9 Ways To Use the Meta Ad Library for Research

Social media platforms owned by Meta—which include Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Threads—attract 3.43 billion daily users, almost 42% of the world’s population. Advertising on these platforms offers huge potential to reach customers, but competition is fierce. In 2024, 86% of marketers used Facebook, and 79% Instagram.

As more brands compete—and as Meta advertising evolves with artificial intelligence (AI) tools like Advantage+—it’s becoming harder to create standout campaigns without solid insights. That’s where the Meta Ad Library comes in.

Whether you’re starting fresh or looking for a jolt of creative inspiration, this free research tool lets you search all the ads currently running across Meta technologies. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at what’s working (and what’s not) in 2025.

Read on for a rundown of how you can use the Meta Ad Library to improve your Meta advertising strategy.

What is the Meta Ad Library?

The Meta Ad Library is a searchable digital database containing information about ads currently running across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, Messenger, and websites partnering with Meta via its Audience Network.

To use the Ad Library, enter keywords or advertiser names to see related ads, branded content, an ad’s start date, and original pages. If you’re in the European Union or United Kingdom, you’ll get additional information about the ad’s reach and target audience. You can further fine-tune your search through the Meta Ad Library API.

You’ll also find ads related to socio-political issues and elections, even if those ads are inactive. The library shows spending details and funding sources for these political ads.

When to use the Meta Ad Library for ad research

The Meta Ad Library is a vital resource for marketers looking to stay ahead of trends and competition. You might use the Ad Library to:

• Find real-world inspiration for your own Facebook ad strategies
• Analyze competitors’ Meta ad campaigns
• Validate new ideas by checking if similar ads exist, then plan how to improve them
• Explore ways to scale campaigns across Meta platforms
• Discover popular messaging on different platforms
• Conduct an ad search for keywords relevant to your brand
• Search for branded content to understand how brands leverage paid partnerships

If you sell on Facebook or sell on Instagram, reviewing other brands’ Meta Ads can reveal the tactics they use to drive traffic, interest, and sales.

Before you get started, make sure you’re set up on Meta Business Manager, Meta Ads Manager, and the Meta Pixel (a tool for Instagram and Facebook retargeting campaigns).

9 ways to use the Meta Ad Library

1. View more ads from the same advertiser
2. Search keywords related to your business
3. Check out your competitors
4. Filter ads by country
5. See how long ads have run
6. See where ads appear
7. View ads by media type
8. Analyze brand partnerships
9. Find creative inspiration

Explore these nine ways your business can use the Ad Library to gain strategic insights and find creative inspiration.

1. View more ads from the same advertiser

If you’re scrolling through Facebook and see an ad that catches your eye, you can use the Meta Ad Library to see other ads run by the same advertiser. This can help you find inspiration from brands with strong creative assets.

To view multiple ads by the same brand, visit the company’s Facebook page and go to the About tab to find its Page transparency details. From Page transparency, scroll down to See all to get more information. From there, click Go to Ad Library to see all of the brand’s Meta ads.

Here’s the Meta Ad Library page for cosmetics brand Rare Beauty:

2. Search keywords related to your business

If you want to see Meta ads related to your business, choose keywords related to your industry, brand, or products, then see what comes up when you search for them in the Meta Ad Library. This will give you an idea of the messaging that’s already out there and help you spot trends you might want to capitalize on.

For example, a vegan food brand might search “vegan condiments” and other keywords related to specific products, such as “vegan tzatziki” or “vegan mozzarella.”

Not sure which keywords to search? Although Ad Library isn’t a search engine optimization tool (SEO tool), your keyword research skills will help you search for the most relevant phrases in the Meta Ad Library.

Brush up on SEO skills with the following keyword research guides:

• How to Run a Competitor Keyword Analysis
• The Beginner’s Guide to Keyword Research for Ecommerce

3. Check out your competitors

Use the Ad Library to monitor competitors’ advertising strategies. Each business page has its own Ad Library page which lists all of its active ads. Brands may have a single ad running or a whole collection of ads to check out.

When you get a bird’s-eye view of a company’s ads, you can note trends. Maybe the advertiser uses similar imagery and copy across their ads, which may indicate that these creative assets perform well.

You might also note if they use a lot of the same types of ads (e.g., video, infographic) or appear to be testing a variety of ad types. For example, the makeup brand Glossier uses a mix of video ads, photo-focused ads, and text-based ads.

