How to use the Meta Ad Library

What is the Meta Ad Library?

The Meta Ad Library is “a place where you can search for ads that are running across Meta Products”, in the words of Meta’s help page. Meta built it as a transparency tool. Marketers use it as a free swipe file: a folder of other brands’ live ads to learn from.

Ad Library

Meta Ad Library is a comprehensive, searchable database for ads transparency. People can use the Ad Library to get more information about the ads they see across Meta technologies.

People can search for all active ads running across products from Meta. For ads about social issues, elections or politics, Meta provides additional information, including spend, reach and funding entities. These ads are visible whether they’re active or inactive and are stored in the Ad Library for 7 years.

The help page draws the line that matters most. “For all ads, you can search for ads that are currently active.” Only for ads “about issues, elections or politics” can you also search inactive ones. A competitor’s paused ad from last month is gone from search, unless it ran in the EU.

How do you search the Meta Ad Library?

Open facebook.com/ads/library, pick a country and an ad category, then type a keyword or an advertiser’s name.

Anyone can view and search the Ad Library. You can search for any term, name or Page in the Ad Library. Any ads that include the search term, or ads run by Pages that include the term, may appear. Note: If ads include certain types of age-restricted content, such as alcohol or gambling, the ad creative won’t be shown to people who are underage or not logged in to Facebook. When possible, self-reported ages are used to set these restrictions.

The Ad Library API is an application programming interface that enables a deeper analysis of social issues, electoral or political ads in the Ad Library as well as ads that deliver to the EU and associated territories.

The search options on Meta’s API page include active status and delivery dates, and the API reference adds platform, media type and language. Three of them help creative research most:

1. Platform: set Instagram to see only the ads that run there.
2. Media type: set video or image to compare one format across competitors.
3. Delivery dates: an ad that started months ago is one the advertiser keeps paying to run. The library does not show whether it sells.

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What extra data shows for ads in the EU and UK?

Ads delivered in the EU get the most data. Meta keeps them “archived for one year upon the delivery of their last impression”, Meta’s transparency page says, and adds reach, targeting and the payer. The EU’s Digital Services Act, its law for large online platforms, makes them keep that archive (Article 39).

The UK gets most of the same fields. Meta’s API page lists, for ads delivered to the UK and EU:

• total impressions in the UK and EU, estimated
• targeting and reach by age, gender and location in the UK and EU, estimated
• beneficiary and payer, EU only

For research, that makes an EU or UK country selection the useful one. A US brand that also advertises in Germany leaves a year of ads behind there, stopped ones included.

What does the Meta Ad Library API give you?

The API covers two sets of ads, per Meta’s API page: ads about social issues, elections or politics “delivered anywhere in the world during the past 7 years”, and “Ads of any type that were delivered to the United Kingdom (UK) or European Union during the past year”. A US-only commercial ad is outside both.

Getting access takes three steps on that page:

1. Confirm your identity and location at Facebook.com/ID, the same check required to run political ads. Meta says it “can take a few days”.
2. Create a Meta for Developers account and agree to Meta’s Platform Policy.
3. Create an app, then query the ads_archive endpoint.

Every ad returns its Library ID, its creative content, its Page and its delivery dates. Political and issue ads add spend and impressions as ranges, and Meta’s field reference marks both fields as theirs alone. No commercial ad’s spend is in the API.

Can you download ads from the Ad Library?

One at a time, for analysis. The API returns a link to each ad, its ad_snapshot_url. On that field, Meta’s API page says “you cannot currently download a batch of archived ads”. You can download an individual ad’s creative, but “it must be for analysis and you must comply with the data storage terms in our Terms of Service”.

Paid tools fill the gap Meta leaves: Foreplay, for one, saves ads into boards that keep them after they leave search (table below). Meta’s pages do not say how any of these tools collects its ads.

What do ad spy tools add?

An ad spy tool adds memory and reach to the free library. The library holds a commercial ad only while it runs. These tools save ads into boards, keep them after they stop, add TikTok and other platforms, and some add transcripts or comment search.

Meta publishes no commercial ad’s spend, in the library or the API. Any spend or demographic figure a spy tool shows is its own estimate, as AdSpy’s demographics are.

Foreplay suits a team building a swipe file of Meta and TikTok ads. The Foreplay profile and Foreplay alternatives compare it. Minea and PiPiAds are built around finding products to sell. Every research tool is grouped on the creative research hub.

What you find feeds the next brief. Creative fatigue and Andromeda covers turning competitor concepts into distinct ads. The UGC script template covers the script.

Questions about the Meta Ad Library

Is the Meta Ad Library free?

Yes. The library and its API cost nothing. The API needs an identity check at Facebook.com/ID and a Meta for Developers app.

Can you see how much a competitor spends on Meta ads?

Only for ads about social issues, elections or politics, as a range. Neither the library nor the API shows spend for a commercial ad.

Does the Meta Ad Library show Instagram ads?

Yes. It covers ads running across Meta’s apps, and the platform filter narrows a search to Instagram.

Can third-party tools use Ad Library data?

Access is open to anyone who passes Meta’s identity check and agrees to its Platform Policy. Use is narrower. Meta’s API page allows no batch download. It lets you download one ad’s creative “for analysis”, under the data storage terms of its Terms of Service. Commercial coverage stops at ads delivered to the UK or EU in the past year.