How to Use the Meta Ad Library to Find Ads Worth Studying

Every ad that is currently running across Meta’s apps, with its image or video, its text, its call to action, the platforms it runs on and the date it started. Branded content with a paid partnership label is included too.

Ads about social issues, elections or politics are covered in more detail, with their own disclaimers and a separate Ad Library Report that Meta lets you download by country.

For ordinary commercial ads shown in the US there is no spend, no reach, no click-through rate and no results, and only active ads appear. The library cannot prove that an ad works; it can only show signals worth investigating.

Ads delivered in the EU or the UK are the exception. For those, Meta shows the dates the ad ran, the advertiser's targeting choices (age, gender and location), the total reach and the reach by age and gender, and it keeps them for one year after their last impression. Pick an EU country or the UK in the country selector to see that data for brands that advertise there.

A search term matches the text of the ads and the names of the Pages that run them. Put words in quotation marks to match the exact phrase: on October 31, 2026, with the US and active ads selected, necklace returned more than 50,000 results and “gold necklace” about 4,400.

Use the filters to narrow it down: Language, Advertiser (one Page only), Platform (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Threads, Audience Network), Media type (images, memes, videos, or no image or video), Active status, and Impressions by date. Save a search to come back to it, and open an ad by its Library ID at facebook.com/ads/library/?id= followed by the ID.

Meta lets you download Ad Library searches as data, through CSV exports, when you are logged in to Facebook and accept its terms. The ad cards themselves have no download button for images or videos.

For research, keep each ad's Library ID link, its start date and your notes on the hook, the angle and the offer, and take screenshots for your own team. Do not reuse another brand's footage, images or words in your ads: learn the structure and make your own creative.

Look at how long an ad has been running. Advertisers usually switch off ads that lose money, so an ad that has run for weeks is a signal worth a closer look, not proof that it wins.

Look at the versions. When Meta shows that an ad has multiple versions, open them to see what the advertiser changed between them: the hook, the image, the offer. And look across competitors: when several brands in your category use the same hook or format, it is worth testing for your own product.

Then write down why the ad might work: the first line, the problem it names, the proof it shows, the offer. That structure is what you can learn from, never the brand’s footage or words.

Upadz’s Ad Discovery shows ads running in your market inside the app, and the research step looks at them together with your customers’ pains and desires before it writes concepts. You get several angles for your own product, each with its own hook, and you choose which one to turn into a finished video or static ad.

What you take from another brand is the structure, never its footage, script or brand assets. Upadz creates new creative for your product.