roughly:
- Pick 5 to 10 brands. Direct competitors, plus brands selling to the same customer in a different category. The second group is often more useful.
- Log what's live. For each brand, note the number of active ads, the format mix and the ads with the earliest start dates. A shared sheet is fine.
- Tag every ad you save. Format, hook, angle, offer, who's on camera. Untagged screenshots are a mood board, not research.
- Look for gaps, not ads to copy. The useful question is "what is nobody in this category doing?" not "what is the leader doing?"
- Write it into a brief. Each idea becomes a concept with a hook, an angle and a format. Our ad creative brief template has a spot for exactly this.
- Check again every month. Because paused ads disappear, the only way to see how a competitor's creative changes is to look on a schedule.
This sits inside a bigger creative strategy. The library tells you what the market looks like. Your own account data tells you what works for you.
Mistakes to Avoid
- Copying an ad shot for shot. You'll get their ad with your logo, without their offer, brand or audience. And it'll look like theirs in the feed.
- Treating "active" as "winning." Many live ads get little or no spend. Start dates and version counts are hints, not proof.
- Only looking at direct competitors. The best ideas usually come from adjacent categories.
- Looking once. One snapshot misses everything a brand tested and turned off.
- Forgetting your own listing. Search your own brand. It's a quick check of what customers and competitors can see, and of whether your live ads look like they came from one brand or five.
The Ad Library vs. Paid Research Tools
The library is free and complete for active ads, but it's built for one search at a time. It doesn't save ads, tag them, or keep a record once they stop.
Paid creative tools add those things: boards, tagging, alerts and history. If you also want to see how your own ads perform by creative, that's a reporting tool, and we compared two of them in Atria vs. Motion.
For most brands, the free library plus a shared sheet and a monthly habit gets you most of the way. The tool matters less than whether anyone turns the research into new ads.
How We Do Creative Research at Biddyco
We're a creative agency for Meta ads. Competitor and category research is where every batch of UGC, motion, static and hybrid ads starts, and it's paired with what's already working in the account.
Our US-based senior team works across 100+ accounts and $20M+ in monthly spend. New files land every 2 to 4 weeks, and we aim for one round of feedback.
For more data on what's working on Meta, see our Meta Ads Statistics hub. If you'd rather have a team doing the research and making the ads, talk to us.
FAQ
Is the Meta Ad Library free?
Yes. Anyone can search it at facebook.com/ads/library without an account. You only need to log in to download search results, and to see the creative on age-restricted ads like alcohol or gambling.
Can you see how much a competitor spends on Facebook ads?
Not for regular brand ads in the US. Meta only shows spend and impression ranges for ads about social issues, elections or politics. For ads that delivered to the EU or UK you can see reach and targeting, but not spend.
How long do ads stay in the Meta Ad Library?
Most ads only appear while they're active. Ads delivered to the EU or UK are kept for one year after their last impression, and social issue, election and political ads are kept for seven years.
Does the Meta Ad Library show inactive ads?
Only for those categories: political and social issue ads, and ads that delivered to the EU or UK. A regular US ad disappears from the library once it's turned off.
How do I find a specific brand's ads in the Ad Library?
Pick the country, set the category to "All ads", start typing the brand name and choose its Page from the dropdown. You'll see every active ad running from that Page.
Does a long-running ad mean it's a winner?
It's a good sign, not proof. The library doesn't show spend, so an ad can be running with very little budget. Use start dates together with version counts, format patterns and your own testing.
