Competitor research

What does Meta's Ad Library show about a B2B competitor's Facebook and Instagram ads, and what does it hide?

By The Tofu team ·

Meta's Ad Library shows every active ad a competitor runs on Facebook, Instagram and other Meta technologies, with the creative, copy and start date. For ordinary commercial ads, it never shows spend, impressions or results. It shows their targeting (age, gender and location only) and reach only if they were delivered to the EU or UK, and keeps those ads for a year. Ads that never reached the EU or UK disappear once they stop. Spend and impression ranges appear only for ads about social issues, elections or politics.

As of November 2026.

Before you start

  • No account needed to look. Meta says anyone can view and search the Ad Library. To download a search, you must be logged in to Facebook and agree to the Terms of Service.
  • The competitor's Facebook Page name. Ads run from a Page, and the library shows them by Page.
  • The countries they sell in. Ads that reach the EU or UK come with much more detail, so know whether your competitor advertises there.

What the Ad Library shows and what it hides

Meta's Help Center sets out what it shows for each kind of ad:

Ads that didn't reach the EU or UKAds delivered to the EUAds delivered to the UK
Creative and the Page it ran fromYesYesYes
Dates it ranStart date only, while activeYesYes
Kept after the ad stopsNo1 year after its last impression1 year after its last impression
Amount spentNoNoNo
ImpressionsNoNoNo
Total reachNoIn the EU onlyIn the UK only
Reach by location, age and genderNoYesYes
TargetingNoAge, gender and location, per adAge, gender and location, per ad
Who benefits and who paidNoYesNo
Page history and who manages the PageYesYesYes

For ordinary commercial ads, the library never shows detailed targeting (demographics, interests or behaviors), custom audiences such as customer lists or retargeting, lookalikes, budgets, bids, clicks, leads or cost per lead. Even in the EU and UK, targeting stops at age, gender and location.

Ads about social issues, elections or politics get more: spend and impression ranges, estimated audience size, Page-level targeting that includes detailed targeting, custom audiences and lookalikes, and 7 years of history. Unless your competitor's ads are about those topics, you won't see any of it. The Ad Library Report, with Page spend totals, also covers only those ads.

Step 1: Open the Ad Library and pick a country

Go to facebook.com/ads/library. Meta says to use the country selector to see ads from a specific country. Then pick the ad category: Jon Loomer's guide (updated March 2025) says to use All ads unless you only want ads about social issues, elections or politics.

Step 2: Find your competitor's Page

Type the company or brand name. Meta says ads that include your search term, or ads run by Pages whose names include it, may appear. So pick the competitor's own Page from the results to see only its ads. Search your product category too (for example, "expense software") to find advertisers you didn't know about.

Step 3: Read each active ad

For each ad you'll see the creative, the copy, the Page and the date it started. Click See ad details for more, such as details from the About section or the lead form for a lead ad. For B2B research, note:

  • The offer: demo, free trial, webinar, report or price
  • The lead form: what it asks for, if it's a lead ad
  • The angle: which pains, features and proof points it pushes
  • How many versions of the same message are running
  • How long it has run. A live ad with an early start date is one they've kept running. That may mean it works, but Meta shows nothing about how it performs.

Step 4: Switch to an EU country or the UK

If your competitor's ads reach the EU or UK, change the country. For those ads, the library shows:

  • The targeting choices made for each ad: age, gender and location, and whether each was included or excluded
  • Total reach in the EU or UK, and reach by location broken down by age and gender
  • In the EU only, who the ad benefits ("advertiser") and who paid for it ("payer")

These ads stay in the library for one year after their last impression, so you can also see ads the competitor has stopped. Meta shows only the EU or UK part of each ad's data, not its reach elsewhere. Meta says it keeps EU ads because of the EU's Digital Services Act, which requires very large online platforms to keep an ad repository, and keeps UK ads as its own commitment.

Meta requires advertiser and payer details on every new or edited ad that targets the EU, or that targets worldwide. Its examples include a subsidiary as advertiser with its parent company as payer, so the payer field can show who is behind a brand. Meta fills in the Page or Instagram name by default, though, so many ads show just that.

Step 5: Check the Page and its branded content

On the Page's view in the library, you can see when the Page was created, its name changes, the organizations that manage it and the main countries it's managed from.

The library also has a separate search for branded content with a paid partnership label on Facebook and Instagram, created on or after August 17, 2023. Search by Page or Instagram profile, choose Facebook or Instagram and a date range. It shows the creator, the brand partner, the post type, the date and a link. That's how you find a competitor's creator or partner posts.

Step 6: Save what you find

Ads that never reached the EU or UK aren't archived. Once your competitor turns one off, it's gone from the library. Take screenshots and notes while ads are live, and check on a fixed schedule, such as every week, to see what they start and stop. You can also download a search when you're logged in.

Step 7: Use the Ad Library API for bulk EU data

Meta's Ad Library API (the ads_archive endpoint in the Graph API) is for developers. Its reference says:

  • You can search by keyword or by up to 10 Page IDs.
  • It returns active ads by default.
  • Keyword searches cover ad text, images, audio from video and the call-to-action button, and Meta doesn't translate them, so search in the ads' language.
  • Ads that didn't reach any EU location come back only if they're about social issues, elections or politics.

So the API won't return a US-only competitor's commercial ads. Meta's pages disagree on the UK: one section of the Help Center says UK ad details are in the API too, while the Help Center's overview, Meta's Transparency Center and the API reference mention only the EU. If you need UK ads, test it first.

Common problems

ProblemWhy it happensFix
The competitor shows no adsIt isn't running ads in that country right now, or it runs them from a different PageChange the country, search its brand and product names, and check Page history
Results include other companiesMeta matches your term in ad text and Page namesPick the competitor's Page instead of keyword results
No spend shownMeta shows spend only for ads about social issues, elections or politicsThere's no official figure. Treat any spend number from another tool as an estimate
No targeting or reach shownThe ad didn't reach the EU or UKSwitch to an EU country or the UK. If the competitor doesn't advertise there, Meta shows none
An ad you saw last month is goneAds outside the EU and UK leave the library when they stopSave screenshots while ads run
An ad is covered by a shieldMeta rejected or disabled it after it ranFor ads that reached the EU or UK, the creative stays hidden but the ad's other data stays for a year
The API returns nothing for US adsThe API returns non-EU ads only if they're political or about social issuesUse the library website for those ads

For other channels, see how to see your competitors' LinkedIn ads and how to see your competitors' Google ads.

Sources

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