10 Ways To Use the Meta Ad Library for Research

Advertising on social media is a great way to meet customers where they’re at, and Facebook advertising is one of the most popular options for promoting your business online. 

But building your custom spectators, setting your bidding way, and putting together your ad creative takes a lot of work. To assist focus this work, the most successful advertisers commence out with research.

In addition to Facebook Business Manager, it’s useful to check out the Meta Ad Library (formerly known as Facebook Ad Library). With this free research tool, you can view what other advertisers are up to and glean insights to apply to your own ads.

Note: Before you get started, make sure you have the Meta pixel installed. This will enrich your data and assist you execute Facebook retargeting campaigns. 

What is the Meta Ad Library?

Meta Ad Library is a searchable digital database containing information about ads that are currently running across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and other Meta platforms. You can search the Meta Ad Library for ad categories related to your industry, including competitor and branded partnerships content. Ads related to various socio-political issues and elections are also in the database, regardless of whether those ads are currently energetic.

Why and when should you use Meta Ad Library

Reasons you might use the Meta Ad Library include: 

• If you’re getting ready to construct and launch your first campaign, you might check out some real-globe encouragement for your own ad strategies. 
• To validate your recent ideas. view if they’ve been done before—and discover how you can do it better. 
• To look for ways to optimize or scale your existing campaigns. 
• To analyze how your competitors are approaching their Meta ad strategies. 
• To discover out what advertisers are talking about and where. 
• If you sell on Facebook or Instagram, to use ads to drive traffic, gain, and sales. 

Whatever your objective, browsing Meta Ad Library is a great way to spark your innovation and keep your finger on the pulse of what ads your spectators is seeing.

10 ways to use Meta Ad Library

Explore how to use Meta Ad Library for your business:

1. Search for keywords related to your business
2. Check out your competitors
3. Filter ads by country
4. Filter ads by impressions
5. view ads on all Meta platforms
6. view how long ads have been running
7. update ads in violation of Meta’s terms
8. View more ads from the same advertiser
9. view if advertisers are talking about social or political issues
10. discover out how much advertisers have spent

1. Search for keywords related to your business

If you desire to view Facebook ads related to your business, choose keywords related to your industry, brand, or products. view what comes up when you search for them in Meta Ad Library. This will provide you an concept of the messaging that’s already out there, as well as assist you spot any trends you might desire to note for your own business priorities and Facebook marketing.

For example, a vegan food brand might search for “vegan condiments” and 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 (SEO) tool, your keyword research skills will assist you search for the most relevant phrases in Meta Ad Library. 

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

• Keyword Research Essentials: How to discover the Search Terms Your Customers Use
• The Beginner’s navigator to Keyword Research for Ecommerce

2. Check out your competitors

If you’re keeping an eye on competitors or desire to check out the broader competitive landscape, you can focus on the Facebook pages and advertisers in the database, rather than narrowing down your search with a specific keyword.

To view examples of ads your competitors are running, either search the brand name in Meta Ad Library or visit the brand’s Facebook page to view their ads from there.

For example, if you desire to view what self-worry brand Blendily is advertising, you could visit their Facebook business page and scroll down to the “Page transparency” section.

Select “view all” to leave to a pop-up window about the brand’s Facebook page actions. Scroll down to the “Ads from this Page” section. There, you’ll get a quick glance at whether or not the page is running ads. In this example, you can view Blendily is running ads, so you’re able to use the “leave to Ad Library” button to check out those ads.

Each business page has its own Ad Library page that lists all of their energetic ads. Brands may have a single ad running or a whole collection of ads to check out. If there are multiple energetic ads, Ad Library organizes and groups them by the month the ads were launched.

3. Filter ads by country

If you sell internationally, you’ll likely run different ad campaigns for customers in different locations. Even if you don’t sell internationally, advertising to your target spectators might be concentrated in a specific geographic area. Either way, filtering your ad search by country will assist you view ad creative relevant to you and the region you desire to target.

To view ads in a sure country, leave to the dropdown menu to pull up a list of countries. You can either scroll to discover the country of your selection or commence typing its name in the search box.

You can also filter ads by country from a specific advertiser’s page. For example, if you desire to view ads that natural skin worry brand ordinary Heir is running in other countries, you could leave to the brand’s Ad Library page and then filter by location from there.

