Competitor Ads in 5 Minutes: The Meta Ad Library

Want to know exactly what your competitor advertises on Facebook and Instagram, how many ads they run and which ones have been running for a long time? You don’t need paid tools for that. Meta has the Ad Library: a public catalogue of ads, open to everyone. Below, step by step: how to use it, what to look at, where practitioners disagree and what the Library will not show you.

We checked the facts against Meta’s help pages and primary sources on 27 October 2026. Button names depend on the language and the interface version: where we could not confirm a name, the English one is given in brackets.

1. What it is and why it’s free

The Meta Ad Library shows all ads currently running across Meta products: Facebook, Instagram and others. Meta’s help page says it is open to access without logging in to an account. You can browse from a phone or a computer, even if you have no Facebook page.

A login may be needed only for a few things: for example, to report an ad or to open ads with age restrictions, such as alcohol. For an ordinary competitor search it is not needed.

2. How to find a competitor’s ads: four steps

1. Open facebook.com/ads/library.
2. Choose the country: “Ukraine” (Country). This matters: ads are shown by the country where they run.
3. In the ad category, choose “All ads”. The other categories cover ads about social issues and politics, which you do not need.
4. Type the competitor’s Page name into the search. If you are looking at a niche rather than one competitor, you can type a word from their ads, for example “air conditioner repair”.

The competitor’s profile can also help you find the exact Page: on Facebook, the Page’s section about the Page has page transparency with a link to its ads. Instagram ads are pulled in through the linked Facebook Page, so you usually do not need to search for the Instagram account separately.

By default you will see only active ads. If the status filter (Active status) lets you choose something else, do so, but keep section 5 in mind: the Library does not keep ended commercial ads for long.

3. What to look at in each ad

Start date. Next to the ad is the date from which it has been running (in the interface it appears as “Started running on”). It is the only “time figure” the Library gives you.

How many ads, and how different they are. If a competitor has ten similar versions with different headlines or images, they are most likely testing what works best. Practitioners read it this way: what is identical across all the versions is their main argument, the one the whole campaign rests on. It is a hint at what they think matters most to the customer: price, speed, a guarantee or something else.

Platforms and format. You can see where exactly the ad runs and what it is: an image, a video or a carousel. That shows you what the competitor is investing in.

Where the ad leads. Click it and look at the page the customer lands on: the first screen, the price, the contact button, how it works on a phone. Some ideas for your own site can come straight from there.

4. How long must an ad run to count as successful: practitioners disagree

The most common advice: if an ad has been running for a long time, it probably pays off, otherwise the competitor would have switched it off. But the sources give different time frames.

• Some practitioners (their write-ups from 2025–2026) name 30–60 days or more as the success signal. That is the “a month or two” from our video.
• Others think two weeks is enough and write about 14 days. The source gives no data behind it.
• Meta itself gives no such metric. The Library shows when an ad was launched, but not clicks, leads or spend (for Ukraine). A long life does not prove profit: the competitor may have forgotten to switch it off, or the budget may have been tiny.

So our conclusion is: running for a long time means “take a closer look”, not “it works, copy it”. Other signs, such as a dozen variants and the same main argument, are more reliable than any “magic” number of days.

5. What the Library will not show

This is where expectations most often go wrong.

• No impressions, age or gender of the audience for Ukraine. According to Meta’s help page, impressions and demographic data are shown only for ads in EU countries. For ads aimed at the Ukrainian market you will see the ad itself, but not how many people saw it or who they are.
• No spend or results. How much a competitor pays and how many leads they get is not disclosed. Do not trust services that name someone else’s budget “exactly”: those are estimates.
• Ended commercial ads disappear. Meta’s Transparency Center (the page was updated in 2023) says ads about social issues, elections and politics are kept for 7 years, and ads shown in the EU for one year after their last impression. For ordinary commercial ads outside the EU it speaks only of active ads. Practitioners confirm that ended ads vanish from the Library. So save an interesting ad right away: as a screenshot or a link to it.
• A new ad does not appear instantly. Practitioners write about roughly a day after the first impression. We found no official figure in Meta’s help pages.
• No targeting. The Library does not say who the ad was shown to, only where it runs.

6. What to do yourself in five minutes

1. Find two or three main competitors in your city or niche and look at their active ads.
2. Note for each: start date, number of variants, main argument, where the ad leads.
3. Save screenshots of the most interesting ones.
4. Find your own Page in the Library. It works the same way: just type your own name. You will see what your contractor is running in your name: whether the texts are current, whether there are old promotions and prices that changed long ago, whether there are ads you did not know about. For a business owner this is the most useful check: it takes a minute and needs no access of any kind.
5. Repeat once a month. If a competitor has a new promotion or a new argument, you will be the first to see it.

From our practice

We look at the Ad Library when we prepare a new campaign or review an old one: it is a quick way to understand how a niche talks to customers and which arguments repeat. We do not advise copying other people’s ads: you see the ad, but not how many leads it brought, and the competitor may be wrong. It is more useful to look for gaps: what everyone says the same way and what you can say differently and more honestly. For how competitors compete in Google search ads, see our article on auction insights, and for why Meta can change your own ads, see Meta rewrites your ads.

Summary

1. The Meta Ad Library is free and open without logging in: facebook.com/ads/library.
2. Choose the country “Ukraine”, the category “All ads” and type the competitor’s Page name.
3. Look at the start date, the number of similar variants and what repeats across them: that is their main argument.
4. Running for a long time means “take a look”, not “profitable”: practitioners name both 30–60 days and 14, and Meta gives no such metric.
5. The Library does not show impressions, age or gender for Ukraine, and it removes ended commercial ads: keep screenshots.
6. Find your own Page in the Library and check what your contractor is running.

How we set up Meta advertising is in the Meta Ads section.

Want a free audit of your Google Ads account? Send us a request: we’ll look at your account and tell you what counts as a lead there and whether it matches real calls.