Meta Ad Library: See every ad your competitors run

 

The Meta Ad Library is Meta's free, public database of ads running on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Threads and the Audience Network. You don't need an account to search it. For commercial ads outside the EU it shows the creative, copy and start date, but no spend or results. Set the country to an EU member state and each ad also shows who it reached.

 

What the Meta Ad Library is

Meta launched the library in 2018 as an archive of political ads and opened it to all active ads in 2019. The public version lives at facebook.com/ads/library. What you see depends on the ad's category and where it was delivered.

• Commercial ads outside the EU: Meta commits to showing them while active. Inactive ones often remain searchable under the Inactive filter, but Meta doesn't document for how long.
• Social issue, election and political ads: shown with spend, reach and funding entities, active or inactive, for 7 years. Meta stopped delivering these ads in the EU on 6 October 2025.
• Any ad delivered in the EU: shown while active and archived for one year after its last impression.

 

What you can and cannot see

Data	Commercial ad, non-EU	Commercial ad, delivered in EU	Political/issue ad
Creative, copy, CTA, landing page	Yes	Yes	Yes
Start date, platforms	Yes	Yes	Yes
Inactive ads	Sometimes, retention undocumented	Yes, 1 year	Yes, 7 years
Reach	No	Yes, by country, age, gender	Impression ranges, demographics
Targeting chosen by advertiser	No	Age, gender, location	Researcher dataset only
Payer and beneficiary	No	Yes	Funding entity
Spend	No	No	Ranges

 

No version shows clicks, CTR, conversions or ROAS. Interest and behaviour targeting and custom audiences stay hidden even for EU ads.

 

How to search it

1. Open facebook.com/ads/library.
2. Country: pick the market you sell in. Results are ads delivered there, not ads made there.
3. Ad category: leave it on All ads unless you need political ads.
4. Search: type a keyword or an advertiser name. Picking an advertiser from the dropdown gives you that Page's full ad set. A keyword matches ad text only, so a brand that never writes the word won't appear.
5. Filters: language, advertiser, platform, media type, active status and impressions by date. For creative research, set Media type to Images or Videos and Active status to Active ads.

Keyword search is unordered by default: every word must appear, in any order. Put a phrase in quotes for an exact match. In Cyprus and other bilingual markets, search Greek and English terms separately, because the library matches the ad's text and a Greek-only ad won't surface for an English keyword.

You can also reach a page's ads from Facebook: open the Page, go to Page transparency, then Go to Ad Library.

 

Search URLs you can bookmark

Every search is stored in the URL, so a useful setup is one bookmark. A search for active image ads in France containing "gym":

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/?active_status=active&ad_type=all&country=FR&media_type=image&q=gym&search_type=keyword_unordered

 

Parameter	What it controls	Values
country	Delivery market	ISO code: CY, GR, DE, US, or ALL
active_status	Live or stopped ads	active, inactive, all
media_type	Creative format	all, image, video, meme, image_and_meme, none
q	Search term	Any text
search_type	Match mode	keyword_unordered, keyword_exact_phrase, page
view_all_page_id	One advertiser's ads	The Page's numeric ID, with search_type=page
sort_data[mode]	Sort order	total_impressions, or omit for default

Change q for another category or country for another market.

 

How to read an ad card

Each result card carries the same fields.

• Library ID: a permanent ID. Paste it after ?id= in the library URL to link to that single ad. Record it with every ad you save; the library has no save feature.
• Started running on: the date of the first impression.
• Platforms: icons for each Meta app the ad runs on.
• Multiple versions: the advertiser is running variants of the same ad. Someone is testing it.
• See ad details: the full copy and creative, and for EU-delivered ads, the transparency section.

The Sort by control can rank results by impressions. It ranks without showing the impression numbers themselves, so read it as an order, not a measurement.

 

Use an EU country to see reach and targeting

This is the part most guides skip. Since the Digital Services Act took effect in August 2023, Meta displays and archives all ads targeting people in the EU, with the dates they ran, the targeting parameters used and who was served. Open See ad details on any ad delivered in an EU country and the European Union transparency section shows:

• The location, age and gender the advertiser targeted.
• Total EU reach, broken down by country, gender and age.
• Payer and beneficiary: The beneficiary is who the ad promotes; the payer is who funds it. For ads created on or after 22 June 2023, both are public. When they differ, you learn which entity pays for a brand's ads.
• Inactive ads, for a year after the last impression.

Treat the numbers carefully. Total EU reach is one figure covering the ad's whole run, with no daily curve or placement split. Payer and beneficiary are self-declared. Reach also tracks budget more than creative quality, so compare reach between ads from the same advertiser, not between advertisers.

Even if you sell outside the EU, a competitor running ads in any EU country exposes this data there. Search their Page with the country set to Ireland, Germany or Cyprus.

 

How much the "long-running ad" signal tells you

Most guides say an ad running for months is a winner. The logic is sound on average: advertisers stop paying for ads that lose money. It breaks in three places.

• Small budgets run forever: A local business spending a few euros a day on a page-like ad can leave it on for years without anyone reviewing it.
• Old ads can be retargeting: An ad shown only to past visitors has little in common with a prospecting ad.
• Duplicates look new: A duplicated or relaunched ad is a new ad with a new Library ID and start date, so a proven creative can look like a fresh test.

Weight longevity higher when the same advertiser runs several old variants of one ad and when the CTA sends people to a product page rather than a profile. Treat every saved ad as a hypothesis to test, not proof.

 

The Ad Library API

The API's coverage is narrower than the website's. It returns political and issue ads, plus commercial ads only when they were delivered in the EU. A brand that advertises only in the US doesn't appear in API results.

Access takes three steps, per Meta's API page:

1. Confirm your identity and location at Facebook.com/ID. This can take a few days.
2. Create a Meta for Developers account.
3. Add an app.

Long-lived user tokens expire after about 60 days, so scheduled pulls need a refresh flow. The API returns a snapshot link rather than image and video files, and some values come as ranges.

For a one-off competitor check, the website is faster. The API pays off if you track the same advertisers every week.

 

Other ad libraries

• Google Ads Transparency Center: ads from verified advertisers across Search, YouTube, Display, Shopping, Maps and Play. Search by advertiser or domain, not keyword.
• TikTok Commercial Content Library: ads shown in the EEA, Switzerland and the UK since October 2022.
• LinkedIn Ad Library: ads that ran after 1 June 2023, each kept for a year after its last impression. The best source for B2B.

 

FAQ

Is the Meta Ad Library free?

Yes. Searching needs no Facebook or Instagram account. Only the API requires identity confirmation.

Can I see a competitor's ad spend?

Not for commercial ads, in any country. Spend ranges exist only for social issue, election and political ads, and those no longer run in the EU. For EU-delivered commercial ads, reach is the closest proxy.

Can I download an ad?

There is no download button. Open See ad details and save the image from your browser, naming the file with the Library ID. Use it as a reference, not as creative you republish.

Can I check my own ads?

Yes. Search your page name and you see every active ad from it, which is quicker than asking for preview links.