The Meta Ad Library is a free, public, searchable database of the ads currently running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Meta’s other apps. Anyone can use it without logging in: type a business name or a keyword, choose a country, and see the ads that advertiser is running right now.
How the Meta Ad Library works
Every ad that runs on Meta’s network is added to the library automatically while it is active. For an ordinary commercial ad you can see the image or video, the text, the call to action, the date it started running, the platforms it appears on and, where an advertiser runs several versions, how many variations exist. Once a commercial ad stops running it generally drops out of the public view.
Ads about social issues, elections or politics are treated differently. In the UK, advertisers running these ads must go through Meta’s authorisation process and carry a “Paid for by” disclaimer. The library keeps these ads for seven years and shows a range for the money spent, a range for impressions, and a breakdown of who saw them by age, gender and region. The Ad Library Report summarises spending on these ads across the UK.
Ads shown to people in the EU carry extra transparency information under the EU’s Digital Services Act. That law does not cover ads shown only in the UK, so a UK-only campaign shows less detail than the same campaign run in Ireland or France.
You can reach the same information from any Facebook Page: the Page transparency section links to that Page’s ads in the library.
Why it matters
For a UK business, the library is the cheapest piece of competitor analysis available. In ten minutes you can see what offers rival gyms in Manchester are promoting, which formats an online retailer in your niche favours, whether a competitor has started using video, and how their messages change around Black Friday or January.
The start date is the most useful clue. Advertisers rarely keep a poor ad running for months, so an ad that has been live since the spring is probably earning its keep. It is not proof, because some businesses simply forget to switch ads off, but it is a better signal than likes or comments.
It also lets you check your own account. After launching, search for your Page and make sure the ads are live and look right on each platform.
Common mistakes
- Forgetting to set the country to the United Kingdom, then studying ads aimed at a different market.
- Copying a competitor’s creative. Apart from the copyright and passing-off risk, their ad was built for their offer and their audience.
- Assuming the library shows spend or results for commercial ads. It does not; only social issue, electoral and political ads show spend ranges.
- Reading too much into a single ad. Look at patterns across many ads and several weeks.
- Using it only once. Competitors change their ads, so a monthly check tells you far more than one look.
How to act on it
Pick three to five competitors who sell to the same UK customers as you. Once a month, search each one with the country set to the UK and the filter set to active ads. Record the offers, the formats, the hooks in the first line of text, and anything that has run for more than a few weeks. Look for gaps: a reassurance nobody mentions, a customer worry nobody answers, a format nobody uses.
Use what you find to shape hypotheses for your own creative testing, not to clone ads. This research is the first step when I take on Facebook ads management for a new client, because it shows what the market is already used to seeing before we decide what to say differently.