How to use the Meta Ad Library to see competitors' ads, and check your own

The short answer: a free window into live ads, not their results

Meta's Ad Library lets you see the ads other businesses are running on Facebook, Instagram and Meta's other apps right now. It's free, it's public and it takes a few minutes to learn. For a service business, it's the quickest way to see how local competitors describe their work, what offers they lead with and where they send people who click.

It's also easy to read too much into. For an ordinary business ad in Australia, the library shows you the ad, not how it performed. You won't see what it cost, how many people saw it, who it was aimed at or whether it brought in a single enquiry. Treat it as a research tool for ideas and gaps, and as a way to check your own ads, rather than as a scoreboard.

How to search the Ad Library

Meta's business help page says "Anyone can view and search the Ad Library." When we checked on 6 November 2026, searching worked without logging in. You only need to log in if you want to download search results, which also means agreeing to Meta's terms.

You can search by keyword or by advertiser. Keyword searches are broad: Meta says "Any ads that include the search term, or ads run by Pages that include the term, may appear." A keyword search for an electrician in Melbourne returned about 200 active ads, including blinds and saunas that simply mentioned an electrician. Searching for a business's name is much cleaner.

To run a search:

• Go to facebook.com/ads/library.
• Set the country to Australia and the ad category to All ads.
• Type a competitor's business name and choose their Page from the suggestions, or type a service and suburb as a keyword.
• Open Filters to narrow by language, advertiser, platform, media type, active status or the dates the ads were shown.
• Click See ad details on any ad you want to look at more closely.

What each ad shows you

Each result is a card with the ad's text, image or video, the headline and button, and the web address it links to. Above that sit a few details worth noticing: whether it's active, a Library ID, the date it "Started running on", and icons for the platforms it runs on. Some cards say "This ad has multiple versions", which means the advertiser is running variations of the same ad.

See ad details adds more. Meta says it can include "details from the About section or more information about the lead form for a lead generation ad format". For a competitor running instant forms, that can show you the questions they ask before someone enquires. When you view a Page in the library, Meta also shows context such as when the Page was created and its name change history.

New ads appear quickly. The library says "An ad will appear in the Ad Library within 24 hours of the time it gets its first impression", and that changes to an ad show up within 24 hours too.

Keep readingInstant form or landing page? How to choose

What it doesn't show for Australian business ads

The library is built for transparency, so the detail depends on the kind of ad. For ordinary ads, Meta's help centre says "you can search for ads that are currently active". Ads about social issues, elections or politics are kept for seven years and come with extra information, including spend, reach and who paid for them. Ads that reach people in the EU are kept for a year after their last impression, with more information as well.

An Australian tradie's or clinic's ad fits none of those extra categories. When we opened the details of an ordinary Australian business ad, we saw the ad, its start date, its platforms and a link to the advertiser's information. There was no spend, no reach, no targeting and no results. Once the ad stops running, it drops out of the search.

That's why a start date is only a weak clue. An ad that has been running for months might be working well. It might also be one nobody has checked since it was set up. Many versions of one ad might mean testing, or an automated format. Use these signals to decide what to look at, not to conclude what works.

Run a 20-minute competitor review

You don't need a big research project. Pick the three to five businesses you most often lose jobs to, or that show up when customers search for your service in your area. Look them up one at a time and write down the same things for each, so you can compare like with like.

Do this every few months, or before you brief new ads. Keep the notes, because the library won't keep ordinary ads once they stop. What competitors stopped running can be as telling as what they started.

For each competitor, record:

• How many active ads they have, and the earliest start date among them.
• The main promise or offer in each ad, in a few words.
• The proof they use, such as reviews, licences, photos of real jobs or years in business.
• Whether they show prices, ranges or free quotes.
• Where the button goes: a lead form, a service page, the home page, a phone call or a message.
• If it's a lead form, the questions it asks.
• Anything your customers ask about that none of them answer.

Use it for ideas, not copies

The useful output of a review is a gap you can fill. If every competitor says "fast, friendly service" and none of them explain their process, show real work or say which suburbs they cover, that's your opening. Write the brief around what you can genuinely offer and prove.

Don't lift a competitor's words, photos or video. Their creative is protected by copyright like anything else. The Attorney-General's Department says you can use copyright material without infringing "if you have permission from the copyright owner", or if an exception or statutory licence applies. Seeing an ad in a public library isn't permission.

Don't copy their claims either. If a competitor says they're the cheapest or the fastest, that's their claim to prove, not yours to borrow. Business.gov.au reminds advertisers that "you must make sure any branding, statement, quote or other representation is not false or misleading." Only say what's true of your business and what you could show evidence for if asked.

Keep readingTurn what you learn into a one-page creative brief

Keep readingCan you use a photo you found online?

Check your own ads the same way

The library is just as useful for your own business. Search for your own Page and you'll see exactly which ads are live under your name, what they say, where they link and when they started. It's a simple check that doesn't need access to Ads Manager.

If someone else runs your ads, a quick look can confirm the ads you approved are the ones running, the links go to the right pages, and old offers or expired prices aren't still live. If your ads appear under a Page you don't recognise, or not at all, ask who controls the Page and the ad account before anything else.

Use it alongside the reports you already get, not instead of them. The library tells you what's running. Only the ad account and your own enquiry records can tell you what it's costing and what it's bringing in.

Keep readingCheck who owns the Page and ad account behind your ads

Worked example: an air conditioning installer in Townsville

This example is made up to show the method. The businesses and findings aren't real.

The owner of a small air conditioning business in Townsville wants to start Meta ads before summer. She searches the library for the four competitors she most often quotes against. Two have no active ads. One has a single ad that started running 14 months ago, showing a stock photo of a living room and a link to its home page. The fourth has six active ads, several with multiple versions, all leading to an instant form that asks for suburb, home type and preferred install date.

Her notes show that every ad leads with price or speed, and none mentions what happens on install day, how long the power is off or how the old unit is removed. Those are the questions her customers ask on the phone. She doesn't conclude that the fourth competitor's ads are working, because she can't see their results. She does note that its form asks for the same details her team needs.

Her brief ends up with one idea none of the four use: a short phone video of a real installation, with the customer's permission, walking through the day. She adds a monthly reminder to search her own Page in the library and check that only current offers are live.