4. Filter ads by impressions

Meta counts an impression each period someone views your ad in their feed or elsewhere. This is an impactful metric because you can view how many people other advertisers are targeting. A high volume of impressions per ad could cruel they have a large target spectators or a large ad monetary schedule—or both.

To filter ads by impressions, conduct a search in Meta Ad Library. Using the Filters alternative, scroll to the bottom of the pop-up window to the section “Impressions by date.” From there, you can view which ads received the most impressions during a specified period period, including: a single date, a date range, “on or before,” or “on or after.” For example, if you’re interested in seeing which ads got the most impressions during the winter holidays, you might select a date range for September through December.

5. view ads on all Meta platforms

There are many different types of Facebook ads. In truth, advertising on Facebook doesn’t just cruel your ads display up on Facebook feeds and timelines. Some ads display up in Stories or even in Messenger. Since Facebook’s parent business, Meta, also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, you can choose to have your ads appear on various platforms within the Meta ad network.

When you browse ads in the Meta Ad Library, you can view which types of ads and placements each one gets. Look at the ad details displayed above the ad creative: You’ll view the ad’s activity position, starting run date, and the list of platforms where that ad has been placed. (Ad Library uses icons to display the placement of ads.) 

This information will provide you insight into which types of ads to consider for your own campaigns. For example, if you notice none of your competitors are running Messenger ads, you might try experimenting with that ad placement platform to differentiate yourself.

6. view how long ads have been running

It’s useful to view the date when each ad started running. This gives you insight into how long people have seen this ad and for how long the advertiser has put monetary schedule behind it. 

If an ad has been running for a while, you might assume that either the ad is performing well or the advertiser hasn’t prioritized updating or optimizing it.

7. update ads in violation of Meta’s terms

If you view ads that violate Meta’s terms of service, you can use Ad Library to update those violations. To do that, leave to “view ad details” for a zoomed-in version of the ad, then select the three dots icon to get the alternative to “update ad.”

When you update an ad, Meta will inquire for more details about the ad in question and why you ponder it should be reported. 

Meta will require you to choose from the following ad violation reasons:

• Misleading or scam
• Sexually inappropriate
• Offensive violence
• Prohibited content
• Spam
• untrue information
• Political candidate or issue
• borrowing
• Other

Keep in mind: Reporting an ad is the correct shift if you view advertisers making untrue claims about your business or copyrighting your assets.

8. View more ads from the same advertiser

If you’re scrolling through Facebook and view an ad that catches your eye, you can use Ad Library to view other ads run by the same advertiser. 

To view multiple ads by the same brand, visit its Facebook page and leave to the About tab to discover its “Page transparency” details.

From “Page transparency,” scroll down to “view all” to get more information.

From there, use “leave to Ad Library” to view all of the brand’s Meta ads.

When you get a holistic bird’s-eye view of a specific page’s ads, you can note trends. Maybe the advertiser uses similar imagery and copy across their ads, which might indicate that their 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, sustainable apparel brand Girlfriend Collective uses Facebook video ads in addition to static images in its Meta ad campaigns. 

9. view if advertisers are talking about social or political issues

As Meta continues its efforts to be more transparent and enhance its community image, it has also dedicated special features to identifying ads about social or political issues. Misinformation is rampant online, so Facebook has flagged these types of ads. That way, people can do their own assessment with things like truth checking, learning more about who’s behind the ads, and digging into the brand’s factual intentions.

Although you can’t filter your Ad Library search by industry, you can filter ads about social issues or politics. This might be significant if your brand has powerful values and it makes sense to talk out about a current issue. Pay extra attention whether your competitors are getting in on these conversations as well.

10. discover out how much advertisers have spent

If you’re researching how much Meta and Facebook ads expense to determine how to set your own financial planning and bidding, you can use Ad Library to view what others have invested in their own ads. This data is not available for every ad, but there are some Ad Library pages that propose a fairly detailed monetary schedule breakdown, like the example below.

On an advertiser’s “Summary data” page like this one, you can view how much that advertiser spent promoting the ad, as well as who they targeted and how many impressions the ad earned. This data can assist inform both your ad targeting and financial planning strategies.