How to use the
Meta Ad Library.

Search any business and you'll see its active ads: the image or video, the words, the date it started running, and which of Meta's apps it shows on. No account or login needed. Since 2019, the library has included every active ad, not just political ones.

What you won't see, for normal ads outside Europe: how much they spent, who they targeted, how many people saw it, or whether it worked. Ads drop out of the library when they stop running, so it's a view of today, not a history.

Ads about social issues, elections or politics are different. Those show spend ranges and who paid, and stay in the library for years.

You don't need an ad account. The library works in any browser.

• Go to the Meta Ad Library.
• Set the country to Australia and the category to 'All ads'.
• Type the competitor's business name and pick their Page from the list.
• Filter to active ads. Change the sort if you want the newest or oldest first.
• Open each ad to see its start date, the platforms it runs on, and how many versions there are.

Here's the part most guides skip. A business can test a new ad in a week. If it's still paying for one after three months, that ad is very likely earning its keep. Advertisers rarely keep funding ads that lose money.

So sort by how long each ad has been running. The long runners show the angle a competitor keeps paying for. The new ones show what they're testing. Paste them into the sorter: start date first, then the hook.

Screenshots pile up fast and say little. Note the same six things for every ad you study, so you can compare them.

The library shows what competitors are doing, not whether it works for them, and definitely not whether it would work for you. Some ads run for months because nobody remembered to switch them off. Big brands can afford to keep ads running that a small business couldn't.

Treat everything you find as an idea to test, not an answer. Run your version, and judge it on enquiries or sales. Cause testing is how you find out what really drove the result.

Copying a competitor's ad makes you look like them, and copying their words or images can raise copyright and trade mark problems. Comparing yourself with them is allowed, but the ACCC says comparative advertising must not be misleading.

The better use of the library is finding what nobody in your category is saying. If every plumber leads with '24/7' and nobody mentions fixed prices, that's your angle. The same goes for Google: the Ads Transparency Center shows what businesses run there. For the full picture, see competitor analysis.