There are two ways to find this page for your desired brand: Either enter the company’s name in the Meta Ad Library search bar or visit the brand’s Facebook page to view its ads from there.

For example, if you want to see the ads athletic apparel brand Gymshark is running on Meta platforms, visit the company’s Facebook business page, select About in the top navigation, then select Page transparency from the menu. From here, select See all, which takes you to a Page transparency pop-up window.

Take a quick glance to see if the page is running ads. In this example, you can see that Gymshark is running ads, and you can click the Go to Ad Library button to check out those ads.

You can also navigate directly to the Meta Ad Library, select All ads from the Select ad category dropdown, then type “Gymshark” into the search bar. Once you select Gymshark’s profile, you’ll see the company’s active Meta ads.

4. Filter ads by country

If you sell internationally, you might run different ad campaigns for customers in different locations. Even if you don’t sell internationally, your target audience might be predominantly located in a specific country, and you might want to hone your search to make sure you’re only seeing ads this audience could be seeing.

Either way, filtering your ad search by country can help you see ads that are relevant to your paid advertising goals and the demographic you want to target.

To see ads in a certain country, go to the dropdown menu to pull up a list of countries. You can either scroll to find the country of your choice or start typing its name in the search box. If you’re looking up a specific competitor, you can search for the company, then filter the results by country.

5. See how long ads have run

Examining ads’ runtime can help you estimate the success of different ads. For example, if a brand has run a particular ad for a long time, it may indicate this ad has proven particularly effective.

To filter by date, conduct a search for the brand’s name in the Meta Ad Library, click the Filters button, scroll to the bottom of the pop-up window, then select “Impressions by date.” From there, you can see which ads ran during specified time periods, including: a single date, a date range, “on or before,” or “on or after.” You can go back as far as July 2018, but no earlier.

6. See where ads appear

You can filter searches by platform to see which Meta platforms individual ads appear on. This information can give you insight into which types of ads to consider for your own campaigns.

For example, maybe you notice that a rival brand is placing ads on WhatsApp and decide to use this platform to remain competitive. Or maybe you notice that none of your competitors are running Messenger ads, so you try experimenting with that ad placement to differentiate your brand.

When you browse ads in the Meta Ad Library, you can see which types of ads and placements each one gets. Look at the ad details displayed above the ad creative: You’ll see the ad’s activity status, starting run date, and the list of platforms where that ad has been placed. Ad Library uses icons to show the placement of ads. You can also select a platform in the Filters menu.

For example, you can find each of these three Baboon to the Moon ads on Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, and Messenger. Next to “Platforms,” you’ll see the logo for each platform.

7. View ads by media type

You can publish a number of different types of ads to Facebook and Instagram, like video ads, carousels, and static images. If you want to see how a particular brand uses a certain type of ad—or how brands use different media types for specific keywords—you can filter by media type.

You’ll do this by entering your search term, clicking the Filters button, then selecting your desired ad type from the Media type dropdown menu.

8. Analyze brand partnerships

In addition to finding paid ads, you can also use the Meta Ad Library to search for branded content from social media creators. This can give you an idea of competitors’ influencer marketing strategies and help identify the types of creators you might want to work with.

You can search by brand, choosing between branded Facebook posts or branded Instagram posts, or you can search by individual creator. Note that the posts you’ll see in your search results are only the ones branded with Meta’s paid partnership label. While this label is required in almost all influencer and affiliate marketing cases, it’s not always used.

9. Find creative inspiration

Figuring out how to best position your products, crafting convincing copy, and creating eyecatching designs can be difficult. If you’re in a creative rut, you might look to the Meta Ad Library to source inspiration. You can search competitor brands to see what other industry players are using, or look to brands with branding and advertising strategies you admire, even if they’re outside of your industry.

You might look to other brands for inspiration in product positioning. The bag brand Cancha, for example, designs carriers specifically for tennis and padel players. In its Meta ads, the company emphasizes both the high-performance, technical aspects of its products and its products’ versatility for nonsport activities like commuting.

You can also look to the Meta Ad Library for inspiration in visual branding and copywriting. Here’s an example from the olive oil brand Graza: The company uses a playful brand voice and a suite of vibrant green brand colors across its packaging and marketing materials. This ad uses those brand traits to announce the return of the company’s potato chips.